The first thing that struck me about Gary was that he is exactly as I’d imagined. That is to say no B.S., 100% Gary.

He is passionate, engaging and overflowing with confidence that what he is doing is the right way to do it. His energy is totally infectious and had us hanging off his every word. But even then, he is also incredibly warm and friendly, genuinely caring about what you have to say.

Since most of the Gary V story is already covered in Crush It!, I won’t bother recapping it here. What we did talk about (besides parenthood and the Knicks chances of landing LeBron, amongst other things) was social media and how it profoundly effects business.

From Gary’s point of view, what social media has done is force previously faceless brands to get a personality if they want to succeed. Simply put, social media has fundamentally changed people’s expectations of how they expect brands to interact with them.

So what is Gary’s secret to succeed in this brave new world?

Story telling.

Brands need to tell their story, build advocates and empower them to share that story with their networks. Technology and the platforms aren’t nearly as important as the change in mindset this entails. It is about genuinely caring for your customers and treating them with respect and like human beings.

Following on from breakfast, Wine Australia have actually gone out and done this with their A+ Australian Wines project that went live last week. Worth a look!

Customer service is the new black in Gary’s world – and with his track record who could argue.

Location-based services are also going to be huge according to Gary. A claim he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is by his personal stake as an angel investor in Simple Geo and Gowalla.

Even bigger, Gary insists, will be Facebook credits. This will not only transform Facebook into a legitimate economic force but change how we incentivize and monetize the consumption of branded content.

Despite the storm in a teacup (my opinion) over Facebook’s privacy issues, the simple fact is they are far too big a player with nearly half a billion heavily invested users to go away seemingly overnight (a la Second Life).

With our time over all too soon, he talks passionately about his business Vayner Media and the growing list of A-list clients desperate to cash-in on the Gary V brand and expertise (such as NHL, New Jersey Nets and Campbells). All, I might add, without a hint of arrogance only absolute confidence that he is going to crush it big.

And to his goal of one day owning the New York Jets, I wouldn’t bet against him.

Gary’s response to my tweet, “What could the Australian wine industry do to empower their fans to spread the word and develop overseas markets?”

Thanks to Lucy Anderson and Paul Henry from Wine Australia for giving me this fantastic opportunity to have some one-on-one time with Gary.

It all began in 1990 at the age of 10 when I first discovered AC/DC while watching music videos on a Saturday morning. The video was ‘Thunderstruck‘ and that was exactly the effect their music had on me. AC/DC’s raw energy and straight-up rock’n'roll sound was unlike anything I’d heard before. From that point on, I was hooked.

The only problem was that there was a clear stigma attached to their music where anyone who listened to it was instantly branded a bogan or similar. Particularly in the schoolyard where Nirvana and Pearl Jam (for example) were considered cool, AC/DC was most definitely not.

This extended to mainstream media, where despite achieving more international success than any other Australian entertainer, the local press routinely ignored them with music critics dismissive of each new album.

In the past 2 years, however, there has been a real shift in how AC/DC are perceived. Especially in the last few weeks with the band on the Australian leg of the Black Ice Tour, it seems fans are coming out of the woodwork and every major media outlet can’t get enough of them.

What you see is what you get

It is almost a reaction to the collapse of the world economy and the excessive consumerism of the early 2000′s that consumers now are looking for authenticity and a sense of ‘realness’. In this regard, there is no better example (in musical terms) than AC/DC.

For 37 years they have recorded and performed different variations of the same few songs. But the fact that they come exactly as advertised and without pretense means that for their fans, they are a constant in otherwise turbulent times as we seek to inject our lives with something more meaningful than today’s homogenised, mass produced, faceless ‘music’ that is more style than substance.

Unlike other similarly massive bands who are constantly reinventing themselves and striving to remain relevant by preaching one cause after another (I’m looking at you, U2), AC/DC have never wavered from what they do best: playing blistering, wildly entertaining hard rock.

(Read what Brian Johnson has to say about Bono and Bob Geldof)

They have built a level of trust with their fans that few other bands have done and are now more successful than ever before. All by focusing on the things they do well and getting rid of the rest.

So next time, before start thinking about changing your logo/website/etc. ask yourself (a) why you’re really doing it, and (b) if your customers will even notice or care.

I finally got to see AC/DC live for the first time at Adelaide Oval on March 2nd. For a bunch of guys my dads age, they put on a hell of a performance that more than lived up to my expectations. Unlike some bands who I’ve seen live who could be sleepwalking through their set, you just know that these guys care about giving their fans a show and are leaving nothing on the table!

For two weeks, he posed as a Twitter representative of Heinz under the username @HJ_Heinz where he shared information about the brand as well as recipes and tips when using Heinz products. In other words, he was an advocate for the brand. Once Heinz got wind of the account, however, it was swiftly shutdown and Werch’s username changed to @notHJ_Heinz with a stern warning that he had violated Twitter’s rules.

In contrast, @Adelaide_FC started life as the unofficial Twitter account for the Adelaide Crows with an unnamed fan tweeting regular updates and news about the team including links to the Crows official website. Once the Crows found out about it, however, they did not ask Twitter to close the account but instead reached out to @Adelaide_FC and asked if he would continue tweeting officially for the team.

Today’s digital tools have empowered consumers to spread the word and share their passion. However, it is up to brands themselves to decide how much control of their brand and their message they are willing to cede to their customers.

How much control do you think an organisation needs to keep over their brand?

