This post is a series in an interview with the Seth Godin for his new book, Free Prize Inside. For an index of all posts in this series, please refer to the Free Prize Inside Business Blog Book Tour - Index Page.
Question: If you were running a big media company - selling Music & Movies - what "free prize" would you give to consumers?
Answer: I’d re-invent what I’m charging for and how I’m charging for it. Just because you were able to charge for the "idea" for all these years doesn’t mean you can keep doing that. Free music and free movies (free in that the idea is free) doesn’t mean that there isn’t a business here. The business is in the 'souvenir', the thing that people happily pay for to remind them of the idea.
The folks who do this first and best will profit for a long time. The Grateful Dead is my first and best example.
Failing that edge, I’d push to create much lower cost product (Michael Jackson and name-your-favorite-100-million-dollar-movie-bomb here) that made people talk. Stuff like Shaolin Soccer, which made a fortune in Asia, or Blair Witch or the Macarena. People think these are flukes because when they knock off the same idea, it doesn’t work. Well of course it doesn’t work! You only get to go to a fashionable edge once.
