Bye bye blackbird

Yesterday, I went to see the new film Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. I like most films with Johnny Depp and had decided I was going to see it at some point. I went to see it yesterday, though, because I needed to shake off the sadness of Michael Jackson's death.

I was never a fan of Michael Jackson per se - I don't own any merchandise, didn't follow his life in the press, don't have all his albums etc. But it's now 10 days after his death and I'm still moved by it much more than I'd thought I would be.

There's nothing new that I can say about Michael Jackson, nor can I add any profound analysis on his life. But I somehow need to express a few thoughts and feelings of my own about what to me is a tragic event that happened much too soon.

MJ phase 1: In 1983-84 I was living in the US as an exchange student where I was a senior in high school. One of the things I found fascinating about my American friends was that they had a very versatile music taste. They liked both Van Halen... and Michael Jackson. Both ZZ Top... and Michael Jackson. Both LL Cool J... and Michael Jackson. Both Yes, John Cougar Mellencamp, Cyndi Lauper... and Michael Jackson.

I had not come across MJ before; the Thriller tsunami had not really hit Denmark by the time I left for the US in 1983 or at least I hadn't noticed as I was much into new wave at the time. So while I thought my high school friends simply had a broad music taste, rather this was evidence of MJ's phenomenal cross-over ability.

I also remember the Thriller album cover vividly, talking about it; kids wearing the red MJ jacket; and the airing of Thriller on MTV ('like, it's 14 mins long...!'). And I remember seeing on TV Eddie Murphy's brilliant take on MJ in his Delirious show in 1983. But I don't think I realized just how massive MJ was already then. Maybe my Danish reservation for anything overly extravagant prevented me.

MJ phase 2: The second MJ phase of my life was around 1990/92. Bad had come out, of course, and Dangerous too. My best friend at the time surprised me by really liking these two albums - he was usually more into acid/prog rock type stuff.

Again, an example of MJ's total command of his potent cocktail of genres and sounds that crossed boundaries. We went to see MJ at Gentofte Stadium in 1992.

MJ phase 3: This occurred while I was working at Michael Jackson's record company Sony Music during the time 1996/98 when he released HIStory and Blood on the Dancefloor. I remember that we found the statue thing, shall we say, a tad over the top certainly for Denmark.

But of course there was mayhem around the releases and more so around the two concerts in Parken in June 1997. It was his 39th birthday so it was arranged to have the Tivoli Guard play for him on stage - something he was genuinely touched by and later included in his documentary Michael Jackson's Private Home Movies.

Since 1999/2000 I haven't really paid that much attention to Michael Jackson. Of course I listened to some of the songs regularly and they became a staple on every party track list I've ever put together (about a month ago I was thinking to myself that Billie Jean is still the tightest piece of pop music ever created). I also found myself relieved when he was acquitted, although mystified by his behavior; and a bit sad when Invincible flopped (by MJ standards, that is). And from time to time thinking 'I wonder how long he will go on'. You know, the usual stuff that everyone would think now and again.

But I wasn't prepared for the reaction that hit me when he died. For me, it was delayed a few days. When he died I was travelling and way outside the circuit of friends, internet and news feed. I heard about his death very early Friday morning via someone else and while I was immediately shocked, due to a busy schedule and the lack of access to any news, the event somehow got parked.

It was only when I returned June 28 that it started to sink in and only 2 days ago I thought to myself ‘But you had your iPod with you on the trip, why didn’t you listen to his music?’. Maybe because this kind of event and the grief that comes with it needs to be experienced with other people who have – like me – been infused with MJ since we were teens. It’s difficult dealing with it alone. We need that cathartic experience. So that’s what I’m doing now. MJ phase 4.

Michael Jackson had the ability, consciously or unconsciously, to mystify us. He was a walking oxymoron – child and adult, black and white, introvert and extravert, innocent and savvy, sexy and asexual, intelligent and foolish, humble and excessive, in control and out of it too.

There’s a video clip from an interview in 1982 done by Tom Joyner in a break on the set of the Beat It video shoot, and he’s sitting there wearing that red jacket and tee amidst the cameras, lights, crew, and general turmoil.

He goes in this soft whispering voice "I don’t know much about the street. I get afraid of people sometimes. Friendship is something I’m just learning about, I don’t really know anything about that, I was brought up on stage, that’s where I’m comfortable".

Eventually the interview ends and he walks off to finish the video about gang members and street violence and – as we know – delivering it so convincingly and breathtakingly. Talk about complexity.

