The Unexpected Journey of a Choir Boy Turned Marketer
I often ask myself, how did I ever end up as a marketer? As someone who received undergraduate degrees in economics and music, I really shouldn’t have any business working in marketing, at least not on paper. However, it’s only by taking the time to see the connections between these seemingly disparate fields that I realize marketing was actually an entirely logical destination for my career.
Let me take you on a journey and explain why a degree in music led me to the world of marketing. You see, music is often thought of as a purely creative pursuit, with musicians classified as artists by society. But music, by its very nature, is highly logical. Musical notation has agreed-upon standards that nearly all musicians adhere to, specifying tempo, pitch, duration, volume, and expressiveness. Without this logic and standardized approach, musicians would find it nearly impossible to play together, even in small ensembles.
At the same time, music is obviously highly creative. Conductors can have vastly different creative interpretations of the same piece, and musical players can play with different levels of expressiveness and flourish. The same written piece can sound widely different depending on the instrumentation chosen or the interpretation of tempo. For music, both logic and creativity are required to bring a piece to life. A piece without creativity and expression sounds flat and emotionless, whereas one that is attempted to be played without logic probably wouldn’t even get off the ground.
Marketing is the same. You must have the logic to follow a clear plan, established methodologies, and good workflows. But without creativity and emotional connection, it’s a worthless effort. Ultimately, you have to connect with your audience on an emotional level while at the same time getting your message out into the market on time, in the right channels, and consistently delivered.
The Virtuosos of Music and Marketing
You often see in modern recreations of historic classical music the attempt to play the piece on period instruments, so you can hear the piece as it would have been heard in Bach’s time. As a music professor I had in my undergraduate program used to say, though, there’s no way we can hear it the way we heard it in Bach’s time because we can’t un-hear the last 250 years of musical evolution. The true virtuosos of music transform the way you hear music forever – once you hear them, you can’t go back. You are fundamentally altered and inspired to work harder at your own craft to try and achieve the heights they somehow managed to reach, even if you never get there.
Marketing is the same. Once you see a marketing campaign or digital experience, you can’t unsee it. You are forever changed by that experience, and more importantly, your audience is fundamentally changed forever as well. Their expectations have now been reset by the virtuosos in your field.
The Importance of Listening in Music and Marketing
I got into music through choir – yes, it’s true, I was a choir boy at school. I was only 11 or 12 at the time when I first joined, and I thought to be good in choir, your individual voice had to be heard among the chorus. How wrong I was, though. The most important thing you can do in a choir is listening to the other singers – you are ultimately part of a larger whole, and you have to understand your role in the harmony at each particular moment. Other musicians will tell you the same when you are playing with others and when you are in front of an audience, you have to listen to the other players to stay in sync and the reaction from the audience.
In marketing, unfortunately, I often see listening as a lower priority than it should be. Not only do you need to listen to your colleagues or agency partners to stay in harmony, but you need to listen to your audience. Too often, I see people thinking about what they want to say about themselves versus what your audience may want to hear. Doing that is the same as belting out as one voice in a choir.
The Melody and Harmony of Marketing
In music, the melody is the primary tune where the harmony is there to support and provide emotional context. Some composers are better at melodies, like Mozart, where others are stronger at harmonies, like Debussy, but both understand the importance of each, and it is the interplay between the two that makes music emotionally impactful.
In marketing, the melody can be thought of as the primary message you are trying to get across. It’s the one that your audience hears most often and should be able to most easily recognize. The harmony is everything else – where the message shows up, how it’s wrapped creatively, what it might empower them to do. Both are essential to connect emotionally with your audience, and one cannot live without the other.
The Diversity of Musicians and Marketers
The term “musicians” is a catchall term to categorize an entire group of people, and it’s easy to understand as a general concept. What a musician is in practice, though, is dramatically different. A musician could be an opera singer, a jazz pianist, a banjo player, a flautist, a rock guitarist, or a composer. The key, though, is that even though each of these individual musicians might have their own specialist skills, at the end of the day, they all need to come together and create a piece of music.
I often explain that the term “marketers” is the same as “musicians” to those who are trying to understand the differences between all the different marketing disciplines that are required. You have digital marketers, graphic designers, customer experience specialists, social media curators, and creative directors, among many others. Ultimately, though, each of these specialists has to come together to create a cohesive marketing campaign that audiences can understand and connect with.
The Evolution of Music and Marketing
Musical theory can often feel dogmatic and restrictive when you first start to learn it. You work up from basic notation and harmonization to tempo, duration, etc. It’s all very boring at first – at least the music you study is very boring. As with anything, though, you have to understand this underlying theory before you figure out where you can push the boundaries and start experimenting.
Looking back, as you study musical history, it seems logical to see where we have ended up. But each successive evolution came over years and decades, and it’s only with the benefit of looking back that it appears inevitable. Of course, Bach started to experiment with dissonance, Mozart with the way that melodies were constructed, Debussy with embellished harmony, and Miles Davis with soundscapes. You tell yourself, looking back, “Of course they did that.” But each of them had a solid understanding of what had come before and made a conscious choice of how they pushed the boundaries of established convention.
The same can be said for the evolution of marketing. Too often, I see marketers going the safe route versus searching for true emotional resonance and really connecting and getting a response out of their audience. I would challenge myself and all of us in marketing to work harder and look for that emotional core to authentically and substantively connect with our audience.
The Transformative Power of Music and Marketing
Music can be a transformative and inspiring experience in the broadest sense of the term. Whether it be the unresolved tension of a Wagner opera, the silky and rich harmonies of Ravel, the elevation of traditional music styles by Bartók, or the teeth-grinding experimentation of John Cage, music can ultimately transform the way you view the world if done well.
Although I’m not sure if I would elevate marketing to the level of music when it comes to the power to inspire, when it’s done well, marketing has a tremendous opportunity to resonate and change the trajectory of conversations. Too often, I see marketers going the safe route versus searching for that true emotional resonance. I would challenge myself and all of us in marketing to work harder and look for that emotional core to authentically and substantively connect with our audience.
So, there you have it – my unexpected journey from a choir boy to a marketer, and the parallels I’ve drawn between these two seemingly disparate fields. If you’d like to see a glimpse of my musical past, I’ve included a video of me singing back in my university days. Who knows, maybe one day, you’ll see me on stage at the Musical Theater Center, but for now, I’ll stick to the world of marketing.
