Saas Marketer - Why Do B2B Ads Avoid Good Music?

B2B’s Annoyingly Bland Habit: Elevator Music

🛗 Elevator Music Isn’t Always Bad, But…

A few weeks back, famed indie-rock cheeky boy, Mac Demarco, released a 199 song album comprised of unfinished, half-baked demos from his harddrive. A very easy listening album, made up mostly of instrumentals that sound like top notch elevator music and aren't pretending to be anything else. It’s so self aware of this, in fact, that barely any of the songs have actual names, just the dates they were made and a number to mark its creation.

Here’s the thing though, Mac’s earned this and has a whole brand behind him of great, funky, and chill songs. His recently funky elevator music isn’t really all that bad because, well, it’s Mac Demarco. It’s fun to see the different ideas and themes he’s floated around and dipped in and out of.

But B2B brands, here’s a reality check: you ain’t Mac Demarco. Stop using bland, stock-free elevator music in your advertising and marketing, because it’s way more than likely that your competitors are using it too, resulting in audiences and consumers getting you confused with other brands.

Whether it’s boopity little synths or a four chord, plucky acoustic guitar, you’ve gotta stop and think of something new, man.

Think about an iconic film for a second: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, Jurassic Park. Literally, think of any film and I can promise you that it has a soundtrack that, if you were to remove it, would dramatically tarnish the film.
 
I can hear you saying now, ‘But Sam, films and advertisements are completely different! That’s like comparing apples and oranges.’ 

Okay well first of all, you can compare apples and oranges, I’ve always hated that saying. They’re both fruits; one is citrus and the other is pomaceous. There, comparison done.

Secondly, plenty of advertisements outside of the B2B world (particularly in B2C) have put in incredible attention to the music they use, and you most likely remember them because of it. Remember the Cadbury advert with the gorilla playing Phil Collins on drums? Or how about the classic 70s Coca Cola ad, ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke’?

If we were to remove the music from literally any sort of moving media, it would lose all gravitas and meaning. Or worse, if we were to replace that music with bland, generic music it would end up being forgotten, and that’s the last thing any marketing or ad campaign wants. 

So, B2B marketers, what’s your excuse?

I think there’s a sort of subconscious thought in B2B that the royalty free, stock corporate music is what’s wanted and that it’s just a given when it comes to their marketing. I don’t think this is at all deliberate, it’s just been done so many times that it’s hard to get out of that particular habit, to break free from the same systems.

Now before you start writing in and telling me ‘DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT COSTS FOR GENUINE, LICENSED MUSIC!?’... hold your flipping horses.

I’m not suggesting that you go out and pay thousands of pounds (or dollars, or wherever you are) on licensed music (although I could make an argument as to why it could be beneficial for you to do so if you have the right marketing campaign… but I digress). I’m just saying that perhaps it’s time to disrupt the system by hiring someone to make music for you or even just choosing a different genre of stock music. You don’t have to be limited to just one thing.

B2B ads, as we established in a previous article, have been getting weirder, to the point where it’s sometimes hard to believe that corporate heads have allowed them to be. So let’s start taking a leaf out of B2C’s book, hm? Let’s put way more effort into the music we include and the videos we make. Let’s really shake things up and blow the world away.

Corporate ad music is boring and, if I’m being honest, quite shit. Are you going to take the first leap into B2B music originality?

Read on the web >>

Love it or hate it, one thing is clear: you can’t escape Fiverr, and there’s a very good reason for that. It’s not so much that their concept is simple (which it is), rather it’s that it’s communicated concisely and very well.
 
We tend to favour silly jokes here at SaaS Marketer Weekly, but sometimes the old adage of ‘less is more’ makes a lot of sense:

I was going to end this with another LinkedIn post parody but I just don’t have it in me. It really sucks the soul right out of you.

Have a wonderful rest of your week everyone!

Keep growing,
Saas Marketer

P.S. This week’s edition of SaaS Marketer Weekly is brought to you by… drumroll please!

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