Sometimes Branding Comes Down To Taking A Stand
People often ask “So what will happen if I don’t work on my company’s branding?” The answer, of course, is “Nothing.” Nothing will happen.
Branding is about taking a real stand…finding your working magic, seizing opportunity, and then going on a roll.
The following is a scene, known as “One Song” from the movie “Walk the Line” in which the main character, Johnny Cash, has the chance of a lifetime to communicate his brand and launch his career by singing a song snippet that is 23 seconds or less:
(Scene opens with Johnny Cash, played by Joaquin Phoenix, with his band in the legendary Sun Records studio, auditioning for Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts), who is the genius who discovered Elvis, BB King, Carl Perkins among many others. They are playing an old time gospel tune.)
Sam Phillips: Hold on, hold on, I hate to interrupt. But you guys got something else? I’m sorry, I don’t record material that doesn’t sell Mr Cash, and songs like that don’t sell.
Johnny Cash: Is it the music or the way I sing it?
Phillips: Both
Cash: What’s wrong with the way I sing it?
Phillips: I don’t believe ya.
Band Member: Let’s get out of her JR (Cash’s nickname).
Cash: No, I want to understand. I mean, we come down here and play for a minute and he tells me I can’t sing and I don’t believe in God.
Phillips: (Impatiently) You know exactly what I’m tellin’ you. We already heard that gospel tune a hundred times just like that, just like how you sang it.
Cash: You didn’t let us bring it home.
Phillips: Bring it home? Alright, let’s bring it home; (Phillips leans forward with quiet intensity). If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing one song, one song that people would remember before you’re dirt, one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth, one song that would sum you up – you’re telling me that’s the song you’d sing? The same tune we hear on the radio all day?
Or, would you sing something different? Something real?
Something you felt, cause I’m telling you right now, that’s the kind of song that people want to hear, that’s the kind of song that truly saves people.
It ain’t got nothing to do with believing in God, Mr. Cash, it has to do with believing in yourself.
Cash: Well, I got a couple of songs I wrote in the Air Force, you got anything against the Air Force?
Phillips: (Shrugs his shoulders) No.
Cash: Well, I do.
Johnny Cash then calls out the key to his band (later known as the Tennessee Three) who had never played the tune before. The song he sings is “Folsom Prison Blues”. Phillips signed Cash to a recording contract on the spot and Cash began recording that day.
Johnny Cash turned out to be a stronger brand than Phillips had ever imagined. His “apathy killers” were:
- His deep, distinctive voice
- The “freight train” sound of his Tennessee Three back-up band
- His much publicized true passion for the inimitable June Carter
- His rugged, outlaw image reinforced by his dark clothing, which earned him the nickname “The Man in Black.”
The Grammy Award winning country singer sold over 90 million albums in his nearly fifty-year career and “Folsom Prison Blues” became a huge hit in 1968 even beating out the Beatles.
Sam Phillips, as demonstrated above, knew the value of branding and being separate from the pack. He was the first person in the South to have an “open” music format on the radio; i.e. playing both white and black artists, making stars out of both. Later, he hired only women as disk jockeys for his “All Girl Radio” format — another first. Most authorities credit Sun Records with producing the first Rock n’ Roll song “Rocket 88” in 1951. When Sun Records hit a cash flow crunch, Phillips sold his Elvis contract to RCA Records. Don’t feel sorry for him though – he invested the money in another great brand – the hotel chain “Holiday Inn”.
Brand well and prosper!
Andy Cleary