There’s a secret society operating under the surface of digital marketing. It includes some of the most influential people working in B2B, content marketing, SEO and social media generally. It’s created opportunities for its members, spread new ideas like wildfire, set the marketing agenda through bestselling books and podcasts – and yet also found the time to mosh, crowdsurf, play an unashamed air guitar and generally rock the hell out! That’s right – the future of marketing is being shaped by heavy metal.
You think I’m kidding? Think tattoos and a passion for Black Sabbath have no place in a serious profession like B2B content marketing? Think no senior marketer would make time to listen to people who get very, very excited when Guns n’ Roses reform? Let me tell you a story about my journey into the secret world of the heavy metal marketer – it might just open your eyes.
When I was first starting out in B2B content marketing, I met a fellow called Brian Clark at a conference. Turned out he and I had a similar deep love for heavy metal and hard rock from the 80s – and we bonded. It also turned out that Brian was the founder of Copyblogger, and one of the top five people in the world teaching marketers how to do content well. Just like that, I had an “in” to the content marketing elite. Soon, I was guest blogging for Copyblogger and speaking at their annual conference. That heavy metal connection with Brian has had a huge influence on my content marketing career.
Maybe you could put that one incident down to chance – I managed to run into the one influential content marketer who happened to get as excited about Kiss and Twisted Sister as I do. The metalhead got lucky. However, as my career in content marketing has moved forward, I keep finding this same guitar-shredding, face-melting theme coming up time and again. Here are just some of the heavy metal marketers I’ve met, bonded with and worked with along the way – and their take on why the cult of heavy metal marketing is so alive and well:
Brian Clark, founder and CEO of Copyblogger (now Rainmaker Digital)
Still one of the most influential content marketers around, he’s now created the Rainmaker content marketing platform and in 2015, he had punk icon Henry Rollins keynote Copyblogger’s Authority conference. People have been talking about it ever since.
Favourite metal album of all time: Shout at the Devil, Mötley Crüe, 1983
Why are so many B2B marketers metalheads? I’m not sure – isn’t that just Jason Miller
Tony Clark, Copyblogger co-founder and Rainmaker COO (no relation to Brian) Search on @nestguy and @JasonMillerCA on Twitter, and you’ll see how Tony and my working relationship is almost entirely defined by heavy metal banter.
Favourite metal album of all time: Holy Diver, Dio, 1983 or Powerslave, Iron Maiden, 1984
To me Metal was about rebellion, clarity, action, and community. As a B2B marketer, you have to have those same qualities to do it right
Mitch Joel, president of Mirium
Besides running a top, WPP-owned digital marketing agency, Mitch has published two bestsellers on business and marketing, and hosts a very popular marketing podcsst. However, he’s still got time to run his own award-winning hard music label, and is building, via podcast, an oral history of electric bass players. Oh, and he’s writing the forward for a coffee table book celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Transmission album by the Tea Party – a Toronto band and one of my faves. The man is not to be outdone – in marketing or metal.
Favourite metal album of all time: Really doesn’t like to choose but okay – Reign in Blood, Slayer, 1986
Intense music. Energy. The very real possibility that a riot could break out at any minute. Sounds exactly like, B2B marketing, no?
Chis Brogan, CEO of Owner Media Group
Chris is another marketing overachiever who can tell you without batting an eye how it’s possible to slip an extra three hours into any day. His latest book, The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth, speaks to the value of “shining your bat signal” in business situations. As far as he’s concerned, that means talking about your love of metal every chance you get.
Favourite metal album of all time: The Black Album, Metallica, 1991 or Peace Sells, Megadeth, 1986
Metal relates to the creativity and open mind that make us better marketers
That’s not all. I’ve got friends like Travis Wright, Scott Stratten, and Brian Solis who got extraordinarily excited about Guns n Roses reforming – and made sure they caught the band on this year’s tour. They’ve been raving about it socially, not least on a Facebook page dedicated to heavy metal marketers that’s been started by Mitch Joel.
Lee Odden, co-founder and CEO of TopRank Marketing recognised the immense spiritual importance of taking his kids to see the last ever Black Sabbath tour. And I just got back from the Monsters of Rock Cruise (imagine the ultimate heavy metal festival, then transport it to a giant ship cruising around the Caribbean), with my mate, Brian Carter, the ultimate Facebook Marketing expert. The pair of us also made time to nip off and see AC/DC in Cleveland during Content marketing World last year. In fact, that’s him sneaking into the left of the selfie that Mitch Joel took of us at the gig.
And it's certainly not a boys club either. There are lots of kick-butt women marketers with whom I've bonded over metal. Senior Demand Gen manager at Oracle Amanda Ferrante Batista is a huge metal fan as is marketing thought leader and Hootsuite's director of industry leadership Amber Naslund. Heck, even my boss Nico Lutkins' favorite band in the world is Guns N Roses and we are currently planning a team outing to the upcoming show in London this Summer!
Everywhere you look, there seem to be heavy metal marketers just waiting to put their hand up. But where does this all come from? Why should a genre that was last truly mainstream a quarter of a century ago be so influential within marketing? You may say it’s coincidence – or maybe a generational thing – but I think there are deeper causes at work, and I’ve got science to back me up on this.
Studies have linked heavy metal to high intelligence (both because the music itself is more complex than many people realise, and because it helps intelligent people to deal with stress). Other research has shown how heavy metal reduces anger and depression – and how it helps people come to terms with their own mortality. To summarise all the science very quickly: smart people are more likely than average to enjoy heavy metal music, and in return they end up with a far more balanced outlook on life.
Whether you accept that science or not, it’s undeniably the case that feeling part of a community – and connecting to people in your sphere of work on a deeper level – has huge benefits. Perhaps the greatest advantage that heavy metal marketers really have is the fact that they are happy to talk about heavy metal with other heavy metal marketers. There’s a deep feeling of belonging that comes from that. It helps to break down barriers, gets people talking, and fuels creativity in the process.
If you’re reading this post and you’ve been hiding your love of Slayer, Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath for fear of it undermining your professional credibility, then I’d urge you to throw off the shackles and start sharing your love of thrash with the world. We work in a profession where creativity is celebrated and diversity adds to that creativity. Marketing works best when marketers are empowered to be themselves – so next time you’re at a networking event, don’t just start a standard conversation about the weather, bring up The Clash and see what happens.
What if you just plain, honestly, don't like heavy metal? After all, not everyone gets the same enjoyment out of a Steve Vai or Eddie Van Halen solo. This should never hold you back. Not liking heavy metal should no more get in the way of a marketing career than liking it does.
If the secret cult of heavy metal marketers became some new type of marketing orthodoxy then I think it would lose its real value. My experience in marketing has always been about daring to be yourself, even when you assume that self is different to everyone else, and then finding surprising common ground with others on that basis. That applies just as strongly if your thing is jazz – or folk music. It applies just as strongly if you don’t listen to music at all – but have a deep hidden passion for obscure science fiction, needlecraft, the paintings of Mark Rothko, if you spend your weekends birdwatching or surveying stained glass windows in old churches. What you are almost always has more creative value and credibility than you think.
Rock on marketers – heavy metal or otherwise.
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