An old marketing textbook I have defines “brand activation” as “placing your brand in an ownable physical or emotional space where it can interact meaningfully with your consumer”. Or words to that effect anyway.
So when Metallica chose to film the title track of their new album “ST ANGER” in California’s infamous San Quentin Prison in May 2003 – I reckoned I had a perfect example of excellent Brand Activation. After all, Hard Times call for Hard Rock, don’t they?
Metallica’s music, characterized by thumping base riffs, maniacal lead breaks and obsessive, rage-filled lyrics deals in themes ranging from insanity; monsters and drugs to loss, death and retribution.
In San Quentin, it seemed, there was no better stage for a meditation on one of man’s darkest emotions.
The prison, which opened in 1852, is California’s premium death row facility with an occupancy rate of over 170%. Most infamously, it was home to the deranged Charles Manson as well as to former gangster turned children’s book author Stanley Tookie Williams; executed there by lethal injection in December, 2005, (thanks Arnie).
The video opens with the tail-end of a safety briefing at the penitentiary gates. “This prison has a no hostage policy”, warns a guard. His way of saying “if the song don’t go down too well, forget rotten tomatoes...you boys better have your soap-on-a rope!”
Filmed within the main cell blocks and in the yard during exercise break, the thunder merges seamlessly with a seething wash of condemned humanity. From tattooed, muscle-bound monstrosities to demented, slack-jawed junkies – there’s enough here visually to give even the most ardent metal-head a rush.
Said Joel Amsterdam, a spokesman for Elektra Records, “it's sort of the perfect place for a song like this.” Not sort of Joel. It’s perfect period. And not just for the inmates. For the law abiding fans too. I’m not a huge Metallica fan but when I saw the video, I sat up and listened. And even forked out big bucks to go see them when they came to play in Durbs on their world tour a year or so later.
I was fascinated to learn later however that the foursome was by no means the first musical outfit to perform at SQ. Artists such as Johnny Cash, blues legend BB King as well as Santana had come to perform here before, probably more out of some philanthropic urge than the need to launch an album.
In short, none performed here with as much style or in a manner as congruent with their constitution as Metallica did. The fit, as Amsterdam so deftly pointed out, was perfect.
The St Anger Video perfectly highlights the difference between brand activation and brand promotion. Brand Promotions are so often rushed affairs where tactics and mechanics are prioritised over deeply meaningful communication. But the results are rarely distinctive.
But for activators like Metallica the journey begins with an exhaustive distillation of what made the brand famous in the first place. By prioritising this richness over tactics the result is always distinctive and true to the brand.
So Metallica chose to distil anger, rebellion and rage – hallmark values of their brand of metal, by choosing the meanest, baddest penitentiary in the US as a “staging area” for their message. Then as now, San Quentin was the perfect sump that embodied those values - and thus a pristine mechanism for the launch of the new album – even though others artists (Cash, King et al) had been there before.
Though St Anger itself wasn’t as successful as other Metallica Albums, (it only won one Grammy), the band remains one of Rock’s most successful outfits, having sold over 100 million albums worldwide and earned 9 Grammy’s.
Other examples of great staging areas (whether physical or emotional) are found in Dove’s campaign for real beauty, Jordan Cereals “The Big Buzz”, Nike’s “Run London”, Volvo’s Ocean Race and Innocent’s “Big Knit”
· What does your brand stand for?
· What is the perfect “staging area” for this?
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