Do unofficial brand advocates need to be kept on a leash to prevent them from saying something damaging or are brands better served letting them spread the word authentically and without interference?

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”
- Sun Tzu

The Chinese military general and author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu, says that in battle, there are only two forces at play – direct and indirect.

Direct forces, he says, are how most battles are conducted, by matching the enemy head on and slugging it out till the death.

Indirect forces, however, are about outmaneuvering the enemy and winning by targeting their weakness and turning elements such as terrain and cover to your advantage.

While it is important to use the right combination of direct and indirect forces in your strategy, it is always the indirect that wins the war.

Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat

Marketing is also made up of direct and indirect forces.

Most marketing tends to be focused on direct forces. It becomes a case of churning out one tactic after another in an effort to match your competitors. Your biggest rival starts a Facebook page, so you start one too. They drop their prices, you follow suit. They launch a new TV campaign, yours is on the air within weeks. Direct methods can be easily imitated and unless what you’re doing really strikes a chord with your audience, it will rarely lead to any real long term gain especially when you consider that once the campaign is done and dusted and the budget is blown for the year, consumers will have moved on to something else. Even product innovation is only a short term advantage unless you have the resources to keep staying one step ahead.

Strategising might be slow, but it works

In order to succeed, you must be relevant and engaging, and the only way to do this is by taking into consideration the indirect forces at play. What gives a brand a sustainable competitive advantage is the how they leverage the indirect forces in the marketing. Take Apple for example. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player or even the most innovative, but it is the one that went on to dominate the market. The reason was partly because of Apple’s innovative design but mostly because of how the Apple brand is positioned and the in-built cool imbued in all its products.

From a marketing perspective, indirect forces are the intangible elements that can’t be easily copied by your competitors. Fundamental to achieving this is a superior understanding of your customers and competitors so that you can identify where the gaps and opportunities are in the market and positioning yourself to claim this space. At the risk of oversimplifying, it is then a matter of leveraging these insights and developing an appropriate strategy to inform your tactics.

Ultimately, what this means is that if you want to succeed you need to get your brand right and not get obsessed with the tactics. While direct forces are essential to keep you in the game, it is the indirect that will win it for you.

In the words of the late Theodore Levitt, “determine a mass market, identify a small niche within that market and do it better and differently than anyone else.”

(Anyone else think the title of this post sounds like an awesome B-grade HK kung fu flick?)

Something is amiss in the dance music world.

While innovation and invention have been crucial to civilisation as we know it (without it, the combustion engine, microprocessors or house music would never have been conceived and you wouldnt be reading this column), the creativity and imagination that were once its foundations has been usurped by anathema.

In Adelaide, the Superclub Wars of the 90s had allowed smaller venues to thrive and breed a subculture of avid clubbers, men and women who were just as enthusiastic about the music as they were about having a good night out.

Somewhere along the way, all this changed. With the era of the superclub practically extinct, the remaining clubs and bars fought over the displaced masses and in the process lost what made them unique in the first place. Imitation replaced imagination with rampant drink specials and mind-numbingly tacky gimmicks that are the telltale signs of desperation. But the worst part was the music. What was once club cultures defining quality was now virtually identical to that played in countless gyms and fashion retailers. Though size and positioning no doubt play their part, it is simply inexcusable when a professional club DJ plays the same set as your cardio hi-lo instructor.

A conversation I had with a mobile DJ over the weekend was the catalyst for this mini-rant. The role of the club DJ has become not entirely dissimilar to that of the mobile DJ, playing only the familiar to instantly appease the dancefloor. The blame falls primarily to venues who set this agenda in order to chase the quick buck at the expense of long term viability, micromanaging their DJs and killing any hope of individual creativity (although it could be argued some never had any to begin with). So instead of something unique and different that they may enjoy given half a chance, they give their customers exactly what they want and as a result, lose their hand. As important as it is to be receptive to the consumer, when a venue acquiesces completely any trace of power in this relationship is lost and with it the chance of building an independent lasting identity for themselves. Clubs that say the customer is always right or we give them what they want, would suggest to me that they are always wrong or perhaps more accurately, they dont have a clue.

Begging is pathetic. And dont think we dont realise that either.

For a city of just over 1 million, the turnover of clubs and bars is quite astounding with the closure of well over a dozen venues in the CBD in the past 18 months. Why? Because very little loyalty still exists between venues and their patrons. Practically identical save for the cup size of the person pouring your drink and layout, what is stopping the crowds from leaving when the next hot new joint throws open their doors offering even cheaper drinks and even bustier bar staff with the promise of being a revolutionary clubbing adventure after more than likely poaching the same DJ line-up?

Thank god then for Sugar, Electric Circus and their ilk who make a conscious decision to challenge their regulars everytime they walk through the doors with music and an experience that is fresh and exciting. Their regulars are exactly that because they genuinely anticipate what mischief the next weekend has in store and never knowing what to expect. By providing something that has substance rather than the typical smoke and mirrors, they have managed to build a unique, credible identity that sets them apart from the multitude of struggling venues rehashing the same tired formula.

Clubs and pubs were once considered entirely different entities. Now the experience is largely interchangeable except for the dancefloor. This is a situation being played out not just in Adelaide but in cities all around the world where our culture struggles for acceptability. This is why I sincerely hope that DJs and club owners may find some resonance with this column and that clubbing may again be as exciting for the public as it once and still is for us. The transition may not be an easy one, but it would certainly be preferable to this slippery slope toward irrelevance.