30 Apr Kanye West knows the importance of owned media
How do we know this? Well, he pretty much said it… “Know your worth! People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.” Putting aside social media outbursts, questionable headwear choices and odd political views, there’s genius in his words…
Know your worth is a fundamental truism of modern business. In today’s hyper capitalised world, no stone can go unturned when it comes to finding hidden value. And marketers are well placed in this climate of value maximisation. They are the conduit between the business and its customers. They are the custodian of media assets that connect with a person. Be it a website, a store, packaging or an app. And people have a value.
But to be clear, we’re not valuing people, we’re valuing consumers. This context is important because the marketing industry places a low value on consumers. So low that we have to group them into lumps of one thousand and use measures like cost per thousand (CPM). The value of a thousand consumers attention differs by channel. On a website, a thousand consumers is typically $22; on an email, they’re more valuable (anything from $50 to $350 per thousand); in a store, a thousand people are worth between $25 and $250 depending on the asset. There are a lot of different owned media assets and all of them have a value.
So, to Kanye’s second point about people always acting like they’re doing more for you… Well, when you sit down to negotiate new terms with a supplier; or agree a brand partnership; or present an opportunity to share your media assets with another brand for mutual gain, you have to know the value you’re bringing to the table and present it to them in a way that demonstrates the value. This way you can create an asymmetric value exchange. One that will be undeniable to other businesses.
And when you think about Kanye – love him or hate him – he knows the worth of his brand, his unique message AND his undeniable media assets. This is what makes him so undeniable.