Keeping People Coming Back for More with Rob Principe of Scratch Music Group

Mar 11

Rob Principe is Founder and CEO of Scratch Music Group, which includes the Scratch DJ Academy and Scratch Event DJs, the largest corporate DJ booking company with a network of over 7,500 highly screened DJs.

In this episode of Let's Talk Limbic Sparks, Rob reveals how better understanding why people buy your brand is key to stronger relationships and growth. We talk about the recent Scratch Event DJs brand evolution and Rob reflects on emotional insights that gave him a new way to think about the brand benefits that his clients care about the most.

Rob shares behind-the-scenes details about the brand evolution process, including the biggest surprises from customer interviews, discussions that were happening among his team, and how the brand has evolved to better reflect what makes it distinct and desirable. He describes his values and approach that prioritizes giving people your best and treating every transaction as if it were the only one.

Key Takeaways and Soundbites:

“We felt like we understood our brand, but I'm not sure we really did understand our brand because of confirmation bias. Add that to the brand being a couple decades old, it needed a refresh, it needed a repositioning.”

“The biggest surprise was how we viewed our brand versus how our clients view our brand.”

“It was this very calculated way that I thought brands thought about us, to a much more emotional side of what we offer. That really was a wow moment. I understand the value of the DJ performance, but looked at it as more transactional and less emotional.”

“I would recommend that any brand take a navel gaze, a look in the mirror, to help get out of their own heads.”

“We're able to meet our clients where they are, instead of where we think they are. The outcome of that will lead to better relationships and better business.”

“I do believe that brands are neglecting those emotional connections, because they're focused on analytics. Analytics are great, and they help build a supporting basis to make decisions off of. But when everything is about analytics, and algorithms and followers and likes, there's just too much quantitative noise. Connections get lost in that signal to noise ratio, it's missing the whole human side of the emotional connection that brands can and should make with their clients and customers.”

“It has to be authentic. It has to be a high quality experience. It has to be surrounded by all the incredible client services. If you marry those three, you're going to create really emotional connections.”

“I think it's really important to understand that while business is transactional, you still need to put everything into each transaction. And in a company that's built on scale as we are, every single transaction has to be treated as if it's the only one, and you have to give people your best. And that's in your control.”

Here are some fun facts about Rob…

Rob Principe is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Scratch Music Group, a venture-backed music company that is the cultural access point connecting consumers and brands to the DJ platform through DJ performances and DJ education.

Today, Scratch operates in two divisions, Scratch Event DJs and Scratch DJ Academy, through which it produces more DJ events, books more DJs, and trains more aspiring DJs than any other company. The Company was founded in 2002 in partnership with the legendary DJ Jam Master Jay of Run DMC.

Scratch provides DJs for over 10,000 events each year for high-profile clients including the Hard Rock Hotel chain, Brooklyn Nets, NY Jets, Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, the NBA and MLB All-Star Games, Pepsi, MTV, Tommy Hilfiger, Sephora, H&M, Lacoste, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, W Hotels, Saks, Bloomingdales, ESPN, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Hugo Boss, Armani Exchange and many more. Additionally, the Scratch DJ Academy with locations in NYC, Miami and L.A. has taught more than 500,000 people how to DJ and produce music from all 50 states and over 20 countries.

Rob has been featured in major national media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Crain’s, Fortune, Forbes, the Washington Post, CNN, MTV and many more. Additionally, Rob is the co-author of On the Record: The Scratch DJ Academy Guide (St. Martin’s Press) which is nationally distributed and widely considered one of the definitive books on DJ culture.