Foreword
More than 45 years ago a bunch of young guys in the San Francisco Bay Area, living in their cars and on tomato soup made from tap water and ketchup packages lifted from fast-food restaurants, had a dream and vision of driving the train that would change our world on so many fronts.
That band of merry pranksters ultimately became the Grateful Dead. They have changed the way we live and think—in ways we don’t even know. But of all the lasting impact that they have bestowed upon us, who would have ever thought that it would be their business and marketing models that would today be the envy of the culture that they all fought so hard to change.
And now a couple of young scientists, economists and historians, true new-age Cosmic Charlies—Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott—have help on the way. They have come up with a fascinating story of how the Grateful Dead’s counter-intuitive ways of doing business are really best business practices that work for everyone.
Brian and David’s newest book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, is like a powerful, hard-charging anthem that fills in so many blanks while closing the circle of life all around us. Like the Grateful Dead, Brian and David are transformational visionaries with a keen eye for the second set.
Their ability to synthesize the core values, beliefs, and best practices of the Grateful Dead are captured brilliantly in a thoroughly enjoyable and readily applicable package that is like the release of the band’s next album—eagerly anticipated by all.
Like other daring visionaries, the Grateful Dead rejected conventional wisdom. They had a willingness and confidence to take a chance on something new and different. They cut themselves loose from their fear of failure and the unknown. They worked and they played on the edge, and did both loud, fast, and free of traditional constraints.
Their passion, creative spirit, imaginative soul, and industrious commitment to promote truth, fairness, justice, and the Grateful Dead way led them through the evolutionary transition where they went from playing for silver to playing for life. This book tells you how to make that transition for your own career.
In the band’s never-ending battle against the dire wolves of deceit and false prophets (and profits), the Grateful Dead—a shining star, a beacon of hope on a bleak landscape—have been able to rise above the blinding madness with innovative promotional techniques, viral marketing, a commitment to customer service, personalized ticket and merchandising plans, and a sense of community and team that was unheard of years ago, but is clearly now the standard new path to the promised land. It all seems so simple—yet so frustratingly elusive. We all have two eyes, but still some of us can’t see.
In life, we get rare opportunities to climb aboard a new bus heading down the road to where the water tastes like wine. Brian and David are today’s newest chauffeurs. They have given us a fresh and delicious chance to get it done—and we might as well.
Like the Grateful Dead, they epitomize the mantra from so many roads traveled blindly, with little more than faith—“We sure don’t know what we’re going for—but we’re going to go for it for sure.”
And that is why after gleefully consuming Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead and following these guys who have done so well by doing good, I stand tall and proud in my choice, satisfied with my willing sacrifice, and happy with my undying love and loyalty, while forever waving that flag, and singing loudly, “I’m with those guys.”
Marketing? The Grateful Dead? Who would have ever thought?
Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right . . .
—Bill Walton, basketball legend and Deadhead
