Marketing Magic in a Big Red Barn

Passion ripples...

Photo by Frances Gunn on Unsplash

Happy Monday! I’m super excited about today’s issue of Backstage Pass, and equally jazzed about Thursday’s issue as well. Both issues are ‘bangers’ as the kids say!

When I was writing Think Like a Rock Star, there were certain examples from the music industry that had great parallels to the business world, and I knew I wanted to include these amazing stories in my book.

But there was ONE story that I wanted to lead the book off with; The story of how JewelStock was created in 1996.

In 1995, Jewel released her debut album, Pieces of You. The album would be a monster success for Jewel, eventually selling over 12 million copies.

But Pieces of You was a bit of a slow burn. It took a while to find mainstream success, which was ignited in the summer of 1996 by its first single, Who Will Save Your Soul?

Prior to 1995 and the release of Pieces of You, Jewel had already cultivated a very small, but devoted group of fans online. This was in 1995, years before social media, when BBSes, IRChat and CompuServe were ‘online’. In fact, Jewel’s small fanbase mostly communicated via an email digest. These were popular in the days before widespread internet access. People could send a message to an email address, and the messages would be collected then sent out say once a day in the form of an email digest. The members of this email list of Jewel fans were dubbed EDAs (Everyday Angels) by Jewel herself. Everyday Angels was a nod to one of Jewel’s early songs called I’m Sensitive, and the ‘EDA’ moniker is still used to this day to denote Jewel’s OG fans.

So Jewel’s EDAs had their mailing list and had developed their own little online community, devoted to their shared love of Jewel and her music. Jewel, to her credit, kept up with the postings on the list, and would even post herself on the list on rare occasion, which of course thrilled and delighted her EDAs.

Sometime in 1995, one of the EDAs posted to the list saying how awesome it would be if Jewel could perform a concert just for the members of that list; her EDAs. As you imagine, the entire list thought this was a GREAT idea!

Eventually, a buzz was created on the list, and Jewel’s management team (who was monitoring the list), noticed, and told Jewel what her EDAs were requesting.

So Jewel replied to the list and told her EDAs their wish was granted! Jewel agreed to do a private concert just for her EDAs. For free!

However, Jewel included some serious caveats:

• The EDAs had to secure the location for the performance, so all Jewel had to do was show up and perform.

• All members had to organize their own travel to and from the event.

• All members had to organize their own lodging, food, transportation, everything.

Basically, what Jewel did was give ownership of this project to her most passionate fans, the ones that absolutely loved her.

And they went NUTS!

First, a member of the list secured a location near the original farm that hosted WoodStock in 1969 in New York. So the event had a name: JewelStock.

When the list realized that this event as actually going to happen, suddenly everyone wanted to attend. Which obviously created a logistical problem, because suddenly EDAs from all across the United States and even a few in Canada wanted to attend.

So the EDAs again responded with a website called Angel Needs a Ride (another nod to a Jewel song) which provided all travel information for JewelStock, including list members who could either give a ride to JewelStock, or members in the local area who had a couch that an EDA could crash on while in town. EDAs also created JewelStock merchandise such as stickers, t-shirts and the like, and used the proceeds to help cover travel costs so as many EDAs as possible could attend JewelStock.

Again, all this was happening in 1995. Years before mainstream internet access. By a few dozen passionate fans that wanted to help create a once-in-a-lifetime event for themselves and the artist they loved.

Initial planning hoped for Jewel to give say an hour-long concert and maybe a meet and greet. Instead, due to such massive demand for the event, Jewel agreed to perform two concerts on two nights. The first concert would be private just for EDAs, the second one would be open to the public. The EDAs even managed to book an opening act for Jewel, artist Patty Griffin.

When the dust settled, Jewel performed over 7 hours of music over two days in the summer of 1996 for her most passionate fans, and literally gave them a life-changing weekend in July.

And perhaps this is karma. Two weeks after JewelStock, Jewel’s debut single Who Will Save Your Soul peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and her musical career was off.

What’s the Business Lesson Here?

The core lesson here is the importance of engaging with your most passionate customers. These truly are special people, and their devotion to the people, ideas and values they are passionate about will cause them to move mountains for those passions.

“Your passionate users don’t need you to help justify the product, they need you to help them justify the passion.” - Kathy Sierra

If an EDA in the fall of 1996 told someone ‘I love Jewel!’ and that person said, “Yeah, but why do you love her?”, that EDA could immediately reply with ‘Let me tell you about JewelStock’.

Your most passionate customers already love you, it’s your job to connect with them, appreciate them, and convince them that they made the right decision.

Sidenote: At some point in 2013 after Think Like a Rock Star had been published, I found a website run by Jewel that included images of the inlays that her team had created for the cassette tapes of the JewelStock performances that were given to the EDAs. On a whim, I contacted the site owner asking if I could use the images in a marketing presentation. After a couple of months, I finally heard back from him, and he actually forwarded me to one of the members of Jewel’s management team who I recognized from my research into Jewel and JewelStock. Long story short, both he and Jewel ended up with a signed copy of Think Like a Rock Star. I never heard back from Jewel, but I’m sure she loved it :)

One final note: Remember I said the idea for JewelStock originated on the email list for the EDAs. Years ago I found the archives of that email list online, and was able to go back and read all the messages that the EDAs had sent each other in the weeks and days leading up to JewelStock, and the aftermath. What struck me about the messages left by attendees after JewelStock was how heartfelt they were. Many of the EDAs claimed it was a ‘life-changing’ experience for them.

But what was really interesting was, the EDAs were so excited about having met each other! Most of them spent more time talking about meeting their friends from the list, the people who they had previously only known their a daily email digest, than they spent on discussing the concert itself. That group ended up having an annual reunion near the JewelStock site just for EDAs on the list. They may still be meeting, for all I know.

This is the true value of a community: The connections that members forge with each other. The EDAs that were involved in planning and attending JewelStock will likely be connected for the rest of their lives. And these connections between members is what separates an audience from a community. I will be talking about this distinction more on Thursday. Speaking of which…

I’m sure you will love Thursday’s issue of Backstage Pass almost as much as this one. It’s a Masterclass on building an online community, and it features two of my favorite community builders:

See you Thursday!

Mack

PS: You can access the Backstage Pass archives by clicking here.