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Competitive Advantage In Pop Music: Paper

“When I’m sixty-four”
Innovation, strategic advantage and longevity in pop music.

By:
Angelika de Hoog
Frank van Wijk
Halima Butt
and Ralph Warren (Group V)

Table of Contents

1 Abstract 2

2 Strategies in a dynamic world 2

2.1 Dirty and not so dirty dynamics 3

3 Three concepts for dynamics 6

3.1 Sustainable competitive advantage 7
3.2 Innovation 10
3.3 Longevity 14
3.4 A dynamic threesome 17

4 Dynamics in pop 18

4.1 Music parties 19
4.2 The start of a new era: Rock ‘n’ roll 23

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyze the three concepts, sustainable competitive advantage, innovation and organizational longevity. in the context of a dynamic, Schumpeterian world. In doing so, we will not only will we define and discuss the problems of defining these concepts, but we will also attempt to draw a relation between the three concepts to see that innovation can create sustainable competitive advantages which in turn improve the chances of survival. Following this, we will, in chapter 4 of the paper, attempt to operationalize these concepts in the pop music industry. More specifically, we will work out each of the concepts in relation to the pop industry and look if the three interact as priorly indicated above. Finally,we will present three case studies of the rock bands U2, the Rolling Stones Coldplay in order to operationalize the discussed concepts even further.

Strategies in a dynamic world

When live comes alive the past moves aside. No regrets no remorse.
(Audioslave, Yesterday to Tomorrow)

Strategies serve all kinds of purposes. They must be of help to enter an existing market as well as building a new one. They must support the creation of a new enterprise, but also serve (paraphrasing Tom Wolfe) a ‘company in full’, an established company with its path-dependency and idiosyncrasies.[1] As different as these tasks may be, they have one thing in common: strategies are...