Petrichorium
How The Tom Petty Brand Marketed Itself After Petty’s Death
Dec 30, 2024
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This blog was drafted for Emerson College's MK601 course, Planning Seminar: Marketing and Communications.
Creating The Band and the Brand
Tom Petty passed away at age 66 in 2017. Months earlier, I had seen him live in concert
at TD Garden with my father. I grew up listening to classic rock, especially Tom Petty.
While Petty wasn’t my father’s favorite, he quickly became mine with his classic Free
Fallin’.
Petty’s music, with the Heartbreakers, Mudcrutch, the Traveling Wilburys, and on his
own, “felt utterly human” since he started in 1975. He sang about the classic boy meets
girl, boy loses girl and much more. All encapsulate an “American ideal” that is “music
for the open road that chews on humanity’s foibles in a way that doesn’t short-circuit its
pleasure.” His music catered perfectly to his audience of classic rock lovers. Petty celebrated four decades of singing with his band.
Some of Petty’s classics include Refugee, Into the Great Wide Open, Free Fallin’,
American Girl, Runnin’ Down a Dream, and so much more. Petty didn’t just create a
band with a rich history in classic rock. He created a legacy that revolutionized it.
But how? His music wasn’t just revolutionary. It was the power of Petty’s brand that
made such an impact. Petty knew who he was and played into it: “As a rock purist, he
knew what he did well and didn’t try to be something he wasn’t.” Tom even said in an
interview days before his death, “We’re a real rock ’n’ roll band — always have been.
And to us, in the era we came up in, it was a religion in a way. It was more than com‐
merce, it wasn’t about that. It was about something much greater.”
After His Death
But how does the band – and the brand – continue without the lead singer (and main
product)? Without Tom Petty, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are just ‘The
Heartbreakers’. While still cool to meet and/or see Petty’s bandmates, it would be in‐
finitely more so to do so with Petty alive. So what did they do?
In 2021, my father and I went to Beverly’s Cabot Theater and saw a showing of Tom
Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers which celebrated Petty’s
birthday, premiering on October 20-21. It was a winner of the 2021 SXSW Audience
Award. The movie described Tom as a perfectionist with his music, so it’s no surprise
that his music became more successful – by 6,781% after Petty’s death. And it’s not sur‐
prising why the brand wanted to keep going as much as possible. The brand also contin‐
ued to keep the online store alive with its Tom Petty merchandise. But the ultimate
project – the holy grail of the Tom Petty brand – is Tom’s dream project.
Wildflowers, the ‘94 album, sold 3 million copies at the time and was, in Petty’s opinion,
the ‘best’ record they’d made and one of his most “sonically expansive works”. The original Wildflowers album was too long and was made to be cut down by one disc. Around half of the songs on the album were sent to his archives.
In 2020, Wildflowers & All the Rest – an expansion of the 1994 album, Petty dreamed it
would be augmented with the original album – both archived and already published,
with some new versions of songs, outtakes, live performances, and home recordings
too. Not only did it feel ‘right’ to his bandmates, but it also provided the brand with a
new product to give to Petty’s fans. One Petty himself always dreamed of accomplish‐
ing. It is the perfect idea – and it was “the definitive artistic statement that newly illumi‐
nates one of the most fruitful, inspired periods of the American legend’s career.”
It was released in multiple configurations, to much success. Four editions were released
of the set. The brand marketed it through their social media – especially their
Instagram, and music journalists, fans, and the general public did the rest in creating a
huge frenzy over the release of Petty’s dream project. Despite Petty’s death, his band
and his brand managed to create new value and reposition themselves in a way that en‐
sures they stay current in the upcoming years despite Petty’s death – through new short
movies, new merchandise, and the four editions of the Wildflowers & All the Rest
album.
Resources:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-tom-petty-built-enduring-brand-bob-musinski utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tom-petty-wildflowers-reissue-
