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Springsteen's Marketing Deep Cuts
The Boss’s milking the cash cow approach has borne some incredible fruit
It may be difficult to think of your favourite rock star as a product, but I have bad news for you. He or she is exactly that.
Most young artists don’t see this, of course. Even the Beatles were outmanoeuvred as young, callow artists by their publishing company, which took much of their song rights. The Small Faces' manager used to pay the band a clothing allowance while he and the record company took the profits, and The Who’s managers purportedly blew the band’s income from the ‘60s and early ‘70s on drugs and partying for themselves and kept no proper financial records.
Bruce Springsteen fought an intense legal battle over control of his artistic rights with his first manager, Mike Appel. This stalled his career just as it had taken off.
Springsteen won the fight and was never again so starry-eyed about business matters when it came to his music.
Instead, Bruce Springsteen became a marketing professional.
Product Lifecycle & Boston Matrix
A long career in Corporate Marketing taught me many of the things Bruce learnt the hard way during his…
