Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History written by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan, illustrates countless ways that the Grateful Dead began the art of social media before social idea even became a thing. The Grateful Dead the Grateful Dead not only created powerful brand awareness due to their music talent, but also created their own landscape that set them apart of the competition of their time. “The Grateful Dead. If you stop to think about it, the name is sorta weird. Even a little scary. But boy, is it memorable” (Halligan, 14). After the choice of a unique name, the Grateful Dead created a unique business model that allowed them to boom throughout the global music industry. “The Grateful Dead experimented with musical forms and genres—both as a group and individually—creating unique musical experiences” (Meerman, 38). Because the music group was willing to take risks and try new things, they made more mistakes than any other musical group of their time, but in turn, they also were gratified with gaining more positive results. “The Grateful Dead teaches us to take risks and to experiment, to learn from our mistakes and successes, and to continually move forward” (Halligan, 39). The Grateful Dead’s knowledge on their assets and how the use of them could generate even more success, became one of their biggest branding accomplishments of all time. Not only did they inspire more brand awareness, but also created the first stepping stone to social media. “The band continues to innovate, using technology to facilitate the culture of openness and availability they have carefully cultivated over decades” (Halligan, 46). No other band had even thought of letting their loyals to record their music live to repost and replay it everywhere. This is how far the Grateful Dead pushed technology innovation to its limits and allowed for a breakthrough of new age social media. Their success ranges from live concert technology to modern day iPhone applications. Another way that the Grateful Dead separated themselves from the competition is that they embraced eccentricity. “In a world of “me-too” products, the businesses that cultivate a strategy of appealing to the tastes of outliers are generating success” (Halligan, 62.) Believe it or not, prospective customers of today’s world value what’s different and often times will often pay more just because something is labeled as different. The Grateful Dead thrived off the fact that they were different and put on a completely different show that anyone had ever seen before. “The Grateful Dead let their audience define the Grateful Dead experience. They made fans an equal partner in a mutual journey” (Halligan, 71). The Grateful Dead created an open two way street directly to their loyal fans. One way that portrays that is that each fan that bought their Skull and Roses album opened it to receive a note that wrote: “Who are you? Where are you? How are you? Send us your name and address and we’ll keep you informed. Deadheads, P.O. Box 1065, San Rafael, California, 94901 (Halligan, 70). This showed the true essence of how much the Grateful Dead respected and cared for their loyal customers. This use of direct marketing drove the mutual relationship the Grateful Dead and their fans had with each other. “The Grateful Dead was remarkably generous, a brand attribute that contributed to their growth and prosperity over many years” (Halligan, 144). Their business model is one that laid the groundwork for modern day social media. Their enthusiasm, knowledge, and awareness of what their fans want led to an immense amount of success. Their marketing plan can never be completely duplicated, as they are the originators and will forever be remembered for it.