His person prompted so many questions. How can someone so shy be so vibrant when performing? How did he become so extraordinarily talented? Why, when so attractive and with that amazing smile, did he undergo those plastic surgeries? Did he behave inappropriately among young boys? Would his music career have been different if he'd continued to work with Quincy Jones? Did his voice stay so high pitched because of hormone in-take or 'simply' vocal training? How did he channel his sadness through his music and dance while loving it so much? How, what, where, why??????

One of the Danish newspapers wrote yesterday that now we would finally find out the truth about Michael Jackson. But you know, we never will.

We will continue to ask those questions and the only answer we’ll ever get is 'If they say why, why - tell ‘em that is human nature'. And maybe here lies some of the explanation to the cross-cultural, cross-gender and cross-generation fascination with him. He embodies human nature in its most extreme form.

Who hasn’t been shy and vulnerable? Who hasn’t dreamed of doing great things and achieving great fame? Who hasn’t wished they had some unique talent to unleash? Who hasn’t felt alone? Who doesn't long to be loved? Who hasn’t thought about being someone else?

These feelings are universal. Only, Michael Jackson seemed to have them more than anyone else, seemingly sucking all mankind's hardship, experiences and eternal blues like a hypersensitive sponge. Above all, he acted on these feelings, enabled by his wealth and access, but certainly also driven by some extraordinarily powerful inner force. While shy and insecure he was also known to be stubborn and extremely focused, something that usually comes from a deeply rooted drive to succeed and to 'show the others’ - in his case, the whole world.

Without this drive you can be very talented and yet not get anywhere. He had the drive, he'd been wired to have it since he was a small child and it was this which, with his extraordinary talent and his intelligence, got him to this off-the-scale level.

But it was probably also this drive, along with - most certainly when at that level as an artist - a ruthless industry that prevented him from stopping before it got to the extreme.

I'm listening to Michael Jackson. Discovering elements in his music, singing and moves I haven’t noticed before.

The introductory ‘Oooooh’ of Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough that is the distilled sound of simultaneous restrain and explosion. How the song Streetwalker that wasn’t originally on the Bad album sounds like a mix of Billie Jean and The Way You Make Me Feel. His blue, jazzy crooning on Fly Away which frankly isn't a great track but his vocal is. The way he works his voice on Wanna Be Starting Something like a musical instrument. The almost scat-like 'You're-one-of-ua-ooh-us' on Another Part of Me. And a lot of other sounds I can’t even put into words.

The way he moves, like there’s electricity running through him, sizzling, stirring, shifting, never still. The fully charged yet fully controlled intensity in every movement and every syllable, catapulting, darting, punching like projectiles of expression and emotion.

There’s a video clip where Michael Jackson is instructing Michael Jordan in the dance moves for the Jam video. This is funny, you can imagine, but there is one particular moment where Jackson genuinely seems to move at the speed of light, and then he patiently explains to Jordan "You have to put all your energy into your feet so, you know, it goes POW!"... Pow indeed.

At the end of the Public Enemies film Johnny Depp’s character, the mythical outlaw John Dillinger, is shot in public by a group of FBI agents and falls to the ground. As he takes his last breath, he whispers to one of the agents to tell his girlfriend Billie (sic) something. He says ‘Tell Billie for me… Bye bye blackbird’.

So there it is. Bye, bye blackbird and thank you for all the trills and thrills as vibrant as ever as on this 1987 live performance of Thriller. You kept us on our toes.

Insightful articles on MJ's talent, voice, work, and life:

Jason King: Michael Jackson, an Appreciation of His Talent

Ernest Hardy: Michael Jackson, Bless His Soul

Oh! Industry: Smooth Criminals

How does marketing and CSR relate - and should it?

Yesterday, I was talking with an acquaintance of mine, Ronnie. We were pondering the changed marketing landscape, and companies' and their marketing departments' changing role as a result; and he asked, kind of rhetorically, if marketing and CSR didn't kind of belong together.

I've always believed that every external action, every design component, every piece of communication, every product or service communicates and positions your company and determines whether your customers want to relate to you or not, and how.

Therefore, I also believe that there cannot be walls between marketing, corporate communication, customer service, product development or CSR for that matter. It's called brand management and it's called customer experience. Two sides of the same coin. This is old hat, really.

But the question about the relation between marketing and CSR specifically is an increasingly important one, not least because of the inherent conflict, or at least perceived conflict between the two, one being commercial, the other philantropic in nature. Perhaps there doesn't have to be one.

We'll ponder some more and - maybe - return with some thoughts on how to manage marketing and CSR symbiotically.

