What System of a Down can teach Lawyers about Marketing and the Creative Process
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
A while ago, I came across this interview with Rick Rubin. In the interview, Rubin describes the creative process behind System of a Down’s (“SOAD”) most famous song ‘Chop Suey!’.
And I do genuinely think that it can serve as a good analogy for the marketing process companies go through. And it would be worth lawyers learning from it too. Even though I may get some abusive emails from SOAD fans…
Many of you will know the band, SOAD.
For those who don’t (because you were too busy faffing around with Taylor Swift and Whitney Houston), SOAD are a heavy metal band. Heavy metal is a type of rock music… Rock music is a type of music which centres around the electric guitar, electric bass and drums… Music is… I’ll stop there.
Source: abc.net.au
In case some of you don’t believe me when I say that SOAD are epic and ‘Chop Suey!’ is awesome, here are some stats.
The below should prove that SOAD are a marketing success:
- ‘Chop Suey!’ has been streamed on YouTube 1.3 billion times. Compare that to your LinkedIn post which got 4 likes….
- ‘Chop Suey!’ appeared on the album ‘Toxicity’. ‘Toxicity’ sold 220,000 copies in its first week of release.
- ‘Toxicity’ went on to sell at least 12 million copies worldwide.
SOAD are absolute tanks.
The story goes like this….
Rick Rubin is one of the most famous music producers in the world. He has worked with the likes of Johnny Cash, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Jay-Z, Adele…
I mean come on guys, Adele - need I say anymore!
He looks a bit like, if the creator of Rick and Morty also liked shouting ‘you shall not pass!’:
Source: newsweek.com
He is famous for having musicians over to his house for several days. His house is filled with artefacts from around the world and books on transcendental meditation. It is meant to be an inspirational environment for the creative process.
SOAD were in Rubin’s house recording ‘Chop Suey!’.
They reach a certain part of the song where they have the melody but the lead singer, Serj Tankian, was stuck for lyrics. He could not think of the perfect words.
Rick Rubin then suggested Tankian pick a book from his library and just read the first line he sees.
Serj Tankian opened a book and read the lines which would eventually become the lyrics:
Father, into your hands
Why have you forsaken me?
In your eyes forsaken me
In your thoughts forsaken me
In your heart forsaken me
It doesn’t make sense. But it works. And it helped complete one of the best rock songs of all time.
The rest is history. But this insight applies to marketing.
How does this apply to law?
Great marketers talk about being open-minded to serendipity. And random mistakes which could actually lead to something you never thought of.
Rory Sutherland likens the marketing process to detective work. When you have the full story looking back, it makes logical sense. But when you are looking forward, however, it is messy and opaque. Many murder cases are solved because some seemingly useless piece of information is disclosed by a random eyewitness.
Similarly, Audi’s slogan “Vorsprung durch Technik” (meaning, being ahead through technology) came about because Sir John Hegarty saw a faded poster on an Audi factory wall 40 years ago. The phrase stuck in his mind, and it ended up capturing the imagination of a generation. On this, Hegarty says, "this is the incidental nature of creativity, looking, watching, hearing stuff and it all goes in."
Harry Dry says that you need to encourage people to make mistakes and allow people to be wrong. (Something which law firms may or may not be good at….)
Serj Tankian could have opened the book and read: ‘can I have one portion of chicken and chips and one Doner Kebab please?’ He didn’t. Instead he found the lyrics that would make up one of the most successful heavy metal songs of all time.
To be fair though – most theories think he picked up the bible. And the lines are actually fragments of scripture. I don’t think I have seen the term ‘Doner Kebab’ in any of the gospels…
…but you get the point.
It is that playing around that is needed. You need to be open to ideas. And to serendipity.
Great marketers and business people are often ‘tinkerers’. They play around with things until some random combination produces, often, magic.
Marketers will often say that ‘there’s something there’ about an idea they have. Because they’re fumbling around in the dark. They have an idea, which is the raw clay. They just need to mould it into something great. And figure out the process to get there.
This is different to the legal brain. The legal brain is about precision. Analysis. Giving a well-argued, logical answer.
The marketing brain is about saying: would this random idea work? Not sure. Is there any certainty of results? No. Is it logical? Definitely no. But let’s give it a go anyway.
It is by playing around. Experimenting. That you come up with an innovative way of communicating with clients… That you discover a new practice area… That you create a completely distinct brand for yourself…
Or, if you’re SOAD. It’s how you create an absolute banger of a song.
Where did I learn this?
- Rory Sutherland talks about the detective work analogy in Chapter 1.17 of his book, ‘Alchemy’.
- Read more about the Audi slogan here.
- Harry Dry talks about the need to allow yourself to make mistakes on this podcast.
- I didn’t mention this above, but I also think the AirBnB CEO’s DOAC interview touches on something similar. Essentially you need to ‘combine divergent ideas’ and spin them around in your head for a long time before you eventually produce something.
Kindest regards,
Mr Donoghue
