Content marketing sure sounds great but it isn’t always easy for marketers to embrace.
It’s a different process.
Done by different people.
At different agencies.
With different costs.
And a fundamental requirement to not talk about your brand 24/7.
What are brands supposed to talk about then?
At the heart of any content marketing strategy is the Brand Belief, the fundamental belief that goes beyond products and services instead of being defined by them.
Whole Foods doesn’t believe in organic groceries, they believe in community.
Red Bull doesn’t believe in caffeinated beverages, they believe that people need a kick in ass to step outside their comfort zone.
Those are great but Guitar Center may have the best sounding Brand Belief of them all.
This Guitar Center video was shared by Suzanne Pope over at Ad Teachings. And we love it.
They could believe in the guitars.
They could believe in the holy chords, G-C-D.
They could believe in learning an instrument.
But those would be far too boring and far too product focused. Consumers would skip right by them and the content, not to mention the conversation, would dry up almost instantaneously.
Instead, they believe in something greater.
They state, “All we sell is the greatest feeling on earth.”
Just reading that line makes me want to harness my inner Bon Jovi and belt out a ballad to a stadium full of adoring, Bic-lighter waving fans who would, undoubtedly, sing the chorus with me at the top of their lungs before stopping to say, “We love you, man!”
Of course, that magical feeling is the one that someone gets when another human responds to something they’ve created or performed. Ask any musician and they’ll tell you that it is the greatest feeling on earth. It’s what gets them up. It’s what keeps them going. And it’s what makes all the strumming, picking, and rehearsing worthwhile.
Now that’s something to sell.
That’s something to believe in.
Their products play a role in that feeling but Guitar Center’s not selling the instruments.
They’re selling the feeling that one gets from using the instruments.
The video above is with Questlove but their brand belief inspires months and months of non-stop content:
How do other musicians describe the greatest feeling on earth?
What was it like the first time they experienced it?
How would they describe it in a painting? In spoken word?
Videos, pictures, poems, articles, and more. Tweets, Facebook posts, Pins, Vines, and stuff for platforms that haven’t even been invented yet.
Presenting interesting content that’s all tied back to a consistent brand belief will interest consumers. Some of those will buy guitars hoping to create the greatest feeling on earth for themselves.
With a clear Brand Belief and an organized content calendar, Guitar Center could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
Here’s hoping they do.
