One day I was sitting in a Global Econ class at Columbia and the professor said, “There are no new ideas. Only new fools to buy the old ideas.” While I think he was simplifying for effect, it reminded me about a special I saw on the birth of Apple. There’s a scene where they interview Guy Kawasaki, one of Apple’s first ‘Ambassadors’ and he told a story about how he goes in electronics stores and sees all of the mp3 players. Some of them work better than others, some had extra bells & whistles but they generally aren’t very pretty, don’t stand out. He asked a great question, “Why aren’t any of these companies copying the iPod?? It seems simple - copy the market leader. Apple created a product, which resonated with customers. It’s not the first thing many of us think of but is it necessarily a bad idea? That is – Is it wrong to copy? Is it profitable to copy?
The very culture of hip-hop was founded on this notion of borrowing the best parts of earlier songs and putting your own spin on top of them. . Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”, which is widely considered the first commercial hip-hop record was musically just a recirculation of Chic’s “Good Times.” The first hip-hop records and performances were literally DJ’s playing a small instrumental section of a given song on a turntabIe and then playing, back-to back, the same piece of music from a separate copy of the record. Back and forth on this splicing as a performer, or MC, rapped on top of the music. Today we call this borrowing “sampling.”
We move to today. Would Kanye West be here without this borrowing? Or P. Diddy? "Take hits from the 80?s but make 'em sound crazy!" A lot of our favorite music across all genres are often
remakes, or closely inspired by, older music. Personally, I found the Shirley Bassey record "Diamonds are Forever" while walking down St. Marks Place in NYC’s East Village and bought it for $2.99. 'Copying' that record forever changed my life as I won a Grammy Award for my work with it a couple years later.
Now there is an art to sampling. Anyone can take a few seconds of a Kool & The Gang record but not everyone can create DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince's seminal 1990 hit "Summertime". Anyone can play the chords from Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” but not everyone can make Led Zeppelin’s “The Lemon Song.” So it’s clear that sampling, when done well, can be good for musicians and their listeners but what does that mean for non-entertainment business people? Sampling, well done, is a great business strategy. Harris Publications, maker of XXL and King and Combat Handguns has built a model of finding new successful magazines and developing a similar property to be # 2 in that market... The Source Magazine begat XXL... Smooth Magazine begat King... Guns & Ammo begat Combat Handguns... ING Bank started in the '90s as basically a place for people to deposit money with an online interface which immediately did very well financially. There were no bells or whistles or special interest rates - just a safe online place to deposit money. Merrill Lynch saw the flood of so many potential customers going to this online "box" and decided to jump on this internet wave and offer a similar service called Merrill Direct. They were ambitious in setting certain
sales goals to meet within 12 months. Upon launching Merrill Direct reached the numbers within 3 weeks.
Nigo, the founder of A Bathing Ape, or Bape, started his company selling self-made t-shirts at Tokyo hip-hop shows but business really took off when he started selling the Bapesta sneaker, a direct copy of the classic Nike Air Force, which was (and is) popular in American urban communities. This sample was so successful that not only was it the genesis of what became a global clothing brand but it spawned a whole market segment of 'reimagined' clones. (Gourmet Shoes, etc). Nike, one of the best marketers in the world, recognized the value of good sampling and instead of suing Bape or making them stop production, they invested in the fledgling apparel company which became worth billions and defined street fashion of the 2010s.
Many Apple products are thought to be at least inspired by, if not sampled, from Dieter Rams’ 1960’s Braun products.
Some people even sample themselves. Canadian rock group Nickelback is often criticized for using the same structures and progression in their songs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs4tNeGyTyI) but people still enjoy and support the band. Entrepreneur Dennis Crowley started a locatuion-based social network service called Dodgeball in 2002 which was acquired by Google in 2005. He recently started another wildly popular company called Foursquare & what does it do – the same thing. Another version of the same tale is company’s like Gap or Starbucks coffees creating or buying less expensive versions of themselves such as Old Navy and Seattle’s Best Coffee.
So what makes for good sampling? It depends. When sampling a classic, whether it's a song or a shoe design, its important to pay homage, or respect, to the original, the classic. Because often you're really sampling the emotional tie & recognition of the item. In business, sampling requires space for more than one major player. When venture capitalists saw the success Jamba Juice was having in the early 2000’s they completed their analysis and figured there was more than enough demand for more than one major player in the space and dove in. Same with Pinkberry and Red Mango and . When interpolating a not-as-known product or purely for functional reasons that respect isn’t necessary but the most important thing is to add your own twist. Such as when Tommy Hilfiger adapts Ralph Lauren’s casual American theme for his clothing he adds his own twists like hyperbright color blocks and more straight lines. Also when legally required (or prudent), you must disclose all samples used in your work – just ask Biz Markie.