The music industry has been feeling the curse of digital communication technologies as a result of music streaming services such as Spotify (or even YouTube, which is a popular way of accessing music, with or without video). Streaming services pay very little – fractions of pennies, in fact, back to the musician when songs are played. And this year, the closure of HMV has shown us that there is no longer a market for physical recorded music. In fact, even the purchase of individual songs on iTunes has become less relevant as a result of streaming. In my private sector consulting work, I often coach independent musicians about how they might survive, and even thrive in a world where they cannot make money from their original product, and I think we can draw inspiration from this in the most unlikely of places: Tough Mudder – a fitness brand that is optimized for the digital age.

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