Disruptive Marketing: The Retro Mixtape Re-imagined As 21st Century Content Marketing
Since summer is on its way the image of people lounging on beach chairs listening to cool tunes on headphones or boom boxes becomes the theme for the next three months in many parts of the world.
What drives this soundtrack is the digital playlist, derived from the analog world of the cassette mixtape (duplicated over and over to travel the world which has been replaced by APIs allowing for frictionless sharing of playlists across various social platforms).
I made my first mixtape in 1986. I remember I called it “The Mixtape to End All Mixtapes” or something corny like that. I gave it to this friend of mine who was a young woman that I admired (I was 14-years-old so you can translate this as flirting). Then in 1991 after I bartered for two Technics 1200 turntables and I produced my first “real” mixtape. The kind where I beat matched all the music into one seamless mix (take that you talent-less automated controller laptop disc jockeys!). That mix is still on a cassette tape in some dusty shoe box somewhere in my house in Seattle. A few I transferred to my Mixcloud and Soundcloud accounts if you want to hear what kind of music I programmed 15 years ago.
For aeons a close friend of mine and I always wondered why in this digital age of abundance more brands didn’t take advantage and use music as the content medium in a world mover evermore toward shared experiences. I mean, even politicians get how important music is by using it at their rallies and fundraisers.
Music is a great unifier of people no matter our color, race, gender, sexual orientation, creed or job title or whatever other silly label we (or advertisers) attach to humans. Some may be familiar with what Hamburger Helper did about a month ago when they made probably one of the best hip hop mix tapes in aeons. The fact a brand created it still surprises me only because it was so damn good. But it’s still difficult for a brand to humanize artistic items that customers will take seriously. While there are tons of content initiatives formulated daily by companies, many still don’t tap into music and that is a huge loss on their behalf.
In some respects, we are all our own brand. And music defines our identity. So if you had to create a mix tape what would be on it? Since I have a book coming out this summer and this upcoming weekend is the “unofficial start to summer” in the United States I decided to put together one for the book. My thinking is instead of trying to explain the book with the same old boring quotes that come across as boring twee-table soundbites why not use a mix tape to explain what I was trying to convey when writing the book? What if each song aligned to a theme within the greater context of the book?
Instead of more text and more content people wouldn’t read, what if I explained it to them using feelings? Feelings are, after all, the new (and old) key performance indicator in marketing.
So I created a mixtape for my book Disruptive Marketing. Sure, I used Spotify to do it but it’s not so much about the tools we use in the 21st Century as much as how we use those tools to connect with people. Connecting and understanding people is the main reason life can be challenging. Many think the technology will do the work for us. But technology is simply a tool. We still have to be the ones to make it work for us in terms of what we’re trying to get people (or ourselves) to feel, think or do.
Check out the meaning behind each song below. I welcome your feedback and I look forward to hearing what is on your mixtape that defines your personal and professional brand in the form of melody.
Disruptive Marketing Mixtape 2016
Track-list and how each song relates to the world of modern marketing:
1. “You Know My Steez” by Gang Starr — This song is quintessential New York hip hop from the golden era. It’s also how I view the current marketing landscape and all the conventional people who still rule the reigns at too many influential companies or write lots of books. Guru just kills it on the vocals and the rhyme. The marketing takeaway: There’s a lot of false prophets in the world of marketing. Most are snake oil sales people. Most sell a formula. If you note at the beginning of the track, the Guru notes they have a formula but are constantly recreating it to fit the mood of the moment. This is a people-centric way to approach the world when creating art. This is disruptive marketing to the fullest. Constantly rethinking your approach in the world rather than relying on algorithmic formulas that become dated quickly. I lay this out in Chapter One which is aptly titled “Create, Engage, Adapt.”
2. “Dangerous” by Big Data — Big data is dangerous if you can use it to connect with customer sentiment. How are you using it in your marketing? I get into this heavily in Chapter 10.
3. “Unbelievable” by The Notorious B.I.G. — The line from this track says it all: “Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one representing BK to the fullest…” Brooklyn is a central hub for creativity and could be defining the future of work (sorry Silicon Valley). It was also my home for 15 years. I don’t think I would have many stories to parlay to people if I just lived in the middle of nowhere. This is why everyone should live in a city at least once in their life and why most people will live in cities by the year 2025.
