Marketing Lessons from John Lydon of PiL

This is What You Want, This is What You Get

We’ve been big fans of Public Image Ltd (PiL) here at Opaque Design for a long time. I first saw PiL in 1988, as an opening act for INXS at the Spectrum in Philly. Tom saw them when they toured with New Order and The Sugarcubes for the “Monsters of Alternative Rock” tour in 1989. So we were pretty thrilled to hear they were touring again and promptly got tickets.

While I was waiting for the show to begin this past Saturday, staring at a huge PiL logo hanging behind the stage and sporting my wonderfully faded tee from 1988, it occured to me there are marketing lessons to learn from John Lydon.

Crazy? Perhaps a bit, but let me explain.

Consistent Branding

The PiL logo has been around the entire 30+ years of the band, and was designed by Lydon himself. A consistent, recognizable brand is important for any business but this logo is not only cool but well executed also.

Logo Design

A logo should be simple, clean and well defined. It also should be designed to work in black and white as well as color so that it can be used for any application. Many businesses (and, alas, even designers) ignore this key rule of logo design. The PiL logo is flexible enough to work in 1-color, 2-colors, reversed and just as well on CDs as t-shirts as posters etc.

Notice that the circular graphic is actually a pill. Clever! It’s like that nifty little arrow in the FedEx logo – just good graphic design.

Unabashed Self-Promo

In anticipation of the live show this past Saturday (which was an utterly AMAZING 2-hour set), I’d been checking out the promo live performances and interviews with Lydon for the tour.

In every print interview or chat with a host, he always mentioned how great PiL was, or how they “basically influenced every band ever” – in a matter-of-fact style. Before one song at the show we saw, he introduced the song as a hit – but then added “but everything PiL ever wrote was a hit”.

You have to chuckle at it, this sort of arrogance, but then again… shouldn’t you be that passionate about your business or brand? Are you letting people know how good your service or product is, at every opportunity? You might want to be a little more subtle than Mr. Lydon, but don’t miss the opportunity to self-promote.

Creative Funding

In order to fund PIL getting back together for a tour, Lydon has done a TV and print campaign with Britain’s Country Life Butter. Of course he’s been accused of “selling out”… but he’s just being a good businessperson/entrepreneur and finding a way to fund getting his product out there.

“It was the most anarchistic thing I’d ever heard of. When they approached us, first we laughed.

We thought, this could solve a lot of problems. The money that came from it has put Public Image Ltd. back together.

They gave me an open hand for the script, and yes, I do eat butter. It might account for my bulbous shape, from time to time. It’s not all beer.”

Oh and the spot is pretty amusing too. [view the Country Life butter ad]

Maybe your business can’t get a butter sponsor, but if you really want to promote your business and your marketing dollars are limited… don’t give up; get a little creative and find inexpensive or free methods of promoting your brand.

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To see and hear more from PiL and John Lydon, check out these links:

PiL Live from the 9:30 Club – download the show from NPR. Highly recommended!!

“John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, Plays DJ And Skewers Bob Boilen” – NPR Interview

PiL on Jimmy Fallon – PiL play “Bags” and “Public Image”

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[Photo from pilofficial.com - © Viliam Hrubovcak/Photosynthesisstudio.com / Public Image Ltd 2010 ]