Many questions arise after hearing this person’s surprising tale of a CEO who loved an employee’s company song.
Does a company need an anthem? Like an actual full song about said establishment? There’s nothing wrong with having a jingle about your company — there are a few jingles that come to mind that are totally iconic. Part of why those jingles developed icon status is because a team of supremely talented people took the time to write, perform, and edit that song into a commercial. They found the right singer to perform it, spent hours in the booth getting things just right, and added instrumentation from talented musicians. Sure, that costs money, but good things don’t come cheap. And you can’t just buy brand recognition. You need to have a sound so iconic, so instantly recognizable, so catchy and earwormy, that even little kids can memorize it.
Sometimes I wonder if, in the age of AI-generated media, the age of iconic branding is over. AI might never make a really fantastic song, video, or piece of writing. All it can do is ingest the works of everything it’s fed, the songs of hundreds of humans who lived before it, then regurgitate that slop up to its audience. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly like slop. I think it’s nice when a human being is paid to create something based on their own human experiences and talents.
However, I fear I may be both biased on this topic (as a creative myself), and hold the minority opinion. A lot of people seem to enjoy the slop. If your “company song” is just generated by a machine that’s taken a gulp of music across history, swished it around, and spat it back out, that’s going to be quite an interesting look for your company. Is that really the image you want your company to project? If you had to choose between a regular beverage or a drink that someone swished around in their mouth then drooled onto the floor, which would you pick?
Although people feel various ways about using generative AI, we can all agree that it’s a cheap thing to do. Oh, your company’s using AI instead of paying a songwriter? Is your company about to go broke? Do you need to start a GoFundMe to keep your company afloat? Oh, you don’t? Your company is just using second-rate, shoddy stuff? Well, that says a great deal about said establishment, doesn’t it? Advertising is about styling your company; it’s a matter of taste, and this taste is gross.
I hope this CEO rethinks his obsession with this song before someone reveals to him that it’s slop… otherwise, everyone else will just continue to giggle at him behind his back. As for the janitor, if he has artistic visions, he should pick up any instrument, or start belting out a tune, and create that song himself. It won’t be perfect, but at least it’ll be part of an artistic pursuit about a subject he clearly feels strongly about.
Author: Kayitsi.com
