The cancelling of her summer tour for Kelly Clarkson is a huge disaster. A couple days before she announced it, she had fired her manager. She cancelled because of low ticket sales.
For marketers, this is a really good lesson. First of all, when she fired her manager, there could only be two reasons as connected to the tour: she either fired him for getting her into it, or fired him for not stopping her from getting into it.
Kelly Clarkson has said that in the end she always goes with her gut. In the case of the manager, it was his job to convince her that this wasn't good for her career at this time. If he was the one that initiated the tour, he obviously failed miserably in assessing Clarkson's draw.
Where can she go from here in reference to concerts? It makes her look like a fading star past her prime, rather than someone that is just getting their career going. And all of this just a couple of weeks before her newest album release.
For marketers, there's got to be a reason you're going to do something. In this case, there wasn't. The worse possible thing that can be done is to make a promise you're not able to fulfill; that's exactly what Clarkson and her handlers did with her fans. Now they are not only disappointed, but have to go back to the point of purchase to refund their tickets.
Whoever was responsible for this reached far beyond what was real for the artist. We as marketers must have a realistic view of where we're truly at. This isn't to diminish or discourage a big vision, but we must know at the present time what we really can or can not do. Wishful thinking can't cut it here.
This isn't rocket science as far as Clarkson's situation goes. It was simply a matter of someone letting their emotions get ahead of what the data was saying. Someone evidently was trying to think positively, without searching out whether Clarkson would be able to fill larger venues. All it would have taken was some market research to find out if she could fill larger arenas or stadiums.
So it is with us. Not being able to perform a certain task now, doesn't mean that we won't be able to sometime in the future. We have to position and market ourselves to the place where it can successfully be executed. And if we're doing it for other companies or people, we better have the research and data to back up why we're doing something.
In the case of Clarkson, she's responsible for not asking the question the right questions. But then again, it's also a marketers responsibility to ensure that the research shows we're on the right path. Clarkson's manager miserably failed her in this.
This also underscores the importance that marketers and clients must have with one another. There was obviously some type of blind trust by someone in the mix as the suddenness of having to cancel the tour shows there was surprise. There shouldn't be surprises of this type in marketing relationships.
Marketers should insist upon steady meetings or conferences with clients to make sure there is contact on all points along the way. If this had been done with Clarkson, somewhere there would have been flags raised the could have stopped the process from going forwar.
If we market on our own, it's a call to listen to the raw data and what it's telling you. Don't lie to yourself or try to put positive spin on something that isn't going to happen if the numbers are talking that way. Let the research and numbers guide you, not what you wish would happen. Clarkson and her handlers learned it the hard way.
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