We Were Young

As an individual who's life revolves around having music in my ears at all times, I come across songs that are terrible and songs that I fall completely in love with. One such song, which could be considered the "title track" for this blog post, wasn't love at first sight. At first it was just another song in my podcast...then, given the correct setting, a nice sunset in the woods during a summer get away with friends, this song became my favourite.

Now just for clarification, I have a kind of scale for songs..each one can be categorized into a class (just like the top 40 countdown with Ryan Seacrest, number 1 is the best){Each link is a personal example of the categories}.

1- Songs that play a large part in your life; could come from the lyrics really hitting home with you, or it's a song that was playing at a special time in your life..like in the woods with friends, or at a wedding (you never get tired of these songs, and could have hundreds of plays in your iTunes library).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxNnnR4XCyk

2- Songs you play 50 times in a week and stop...but then jam out to a month or two later when you hear it played and then begins another week of 50 plays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmaFPvdyUYo&index=8&list=WL

3- Songs that you enjoy whenever they play, but you don't go out of your way to put them on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

4- Songs that you find annoying, but will put up with them, and catch yourself tapping your foot while they're on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64

5- Songs that you find absolutely terrible, and make a point to change the radio station, or leave the room if it's on. (no song preview here because it would involve me listening to a category 5 song)

Now that I've broken down these categories, I can move towards the point. Each song I listen to is immediately placed into category 2-5 (it takes some work for a song to be in my number 1). Although, about a month after my first listen, if it was not placed in 5, the songs are probably not in the original category. This is mainly because I've have some time to listen more, and like fine wine, I find music gets better with age. For example some of the tunes I'll listen to all the time come from bands like The Rolling Stones, or Steve Miller Band.

The song I'll talk about now was categorized as a 3. It was nothing special at the first listen. If someone played it, I probably wouldn't recognize it, but would listen to it all the same. However, given the correct place it really got me hooked, thus advancing it to a category 2 song. After a week though, and probably about 75 plays later (most in the company of some of my best friends, doing splendid summer activities) I found myself categorizing this song as a 1.

Although I really like house music, I grew up on more rock and metal music. After I became hooked with this song, We Were Young by DVBBS, it wasn't the classic huge drop that involves all the bass that had me hooked, it was actually the breakdown in the middle of the song. I found it took me back to all of my old favourites that involved a lot more rhythm and not just pounding into the speakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8rRO3uOzvY#t=01m38s

Let's get down to the important stuff now. How does my love for music, and all the subtle music promotion, relate to consumer behaviour? Well, when it comes down to it, music is a sensation. You listen to it, and for some people it's just a huge experience. As I discussed with the DVBBS song my initial sensation was that it was not going to be a very special song. But once I had taken the time to think about it, my perception of the song was much different. I was able to put it into the category I thought was appropriate after about 75 plays.

Overall, staying with the music theory, it's an interesting "phenomenon" that occurs when you first hear a song and that sensation makes you react like this:

But then you hear it in a more suitable environment, and you're perception changes, causing you to react more like this:

And at the end of the entire thing, in my experience, and you've ended up falling in love with the song..you end up getting very excited every time the song plays.

Overall, there are many different possible situations that we can go through that change our opinions on certain things. This is important for marketers and businesses to keep in mind because they have to make sure their customers are being put in the correct situation to allow for the individual to be satisfied with their experience, and in turn this results in the company being more successful.

The Introduction

The first post on a new blog is always going to be the most difficult to create. You have to make sure you get your point across, but do it in a way that doesn't make it sound like you're trying to coax people into doing something they don't want to do, which for online personalities is just gaining a "follower".

Come to think of it, starting up a blog is kind of like creating a brand new product for a company. In both cases there is time and effort spent trying to make it perfect to roll out so that anyone who sees what you've created is not completely dissatisfied and never wants to deal with your ideas (or products) again.

Creating ideas online that people will actually be interested in can be extremely difficult and some people give up because they start to think it's impossible to get a spot in people's main network of sites/blogs/youtube accounts/twitter profiles that they follow. I've personally noticed that I have specific people I follow on twitter, youtube, twitch, or Facebook and going out and searching for more profiles to follow is just a hassle now. I've gotten so used to these people pumping out content for my own enjoyment that at times I've forgotten that these people have their own lives to deal with. Although there are times when I've got nothing better to do with my time and get annoyed because the people I follow aren't posting anything.

But being a lazy consumer, the effort it takes to go back and watch a new individual's videos is just too much sometimes and I end up dealing with the wait by watching old content. That way when they come back online with new stuff it makes me super excited to watch all of it.

My experience with the more "classic" products is about the same. And the idea of consumer behaviour is evident in both product cases. As I sit here typing this on my MacBook Pro, sending the odd message out on my iPhone, listening to music with my Skull Candy headphones it's just a perfect example about how products and brands surround people's lives. It seems like no matter what you do now there is a brand you're supporting. Buying brands now can be an ordeal if you don't know what you're doing. Purchasing a new phone can have three paths before you actually swipe, insert or tap your card (Is it Visa? MasterCard? Amex? Interact? Or "old-fashioned" cash?). First, you can be lazy like me, and get the brand you know... for example "I'll take an iPhone 6"...Or you can change it up because of a bad experience and get the new Samsung Galaxy Alpha, because bigger is always better..even if the phone doesn't fit into normal pants pockets. Then there is the other way to buy a phone, which is a being a new entrant into the market. In the case of mobile phone markets now this individual would be about 80 years old or somewhere close to 12. Hopefully there would be some research to find out what kind of phone is the best, but with something as popular as a cell phone taking a friend or family member's word for what's the best is the most likely path of information gathering.

There's a process to go through to buy a phone. There's a process to buy anything now. And comparing back to my original topic of online personalities, as a brand you have to grab the attention of people and make sure you don't screw it up too much, or insult people so they keep coming back. Seems fairly simple of a task...mind you there's a lot of people out there you've got to impress, and no matter who you are, or what company you are (see Apple, Microsoft) there's always going to be "haters", that no matter how good your stuff is, will say it's terrible.

Overall, we're all consumers, and we each try to make sure the choices we make are our own, and not forced on us. But buying a brand, just because it's that brand, is not always an individual choice, and is just the result of being a "lazy" consumer.