Why Beethoven Would Have Been an Excellent Marketer, and Imperfections are Beautiful.

Todd Quakenbush for Unsplash

Who is your audience? This is a tough, but crucial question. 

I noticed that things go though cycles: someone invents the status quo, others uphold and perfect it, then someone dismantles it, and the cycle re-sets. This means that sometimes your audience is going to want more of the status quo, while other times they will want novelty and innovation.  The word ‘innovation’ is a buzzword right now because people are getting bored of the current status quo and are hungry for novelty.  In response to novelty, our brain feeds us dopamine.  We are motivated, at least partially by the pursuit of  novelty.

There are many ways to go about knowing your audience.  Knowing your audience isn’t just about empathy, instinct, and trend watching.  It is also about metrics and measurable results.  If you aren’t going to give them something new (or something they don’t even know that they want yet!) then you have to use metrics and measurement tools to find out how to emulate the status quo.

Genius and innovation personified

Ludwig Van Beethoven was an expert at knowing his audience, literally, and was insanely ahead of his time.  First he upheld the status quo, then he innovated; he expertly created the harmonious, pleasing, and almost formulaic music that defined the Classical Era.  Then he became a major player in the transition from the Classical Era to the Romantic Era when he wrote the Great Fugue.

Listen to Beethoven’s Great Fugue, below.  When it first came out, people thought it was ugly.  Now it has become the status quo; it sounds like contemporary classical music, but was written all those years ago.

I think that this is a form of innovation.  Beethoven chose to release an ‘ugly’ piece of work, knowing that it was different than anything anyone had ever heard, and would be a seen as a glaring eyesore when held up against the backdrop of  his huge body of beautiful work. The Great Fugue was not just a  rebellion against the status quo.   I am not talking about platitudes of innovation and outside of the box thinking. People really connect with the word ‘why’ because it is a metaphysical and existential question, and a testament to the human condition.  Imperfection is beautiful  because people can relate to it, and because perfection is an impediment to innovation or novelty.

Beethoven asked people to witness something different, and maybe even ugly or imperfect,  because he wanted them to ask ‘why’.  When you ask someone to witness something that is purposely different, even at the expense of being ugly, it creates a paradigm shift.  When people talk about creating something innovative, they are talking about selling their audience a novelty and a new perspective, and moving away from the normative ideal.  If your audience is ready for a paradigm shift, then you are giving them what they want.

“Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we are all in this together” – Brenne Brown on the subject of  vulnerability

People like the question of ‘why’ because it is something that we all ask ourselves; it is something that we are all haunted by and something we all have in common as a culture and a community.  It embodies empathy, transcends time and space, and that is why people will respond when you ask them to think about ‘why’.  ‘Why’ is a great word, isn’t it?

Here are more examples of music that changed the status quo: here, and here,

What are other examples of music that  created cultural paradigm shifts? Let me know in the comments below!  Share a video with me in the comments or tweet one at me, I want to hear!