Good marketing has some semblance of good harmony. If you think about a group like BoyzIIMen their harmony is beautiful where the various tones, ranges and pitches work together creating emotion through variations of power, softness, accents, crescendos and "a cappella" bringing the music to life in ways that draw you in and immediately connects with the listener.
Similarly EDM takes what seems to be random sounds and blends them together into a world of powerful rhythmic compositions and arrangements of drops, breaks, effects, etc. that drives their crowd bananas.
Above: A-trak, Skrillex and G-4
Above: Diplo and G-4
When this effect happens in advertising and marketing it’s a beautiful song where TV, Radio, Digital, Mobile, Video, Retail, OOH, Print, etc. are in tune and hit their octaves perfectly creating tantalizing brand music that leads to the ultimate singular note we as marketers love to hear and is pitch perfect:
Cha Ching!
You can also have quite the opposite where marketing is not aligned, insights missing, strategy is weak and executions are confused with ideas. In this instance TV may sound great by itself if you’re lucky, digital may be in key along with retail hitting their upper register; but if you try to have them work together in this fashion there is no harmony and the pitch perfect silos are now out of key, tone deaf to each other and becomes harsh noise. At some point the disciplines have to practice together, get to know each other’s sound and train the ear to what good music and harmony can sound like vs. throwing the band together and saying “here play this” and “this” while you’re at it...“this too”.
I honestly believe marketing teams can learn a lot from music and how musicians collaborate, focus, give/take, argue, love/hate, all to get the best out of the people involved for the best sounding project possible. The process is an emotional roller coaster, but the good ones end up with something so powerful and authentic the world embraces it and shows it love back through downloads, streams, concerts, ad spots, radio plays, diner jukebox selections, gym radio stations, licensing, smiles, laughter and even tears. The good ones move you and create a lasting effect that you want to experience over and over again.
Sadly and all too often it’s to no fault of the disciplines themselves but in a lot of instances the players just never learned how to play the instruments to really understand what sounds they can make, what keys to play in, which scales to use and at what volume levels.
Throughout my childhood years my grandfather would always reference his good friend and Jazz Hall of Famer Illinois Jacquet and the late, great Conrad “Prof” Johnson along with his own isms. I hear him quite frequently, even in his passing saying “Quad (family nickname short for Cuatro), to be great you have to learn the instrument before you can truly know what is possible musically.” I didn’t understand this completely then, but it made sense as I got older and more ism’s and brain exercises piled on like “What is X?” a way for us as kids to explore variables and gain deeper insight into questioning to arrive at varying answers to an ambiguous ask. It was my introduction to dialectical argument methods and to this day it’s a big part of my strategic planning tool belt.
A lot of what they were teaching translated so well to life and to my current state in marketing. I’ve learned to study and try to master the instruments and it has made all the difference! It puts me in unique positions to make harmony with brand and marketing efforts when I have free rein to work the marketing mix of TV, Radio, Print, Digital, Gaming, Retail, Direct, OTT, Experiential, Mobile, Content, Packaging, Distribution, Product, etc. in a truly integrated fashion allowing sort of a brand version of do re mi fa sol…categorizing the mix in various “registers” giving the original composition shape and form. The fun starts when it’s time to create various arrangements for different situations. What will lead? What will go together? When does a note fall out? etc. Brand and marketing play like music to me these days and I’m excited to almost be back in a position where the harmonies are tight, the tone is smooth and the improvisation provides an opportunity for extraordinary gain.
I challenge us all as marketers to keep learning the instruments! Explore the unknown, try to create new notes, new sounds, and different music associations until you find that right brand sound to breathe life into your offering, your company, and your role. I’m excited for what marketers will do in the future and will be attentively listening and watching for your arrival to celebrate your successes with glee!
