Stand by Me
April 28th, 2009 by Phil Johnson
There’s a good chance that you’ve seen this video on YouTube, or another social media site. If not, it’s quite beautiful. A group of filmmakers recorded musicians all over the world singing “Stand by Me,” by Ben E. King.
At first, you may think this is off-topic for a blog called The Complex Brand that addresses marketing issues facing companies driven by innovation. In fact, this video tells an interesting story that has relevance to exactly the kinds of companies that work with PJA.
At the obvious level, there’s a point about content. Almost 10 million people have watched this video because it’s mesmerizing. Creating viral content with this kind of impact has become the brass ring of social media. While technology or life science companies may never attract this number of viewers, the potential exists to reach tens of thousands of people if you can tap into the imaginations of your audience.
There’s a more significant point being made about collaboration. Besides being a cool song performed by some impressive performers, there’s an amazing dynamic at work. These performers don’t know each other. They’re performing the song without awareness of all the other musicians on the video who are singing the same song in different parts of the world. The filmmakers have turned this collection of vignettes into a seamless performance that couldn’t sound more unified in tone and spirit than if the musicians had played on the same stage. That’s where the film gets its power. Any one running an organization, or responsible for marketing, struggles every day to bring a diverse collection of voices together as one. This can provide inspiration for all of us.
I also see this video as a form of crowd sourcing. A group of independent people, without organizational ties, contributed their unique talents, to create this video. This is the same dynamic that gave us Linux software and Wikipedia. Going forward, crowd sourcing, and similar forms of collaboration, will likely shape the way we develop communication programs for all of our audiences.
Examples like this reveal the power available to all of us to develop new models for creating content and sharing it with the people. With some thought, and a little luck, it may help us discover new innovations for our own work.
