Memphis is known as a city of musical invention, from the Delta blues of Muddy Waters and B.B. King to the country and rockabilly styles of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Memphis’ Beale Street is recognized the world over as the birthplace of the blues.

Yet in this city that heralds this vast creative tradition, how come the comedic art of inspiring laughter seems to fall upon deaf ears time and time again over the past two decades? Sir Laughs A Lot. Comedy House Cafe. The Laugh Factory. Comedy Zone. The Loony Bin. Funny Bone. Comedy Tennessee. These are just seven of the full-time comedy clubs that were not able to last past the fifth year of operation before going out of business. But why is this the case?

From an outsider’s perspective, the city of Memphis just isn’t adept to supporting live stand-up comedy. But with a population of that size, it seems unfathomable that even just attracting a small percentage of local inhabitants can’t sustain a veritable monopoly.

Maybe though, it actually isn’t the city’s apparent cold shoulder that’s been the problem. Maybe it’s just the failure of the “cookie-cutter” comedy club business model combined with lack of solid local marketing initiatives.

While the franchise chains may persuade you otherwise, local brick & mortar businesses are highly affected by the specific proclivities of the surrounding community and customer base. What works in one town may not work in another. Sometimes the approach taken in order to gain success in a local area must be so drastically different, it can’t be copied by anyone, anywhere at all.

Understanding your unique marketplace, competitors, and potential customers are the keys to finding the best and most fruitful direction for your business. Applying a blueprint model without doing so will likely find you in a world of hurt.

Will Memphis finally learn from its past mistakes or is the next comedy club upstart doomed from the get-go?

In addition to his live performances, Andy currently co-hosts a comedy-talk podcast Mostly Comedy with fellow comic Katrina Murrell. For some good laughs, go ahead and follow him on Twitter or check out some of Andy’s video clips on YouTube.

In addition to giving the city of Memphis a huge “WTF?”, Andy and I have a blast discussing:

• Promoting local community events with only word of mouth and no standard advertising.
• The two fundamental problems local businesses have when it comes to top-of-mind marketing.
• Marketing a product with language that potential customers would understand.
• Selling the experience of a live event, not purely a description of what is to take place.
• How directly asking customers “why?” is the easiest way of finding out what works.

Time spent listening to the radio is now at a 12-year low, and rock music is among the formats suffering the most.

Is it because there is so much competition in the marketplace now for listeners? Or is it because any time you turn on your local station, it seems as if you’re hearing the same 6 songs over and over again in an infinite loop ad nauseum?

Chris Anderson, famously penning the term ‘The Long Tail’, surmises that when distribution channels become plentiful and the cost of production reaches virtually nil, this opens up the door for niche offerings as a whole to overtake the upper echelon of the market. If the past decade’s worth of radio numbers is any indicator, this seems to be the main culprit of the demise of this medium. But does the radio industry even realize that this is the case?

More and more are radio stations cutting back on local and niche programming and preferring to embark in seemingly risk-averse strategies to cut costs and maintain the ad department’s status quo. Through one-size-fits-all voice tracking and the reliance on small music rotations (that only have tracks that score high in generalized focus groups), are radio execs actually compounding their problems by completely ignoring the Long Tail phenomenon & trying to make the “fat head” fit into their business model at all costs?

Joining me on this podcast episode for some wiseass banter is stand-up comedian Spanky Brown. A 12 year veteran of the comedy stage, Spanky can be seen regularly on B.E.T’s Comic View, Comedy Central, is a contributing writer for the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Show and is heard often as a guest on the Bob & Tom radio show. For some good laughs, go ahead and follow him on Twitter or check out some of Spanky’s video clips on YouTube.

In addition to giving the radio industry a kick in the ass, Spanky and I have a blast discussing:

• How marketing your ‘personal brand’ is an ever-changing variable depending on your demographics.
• The fallacy of executives making journalists into entertainment or comedic figures on the air.
• Why broadcasting talent should bypass the middlemen and go directly to the fans.
• Lebron James and the proliferation of social media & journalistic absurdity in sports marketing.
• The power of the celebrity driven model in marketing products and how the general public are sheep.

The social media industry watched in awe as Old Spice launched one of the most innovative brand campaigns seen this year in digital marketing. It seemed like such a simple concept – ask a question on Twitter and then a sexy, half-naked black man will answer them on YouTube.

With the amount of inherent noise in social media nowadays, what in the world made it such the viral sensation as it proved to be?

The power of organic improvisation. As opposed to a pre-planned quirky “viral video”, the core content in and of itself isn’t the driving force that engrosses and captivates the audience. It’s the sheer fact that each piece of content is being produced “off the cuff” very quickly and custom-tailored based on the changing input of the environment… and the audience knows this clearly.

It’s the same reason why you might laugh at a quick one-line comeback from a buddy, yet sit stone-faced watching a professionally crafted & written comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live. It’s a matter of expectations – and it raises the standards dramatically on the element of surprise required to elicit a chuckle out of a viewing bystander.

Old Spice’s campaign wasn’t hilarious. But it was funny enough compared to what the public expected out of the brand. Do you think just anyone could generate that much buzz answering questions naked on YouTube?

Joining me on this podcast episode for some wiseass banter is stand-up comedian Andy Pitz. Based out of New York City, Andy has been performing for nearly 20 years headlining comedy clubs across the country and has made appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman, the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and CBS’ Star Search. For some good laughs, go ahead and follow him on Twitter or check out some of Andy’s video clips on YouTube.

In addition to poking fun at Old Spice’s recent campaign, Andy and I have a blast discussing:

• Why personalizing a product increases a customer’s emotional attachment to it and the brand.
• The stupidity of businesses putting up Facebook/Twitter signage while supplying no call to action.
• Purposefully avoiding buying a product because of it’s marketing tactics or TV and radio advertisements.
• Putting the blame on marketers for trying to capture the lowest common denominator.
• How come the biggest and most expensive things people can buy are rarely ever advertised at all?