Music with a wink

A great jazz lover or expert I am not. Yes, the occasional Miles Davis, Mingus, Brubeck and Grover Washington goes on the stereo but that's about it and I know very little about it. And my knowledge of Danish jazz is even more miniscule. But then I got these two compilations all with Danish jazz artists, out on Discowax/Warner and put together by DJ Collective Vibezone.

This is an abundance of poetic, up-beat, groovy, and extremely positive music, from jazz, latin and jazz funk to nu jazz and more. The compilations hold an impressive range of Danish jazz artists from heavy-weights Chris Minh Doky, Bentzon Brotherhood and Caroline Henderson to lesser known acts such as Carsten Dahl, Benni Chawes, and Malene Mortensen.

Nat & Dag 1 features a breath-taking rendition of John Lennon's Imagine by Palle Mikkelborg. On Nat & Dag 2 Danes will recognize 70s rock act Gasolin's Rabalderstræde, here titled Calle Raballero and performed by Mo' Green aka Morten Gronvad - just brilliant. My own favorite: Many, but Hometown Melodies by Jakob Bro is definitely one of them.

Good taste and good atmosphere through and through.

From cardboard and crayons to content and convenience

"I know of a pharmaceutical company that only calls in a marketer when it wants to decide on the color for a new pill." (Philip Kotler in Business Week recently).

We have all been there, us marketing folks. Experienced the perception of 'Marketing, isn't that the department for cardboard and crayons?'. Marketing as campaign and event department, a tactical service function for sales or product management. This is an archaic view of marketing and an un-productive, even dangerous one, because with this view many gaps are not discovered, opportunities not explored, and value not captured.

Of course Kotler is right, marketing must act as strategic growth driver. And of course marketing must be able to set up meaningful metrics and demonstrate ROI against these metrics - it goes without saying.

What I think is not discussed enough here but is of increasing importance is the new meaning and hence emerging role of marketing. Kotler does advocate that marketing should probably prioritise developing useful and distinctive products over developing ad campaigns for (often) useless and non-distinct products. Kotler also argues that the role of marketing is to bring the voice of the consumer into the company's thinking and move from marketing to 'consumering'. This is all good!

But the thing is that marketing is something that companies do for themselves, not for consumers and it is therefore for the most part completely irrelevant for consumers. Consumers do not care about a company's marketing and why should they. Whether marketing depts need more or fewer right, left brained or two-brained people is perhaps not the question, when the key is whether they understand people deep down and empathetically, and therefore are able to grasp what really matters to their target audience. Influence is a matter of walking in their shoes. 15-20 years ago, psychology and anthropology played a role in marketing - where has it gone?

So in order for marketing to move from being a tactical service function to a strategic growth lever, it needs to come to terms with the fact that marketing needs to be relevant and add value to the target audience(s), not simply by making the ads funnier or the stores nicer-looking. But by giving far more than is expected, providing genuinely valuable content ie insight, knowledge, services that are free and convenient and extends the value - and use - of the product and brand far beyond what you paid.

It's time businesses realise that you really do just get what you give. Only, today you have to give so much more!

Still one of the best marketing books around is John Grant's 'After Image'. And Marshall Goldsmith's interview with Kotler in Business Week is here.

People have the power

The music industry needs to listen to this, no in fact, they don't have to listen because it doesn't matter what they think or do much anymore: http://musicindustrymanifesto.com/the-manifesto/ 

"You can't read the label when you're inside the jar"

What a brilliant way to express the conundrum of innovation from the inside. Courtesy of G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Viton - more here.

Twats on Twitter

Like a lot of other people I twitter. I post little 140-sign statements on this, that and the other on twitter.com. Usually meaningless nonsense for most people but nevertheless I find I get new followers from almost every new post. However, many of these followers are not genuine people or interesting people or people who want to share. They are small businesses, organisations or in some cases individuals who pick up on single words in your posts, words that match with whatever they are selling, and then start to follow you, seemingly in the hope that you might get interested and check them out, become their follower or perhaps even sign up to their offers.

For example, I am reading 'The Game' by Neil Strauss which is about the time he was a pick-up artist and about the whole pick-up artist scene/environment. I post something about this book on Twitter, and lo and behold, I get a new follower which is the 'PUA app for iPhone' (PUA = pick-up artist).

Another example: I post something about fitness ball exercises and two seconds later I have several followers who are US fitness trainers.

This really bugs me. Yes, I know I can block them but that's not the point. The point is that Twitter is a space for sharing your thoughts, it is not a commercial market place where others can stalk people around and hawk their wares. Go away!