Jingles jangle, but the messages stick

JULIE MIDDLETON steps warily into the catchy world of corporate anthems, where they even have words that rhyme with "technology."


Imagine a highly naff Eurovision song contest entry - tinkly digital piano, limp synthesisers, proud choir - married to this:

KPMG/We're strong as can be/A dream of power and energy/We go for the goal/Together we hold/On to our vision of global strategy ...

Call it kitsch, call it earnest, the corporate anthem, common in the 1930s among large US firms - and still firing up many Asian companies today - is back.

A pretty sound it is not. Vainglorious, sappy and set to deeply unsexy lyrics (you try finding a rhyme for "technology"), corporate anthems are the latest way to pump up staff and build company pride.

The American magazine Fast Company says KPMG's anthem was commissioned in 1999 for a European consultants' conference from Frankfurt musician-songwriter Tom Schlueter.

"We sing it every morning in the foyer," says KPMG's New Zealand national marketing manager, Robyn McNaught, before bursting into laughter. "It's a bit naff!"

Then, remembering the journo's notebook and perhaps her bosses' reaction, "It's OK - it's uplifting."

Actually, KPMG has no plans to use the anthem in New Zealand.

Whew.

We should also be relieved that Deutsche Bank and Novell officials in New Zealand have not heard overseas colleagues' musical efforts and have no plans to emulate them here.

Which means we're not likely to hear this: Hey hey, these are Novell days/Hey, hey, bursting technology wave ...

Corporate anthems would probably have remained just part of sales team rark-ups if it weren't for 22-year-old Londoner Chris Raettig, who in March set up the truly scary website www.corporateanthems.raettig.org.

In this musical chamber of cringe you'll find chest-beating from Novell, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deutsche Bank, consultants McKinsey, mobile phone purveyors Ericsson, and General Electric.

Raettig says he "knocked up" the "quick and dirty page" for friends after receiving a copy of the KPMG anthem, "and then it kind of spiralled out of control."

"Disappointingly, I haven't yet had any cease-and-desist letters."

In early April, the site's peak, it recorded 120,000 hits a day - the sort of traffic corporates dream about.

Raettig is now getting hits and contributions, including artful spoofs, from all over the world.

Marvel that anyone could even comprehend writing a sexy song about telephony networking infrastructure. Hear the teutonic mastermix of KPMG's anthem - Rammstein-inspired jackbooted chants compulsory.

More proof of a worrying trend: the UK's Conservative Party in March commissioned an inspiring election theme, penned by songwriter Mike Batt, best-known for the immortal Remember You're a Womble.

But it's a woman with a distinctly bedroom voice who provides the inspiration in Ericsson's Network Intelligence, created for the company's Utah BrainShare conference in March:

Wanna store your numbers, boy/Then you really need a toy called SDP/Well, don't you see/When it gets your routine right/Even in the darkest night/An SCP, what a brilliant idea ...

Rousing chorus? Check. Squalling guitar break? Check.

Also check earnest and cheesy for PricewaterhouseCoopers' Your World.

The he-she duet again starts with the ubiquitous digital piano, and moves on to this:

PriceWaterhouseCoopers/In unity we stand/PriceWaterhouseCoopers/Sounding like a band/We don't sell no dogmas/What we've got is skill/Pricewaterhouse Coopers/For each and every client's will ...

The song was written three years ago by the company's Cyprus office to mark the marriage of PW and C, says New Zealand marketing manager Cecilia Burgess.

Accompanied by a video of "sparkling seas" and "really neat tourist shots," it cuts to shiny, happy people in the office "with telephones to their ears, singing to the music."

Her verdict? "It's fairly cheesy, but it's totally appropriate for that market.

"We played it at a couple of internal conferences."

Staff reaction? "General mirth," she admits.

"It's very earnest."

But one who appears to take his corporate anthem seriously is General Electric's David Read, a vice-president in Australia. "I get inspired," he says of the saccharine We Bring Good Things to Life.

"I always play that at the beginning of my presentations." He doesn't appear to be joking.

But the idea of "singing a mission statement" is "beyond redemption. It sucks," says James Hall, the creative director of Auckland professional


Head1: Jingles jangle, but the messages stick


TurnFrom1:


Body1: music producers Soundtrax.

"Ninety-nine per cent of popular music is about bonking," he says, "and the other 1 per cent is about thinking about bonking."

No matter how artful the emotional manipulation, widgets, gadgets and balance sheets don't take us to the same place.

But not all listeners mock so severely - among them Auckland musical partners Malcolm Smith and Steve Keats.

The pair has about 300 jingles on air at present, promoting companies as diverse as ferry company Fullers and shopping centre Lynmall.

"We know what these guys have had to go through to create these songs," says Keats. "They [the songs] only work on sales reps - trying to pump them up. They could never go on the radio."

Invariably, clients provide lists of buzzwords, but it's up to Keats to create lyrics and Smith to put it all to music.

And that'll be $15,000, thank you.

They've done anthems for companies such as Marsanta Foods, and some of the lyrics for their Country Foods morale-booster:

The power to shape tomorrow/Is in our reach today/It's up to us to change the rules/And make it work our way.

Says Keats: "None of these words are sexy. But if you can tie the emotion of music with the facts, they stick. It's not what turns us on, but what turns sales reps on."

If an anthem can help keep staff motivated for a whole year, he says, then it's done its job.

There is method in this apparent corporate madness. Words hitched to music are retained by the brain in a way words alone are not.

That's why the alphabet is taught to a tune, says Keats, and probably why about 30 per cent of the jingles the pair write end up on company telephone muzak systems. Familiarity breeds catchiness, even if it's highly irritating.

Says Keats: "It's brainwashing. They [corporate anthems] set up a franchise in your mind."

Psychology professor Michael Corballis says there is plenty academics don't understand about music and the brain.

That includes why the most painful advertising ditties wedge in our minds.

Words are easier to recall when associated with something else - like the mnemonics you cram before exams.

Language and music individually activate opposite sides of the brain, says Corballis; he speculates that "connections across the brain" work together to enhance recall.

And that might be helpful if you're a sales rep needing some pre-battle, I-believe priming. Reach for that corporate chant.

Send us your corporate witty ditty

Why shouldn't New Zealand companies also enjoy the uplifting experience of singing a corporate anthem? Send us a witty ditty celebrating your company and we'll publish the best.

The winner will receive a musical prize pack of five CDs courtesy of EMI NZ.

They are Robbie Williams' Sing When You Are Winning; St Germain's Tourist; The Relaxomatic Project's self-titled debut; Paul McCartney and Wings' retrospective Wingspan; and Lazy Sunday, a compilation of various artists.

Business Herald editor Jim Eagles has already written his entry (to the tune of Hark the Herald Angels Sing):

Hark the Herald presses roar,

Bringing news to rich and poor.

War and famine, joy and rage,

Shock and shame on every page.

From their beds our readers rise,

Scan the news with thrilled surprise.

Thus informed they meet the day,

Minds improved in every way.

Thus informed they meet the day,

Glad their Herald bill to pay.


* Send your entries to: julie_middleton@nzherald.co.nz; fax 373-6423; PO Box 32, Auckland.

Links

Corporate anthems

Smith and Keats