Karaoke Forums

Brand...
Well my compuhost title was:
"Screaming Carole Chaos Karaoke"
Now I am solo it is
"Screaming Carole Chaos without Carole"
Not sure if that is a brand or description...

Corn is a commodity
Corn flakes is a product
Kellogg's is a brand

I don't get this entire thread. I don't know of a single karaoke company that isn't branded. Every company I know has come up with a distinctive name and makes the effort to promote its name and service

PER: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand
Some people distinguish the psychological aspect of a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.

People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of the whole organisation towards its brand is called integrated marketing.

Careful brand management, supported by a cleverly crafted advertising campaign, can be highly successful in convincing consumers to pay remarkably high prices for products which are inherently extremely cheap to make. This concept, known as creating value, essentially consists of manipulating the projected image of the product so that the consumer sees the product as being worth the amount that the advertiser wants him/her to see, rather than a more logical valuation that comprises an aggregate of the cost of raw materials, plus the cost of manufacture, plus the cost of distribution. Modern value-creation branding-and-advertising campaigns are highly successful at inducing consumers to pay, for example, 50 dollars for a T-shirt that cost a mere 50 cents to make, or 5 dollars for a box of breakfast cereal that contains a few cents' worth of wheat

Angel, while it is nice that everyone knows what to expect from dominos, it can also be said that you will never be pleasantly surprised either. But that is the mindset of a corporation... if I find a another formula that makes pizza sauce amazing good I can't start using it in my pizzas until I send it in to corporate and get approval... who knows, they may, for whatever reason say I can't use it!!

What you fail to realize from my post is that my show is always consistent. Consistently fun! The expectation is that if I go to Koyote's show I'm gonna have a good time. So I play more karaoke than dance that night... is that really a big deal if you still have a good time?? I say no, it isn't... From a business stand point... the "karaoke only" formula has limited appeal. While "your results may vary" any business has to find a way to appeal to a larger and larger segment of the population in order to grow.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Karaoke only was ridden into the dirt by poor shows with bad systems and no selections. All the way to the point where good karaoke does not work unless you are taking over a karaoke dynasty.

It takes all the extras possible to attract a crowd. Karaoke only does not do it because people have been ruined by bad karaoke. Not big hard drives or pirates but poor systems with little selections. I havnt seen a rotation of over 15 for 2 years at any show.

Areas vary as to what works or what doesnt work.

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Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

Here's an excerpt from the book that got me to thinking along these lines...
Branding For Dummies

"Brands are promises that consumers believe in...


You establish your brand by building trust in a one-of-a-kind promise about who you are, what you stand for, and what unique and meaningful benefits you deliver


You build your brand by living up to your promise every single time people come into contact with your name, your message, or your business.

You strengthen your brand by constantly reinforcing your brand promise."

Consistancy is the biggest expectation.

If everytime you went to Dominos and your pizza tasted different you might be tempted to go to a different pizza place. However, if you like surprises everytime you order pizza then you would enjoy it. Most people don't like change. They almost hate it depending on how big the change is and if they feel it was for better or worse.

I hate food surprises that i pay for in a restaurant and then end up not being able to eat it. The same thing is true for bars. If you pay a cover charge to see a band and they suck, do you feel cheated?

If karaoke is different everytime will you think it's refreshing or bad? Karaoke still is and always will be about the singers first. If you can't attract and keep singers, you have no karaoke show.

I always stress the importance of being consistant when doing karaoke. It has to be every week and the same night. That means starting the same time. That is part of your reputation. (brand) That also includes running the same rotation every show. The sound should be the same.

I hurt my foot today. At the karaoke show tonight a singer said what's wrong, you don't seem like your normal bubbly self. The foot pain was affecting my smile. So i wasn't as consistant as i normally am. It was noticable. Obviously they expect me to be "Miss Personality" at all times. So that is also part of my brand. Consistantly happy go lucky and smiling and joking. If i'm not my "brand" suffers.

I'm going to rank consistancy #1 for creating a brand.

Lonnie,
The venue I work for has two rooms, the first room is the Red Room which one comes into off the street (two rooms are parellel to one another) and the black room which has a 16 feet wide stage. This room at this time has not tvs or monitors. The owner has talked about putting a plasma behind the stage to which we can run the lyrics.

I face my 19" 2nd monitor towards the audience. I would prefer to have big screens with lyrics on them but waiting on the venue. However, no matter where I go, private party or venue, I have a 2nd monitor which takes about 3 minutes to set up so everyone can see the lyrics, videos, and upcoming performers. I am consistant with this, fairly unique with this method so I suppose this is part of my brand.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Nice!!!

BigJer, you are da man!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

As part of my brand, my business logo and the venue logo are displayed on my lyrics screen between performances and we also have a budweiser sign posted outside (although the name should be all one word run together).