4. “You’re On” by Madeon — We’re always on in this new world of marketing. There is never a time when we can turn things off. How do you approach this always on, always on-demand world? How do you listen more than talk? Chapter Nine explains a lot of this.
5. “Questions” by Chordasian — You should constantly be asking questions in marketing (and life). Who, what, why? There should always be more questions than answers when developing a marketing plan.
6. “Triscuits” by Monitor 66 — This is a great tune that includes a sample from a Keith Sweat tune from 1996 (theme: always build on the work of others or at least re-imagine, re-create or remix it). The “Triscuits” title? One of the best social campaigns I worked on was for Wheat Thins where we created a social Customer Relationship Model (CRM) influencer model back in 2011 that everyone raves about five years later in the present era.
7. “Doowutchyalike” by Digital Underground — In our personalized world, we can do anything now in our own digital, mobile world powered by the cloud. I don’t think many marketers understand this shift in human behavior very well.
8. “Don’t Wanna Be Your Lover” by Vanessa White — Most brands want customers to love them but that is not what customers necessarily feel when they are still bombarded with ads. I get into a lot of this in Chapter One.
9. “Language” by Porter Robinson — Not only is language the original social media but Porter Robinson is a good representation of what I call for in my book: how to be a hybrid individual. In Chapter Four I even go as far to say MBAs don’t make sense in the emerging creative age where imagination will outflank process. Robinson isn’t just a producer who pushes a button when he DJs or produces music. He’s a 360 degree artist and creative. As marketers we need to aspire to be more like Robinson.
10. “Life is Better” by Q-Tip and Norah Jones — Again a nice hybrid production. How do we combine our hybrid skills and emotions to solve the world’s most daunting problems?
11. “We Are On The Move” by Zo! — Customers are always on the move. How do you capture their attention?
12. “These Walls” by Kendrick Lamar/Bilal/Anna Wise/Thundercat — When I wrote the book, I wondered what it would be like if the walls could record what I was doing/feeling and then relay that information to others? Maybe in 10 to 20 years we’ll find out. Chapter Two delves into the world of perpetual change that faces marketers in the here and now.
13. “The Tea” by Choklate — Great tune. Nothing more than that. Sometimes you just have to be eccentric in life and go off script.
14. “Exploitation” by Roisin Murphy — Too much marketing is about exploiting people. But that won’t work in a world where customers are demanding more corporate social responsibility and wanting companies to give back to the world in some form. I talk a lot about this in Chapter 11 of the book.
15. “Keep You On My Mind” by Guordan Banks — We live in a total attention economy now. In Chapter One of the book I talk about the “enchanted state” of marketing. There is no need to interrupt anymore. That won’t keep you in your customer’s minds. That will simply make you seem like a nuisance. If you think ads are the best way to remain top of mind I have a bridge to sell you in San Francisco.
16. “Crush” by Jennifer Paige — Read Chapter Three when the book comes out to understand why this is on the mixtape. DJ Strobe, Hell’s Kitchen and remix stems before YouTube was even a figment in the imagination of Chad Hurley.
17. “Spinnin’” by Bernard Wright — If you know what other songs used the hook in this song as the main sample you understand we live in a read/write/remix world. Chapter Seven talks all about this concept which is dubbed “producerism.” The concept that smarter marketers understand in that customers are the best form of content creation, not brand teams, possibly not even agencies.
18. “Summer Madness” by Kool & The Gang — The book comes out July 16 on Amazon Kindle and August 9 on hardcover and audio. It’s going to be a mad summer!
Geoffrey Colon is a communications designer at Microsoft where he works on the Bing Ads product. He is author of worst-selling book Disruptive Marketing: What Growth Hackers, Data Punks, and Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating the New Normal out now on AMACOM Books. DJ, Data Punk, Author, Podcaster and Stylish Sock Collector, follow him here on Medium, LinkedIn or Twitter or check out geoffreycolon.net to find where he’s speaking next.
