Hungry Like the Wolf

Forty years after their MTV heyday, Duran Duran is still relevant. There's a lesson in that for the rest of us.

It’s no secret that I love music and that I have a bizarre, bordering on unhealthy, infatuation with Van Halen. What isn’t as well known is that my taste in music is incredibly diverse and eclectic. While I’ll always gravitate towards loud, rude, and aggressive guitars, I also have an affinity for artists like American Aquarium, Johnny Cash, Arielle, Stephen Wilson, Jr, and Katie Pruitt.

Perhaps the biggest “oh, he likes them” band is the greatness that is Duran Duran. Also, to be clear, I absolutely adore Duran Duran.

If you’re of a certain age, you likely remember when the “Fab Five” dominated MTV to the point where one could argue the band made the cable channel as much as music television propelled Duran Duran. Formed in 1978, the band reached dizzying heights from 1982 to 1985 with songs such as “Girls on Film,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Rio,” “The Reflex,” and “A View to a Kill,” from the James Bond movie of the same name. In the early to mid-1980s, they were everywhere.

But by the time the 1990s rolled around, most people had moved on, relegating the band to a fad of the decade of decadence. They were labeled an 80s band, an MTV creation, and a group whose best days were clearly in the rearview mirror. The music landscape had changed dramatically: Nirvana had exploded, Pearl Jam was monopolizing rock radio, and grunge was the flavor of the day. The polished, highly styled sound that made Duran Duran one of the biggest bands in the world now felt completely out of step with the times.

Then something happened.

In 1992, Duran Duran released a self-titled album, best known as The Wedding Album, with two massive hits: "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone". Almost overnight, the band many had written off suddenly became relevant again.

I’ve always found their “comeback” fascinating because they didn’t try to recreate “Rio” or recapture their glory days by pretending it was 1984. At the same time, they didn’t abandon everything that made them Duran Duran in the first place: Simon Le Bon still sounded like Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes still sounded like Nick Rhodes, and John Taylor still played some of the most glorious bass lines in history. In other words, the band's identity remained intact.

What changed was their willingness to evolve.

That ability to understand how things have changed and to embrace the need to adapt is one of the most misunderstood concepts in business. Most people assume adaptability means becoming something completely different, when in reality it means maintaining your core identity while adjusting to a changing environment. The promotional products industry offers an abundance of examples.

I’ve spent more than a quarter-century in this business, and during that time, almost everything around us has changed: client expectations, buying habits, technology, marketing, and media. Hell, entire generations of buyers have entered the workforce with different priorities, different communication styles, and different expectations of the companies they choose to work with.

What’s interesting is that I still encounter people who insist on doing things exactly the way they did two decades ago. They use the same prospecting methods, rely on the same sales process, ask the same questions, and go to market in the same ways. At the same time, they wonder why their audience isn’t responding as it did when Van Halen brought back David Lee Roth in 1996.

Sadly, this isn’t surprising. Success has a way of convincing us that what worked yesterday will continue working tomorrow. It’s human nature that when we find something that produces results, we want to keep doing it. The problem is that neither markets nor clients really care what worked in the past. Come to think of it, the future certainly doesn’t care what worked in the past either.

We all know one of the most dangerous phrases in business has always been, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” I’ve watched organizations cling to the same processes long after those methods stopped producing meaningful results. I’ve seen people I respect spend more energy defending old “tried and true” strategies than exploring new opportunities. More often than not, they weren’t resisting change because they were stubborn. They were resisting change because the old way was how they achieved their success.

I suppose that’s what makes Duran Duran’s story so compelling for me. They could have easily become a tribute band to themselves and eked out a decent living playing the old hits on cruise ships while complaining music isn’t what it used to be. Instead, they are still releasing new music that people love and selling out arenas around the world. They adapted, evolved, and found a way to remain relevant without losing who they were.

That’s a lesson every business owner, salesperson, marketer, and entrepreneur needs to learn.

Adaptability isn’t about abandoning your values, chasing every trend, or reinventing yourself every six months. It’s about recognizing when the world around you has changed and mustering up the courage to respond accordingly.

The individuals and companies that thrive over the long term aren’t always the biggest, smartest, fastest, or most talented. History shows that, more often than not, they’re the ones willing, almost eager to evolve. They are the ones who understand that relevance requires movement, recognize that growth requires change, and, most importantly, fully comprehend that staying true to your identity and adapting to a new reality are not in opposition with each other.

Today, more than forty years after their MTV heyday, Duran Duran is still selling out arenas around the globe. Not because they’re living in the past, but because they learned how to evolve without losing themselves.

That’s a lesson worth paying attention to because the world will change whether we like it or not. Markets will shift, global conflicts will interrupt supply chains, technology will advance, customer expectations will continue to evolve, new competitors will emerge, and new challenges will arrive.

The question isn’t whether change is coming. The question is whether you have the adaptability to meet it when it does. We all have the same choice that Duran Duran did: spend time trying to recreate yesterday or stay hungry like the wolf and find a way to stay relevant tomorrow.