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

BigJer

Considering that all of the preceding is a virtual given, I still don't get the basic question posed in this thread. Are you suggesting that there are KJ's who consider their company to be a "commodity" rather than a "brand", using your terminology?

I would like to know how many of us believe that:
1. we are not focused on providing (promising) a better karaoke experience than the show down the road
2. we don't attempt to achieve that goal with each and every show
3. we don't tell people EXCITEDLY what makes our show better

Well if the world was like Mickey D's aka Rotten Ronnie's (the same all over the world), then the world would be a pretty dull place. Yup you could go to a restaurant and get ocrappy food or your taste buds would thank you forever.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I'm sure nobody considers their own show just a commodity I wanted to stimulate thought about whether what you are promising your customers truly is a unique, ONE OF A KIND promise. I bet every karaoke company in your town wants the customers to believe they are "the best", but there is no true "best" only the best for a certain type of customer.

Don't believe me? Look how much passion is generated by the perennial dance music debates that have been going on for what seems to be decades. Some people love dance music. some people don't. If you play dance music, some customers will love you and some will hate you. If you don't play dance music, some customers will love you and some will hate you. If you do both, you will manage to irritate both sets of people at different times.



Not everybody thinks the same way. Yes, I believe all of the hosts here are focused on providing excellence -- you all wouldn't care enough to be here if you weren't. But remember, not everybody is going to view the same things as excellent.

Consider the host who sings very well -- some people want to hear them sing every rotation -- some don't want them to take away any time from the singers. Some people love props, hats and costumes while others view them as a distraction. Some people want a host who really shares their personality between singers while others want singers up and down as quickly as possible.

It's not humanly possible to give everybody in your market a perfect show, so you need to decide who your preferred customer is and serve their needs as perfectly as possible instead of trying to please everybody and finding yourself pulled in contradictory directions that make your company's brand image murky and uncertain.

Find a TRUE, SPECIFIC and highly DESIRABLE claim you can truthfully make about the karaoke experience you provide and your preferred customer will find that claim much more believable than "we're the best karaoke show in town".

"we're the best karaoke show in town".

How many KJs think that, but never achieve it? The farthest they get to it is in their mind.

Each KJ has the power to shape and control their show. How well it works is another story. Some can carry it off to perfection and others fall flat. The ones that fall flat somehow never understand that. Many will never recognize they need to make serious changes. They think getting constantly fired somehow has something to do with anyone other than themselves.

I posted this elsewhere:





Considering these points from the preceding quote


along with the various points offered above by all of the parties quoted, I reiterrate that I don't know what a brand is when it comes to a karaoke show, no more than I know what the brand is when I go see any singer, musician, comedian, magician or any other type of artist in person?

I know that there are service companies that develop a brand name. And karaoke companies are service companies.

However, a product is manufactured based up specific materials and procedures that are consistently followed and mass produced. Service companies don't have the capability of producing the exact same results with every effort. Service companies rely upon the efforts of human beings, not robots!

So if you went to an AC/DC concert you wouldn't expect a different kind of experience than if you went to a Jack Johnson concert?

Of course I would. But I wouldn't expect the second Jack Johnson concert I attended to be the same as the first. And IF IT WERE, I wouldn't be attending a 3rd one!

Why would you go to his concert in the first place? What would you expect to see? What would expect to not see?

You would obviously like to hear his music. You must like his "style." Could that style be his brand? Like mentioned it's not like ACDCs style. Each KJ and group has a style and perhaps a sound unique to them. Some are over the top and some are laid back. Does it make them anymore or less of an attraction?

Now there are things that would make you want to attend just as there are those that would make you stay away. Some more than others. The sucessful ones have something that makes people want to attend. The unsucessful ones have something that keeps people away.

Why was the "unplugged" concert idea created? Was it to attract a different audience? Did it work? Same group same music played differently. It attracted some and repelled some. What did it do to their brand or style?

maybe, maybe not

but it sounds then that a brand (according to some) are the talents people are born with rather than something more as implied by the OP



but Angel if you want to argue about what it means to brand a show I'll agree with whatever definition you want to use! Happy?

A unique personality can be a means of establishing a brand, but another example, I gave of developing a brand lied in targeting a niche market .e.g. the Spanish karaoke market for example. This doesn't directly rely on anything so unique about an individual's God-given gifts as much as it does about where the individuals interest and passion lies.

One idea I have toyed with, was developing a show targeted at young women from say 18-35. If you could consistently fill a bar with a crowd of ladies in that age range, I'd think you'd have a very strong bargaining position with any bar you approached, because where the women go, the guys will follow. (Getting my wife to go along with the idea might be the toughest part of that particular assignment, but it's an idea I still enjoy tossing around in my twisted little mind -- well that and what I might do with someone else's inflatable sheep idea)

Maybe you would find the book I've mentioned earlier in the thread an interesting read. I'm sure the authors are better at explaining the branding concept than I am.