You will, of course, remember Bob Geldof, the former Boomtown Rats singer who organized the Live Aid concerts in the mid 1980s, raising an estimated $100 million for famine relief. He still pops up these days to join Bono, the U2 singer, in jawboning the head of the IMF over Third World debt issues from time to time.
Today, he’s a marketing expert. Sir Bob (he was knighted after Live Aid) shows up in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, in a short item about Ten Alps Communications. Geldof is a co-owner of the firm, which is now publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, and which was founded to offer its expertise on “the global opportunity for the branded events.”
Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. Forget the line between marketing and authenticity; it’s all one thing now—marketing is actually a countercultural process. Sir Bob sums it up for the Journal: “Pop people totally understand branding. Look at the Sex Pistols. It was all about how they marketed themselves.” Yes. So maybe, “Never mind the bollocks, here’ s a new a kind of floss.” Or for you Boomtown Rats fans, “I don’t like Mondays … but I love the Buffalo wings at TGI Friday’s!”
