Lessons in Virality from Axl Rose's Unexpected Vocal Range

appetite for deconstruction...
lessons in virality from axl rose
Hannah Smith, Content Strategist, Distilled @hannah_bo_bann a

@hannah_bo_banna
appetite for deconstruction….
lessons in virality from axl rose
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
this is distilled

@hannah_bo_banna
we made this

@hannah_bo_banna
http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

1.8m page views; 100k+ ‘likes’; 4.5k+ tweets; 874 LRDs
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
insert sexy title
slide here...
& this guy commented...

@hannah_bo_banna
& they lived happily ever after...

a happy ending is nice, but rarely interesting
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
it’s about how you get there

@hannah_bo_banna
it wasn’t always like this

a few years ago we made this; it got just 31 ‘likes’
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
we *still* don’t always get it right

@hannah_bo_banna
but our strike rate has significantly improved

@hannah_bo_banna
how did we come to create this?

@hannah_bo_banna
let’s start at the beginning

@hannah_bo_banna
objectives of the content
core messaging
personality/brand values
target audience
target publishers
audience & publisher insights
content competitors
off-limits

increase brand awareness
(via press coverage,
social shares
& exposure on sites our target audience
read)
@hannah_bo_banna

earn links
(to build domain authority and increase
search visibility across the board)
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
core messaging

@hannah_bo_banna
personality & brand values

@hannah_bo_banna
geeky
irreverent
fun

“Remember way back when the internet was accessible only
via the dog whistle screech of your dial up modem?
@hannah_bo_banna
The internet was a brave new world;
albeit a decidedly slow and slightly crappy one…”

“This charming little ditty boasts many a sophisticated lyric -
"Hard like Geometry, and Trigonometry" (deep, huh?),
@hannah_bo_banna
multiple references to excrement
and a heart-felt line about morning glory.”

@hannah_bo_banna
target audience

@hannah_bo_banna
who are we trying to reach?

@hannah_bo_banna
target publishers

@hannah_bo_banna
what sites do our audience read?

@hannah_bo_banna
audience / publisher insights

@hannah_bo_banna
what do our audience share?
(& therefore)
what do our target publishers want to cover?

@hannah_bo_banna
content competitors

who else is doing interesting stuff in the space?
@hannah_bo_banna

ever wondered why all pop songs sound the same?
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
it’s pretty simple,
they all use the same four chords...

@hannah_bo_banna
Axis of Awesome - 4 Chords
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

@hannah_bo_banna
eeeek!
that’s what we’re up against...

@hannah_bo_banna
a quick note on ideas

@hannah_bo_banna
an idea
is a novel combination of
previously unconnected elements
in a way that adds value

the axis of awesome’s 4 chords is a great example....
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
you’ve probably thought this:
“hmmmm a lot of pop songs sound kinda the same…
why is that?”

@hannah_bo_banna
the answer:
“they use the same four chords…”

@hannah_bo_banna
you could just write a list of all the songs
that use the same chords...

it’s not until you show me that I really get it
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
why do pop songs sound
the same?
they use the same
4 chords
bring it to life with
a mash up
combining
previously
unconnected
elements
execute in a way
that adds value

@hannah_bo_banna
how did we come up with this idea?

@hannah_bo_banna
kick off with some questions:
could we look at why or how the different genres changed?
what if we could take one tune and make it change through
the genres, e.g. make it funk, heavy metal…?
what if you could make your own super group?

@hannah_bo_banna
explore ideas...

@hannah_bo_banna
intended to search for vocal solo...
but was curious about this auto suggest...

@hannah_bo_banna
found the range place
(http://therangeplace.forummotions.com/f1-range-stuff)

who’s the greatest singer is something that’s
@hannah_bo_banna
debated endlessly…
could we add to the conversation?

illustrate the vocal range of some of the most popular singers
@hannah_bo_banna

use vocal range data from the Range Place
@hannah_bo_banna

use Rolling Stone’s Greatest Singers of all Time
@hannah_bo_banna
as a seedlist

but the list from Rolling Stone is a little old
- shouldn’t we also include current artists?
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
solution:
add in The Billboard Music Award 2014 nominees
for top male and female artist

@hannah_bo_banna
so we *think* this is a good idea,
but how do you know for sure?

@hannah_bo_banna
you can’t ever be 100% certain

@hannah_bo_banna
but you can improve your strike rate

@hannah_bo_banna
we’re interested in what makes an idea
memorable & shareable

@hannah_bo_banna
by deconstructing the success of others
you can improve your own chances

@hannah_bo_banna
authors Chip & Dan Heath identified
6 factors make an idea ‘stick’:
simple
unexpected
concrete
credible
emotional
story

@hannah_bo_banna
& we’ve added one of our own:
simple
unexpected
concrete
credible
emotional
story
shareable

we evaluate our ideas based on these criteria
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
you don’t need to hit all 7,
but it helps you evaluate multiple ideas & see
which looks to be the strongest
it’s also a great set of criteria to refer back to as you’re
developing a piece

@hannah_bo_banna
this is much harder than it sounds

@hannah_bo_banna
if you can’t explain it to a 6 year old,
you don’t understand it yourself
~ Albert Einstein

@hannah_bo_banna
our idea sounds simple enough,
but we had to accept that we were talking about
a concept which is difficult for some people to grasp

we acknowledged that it wouldn’t be as simple
@hannah_bo_banna
as axis of awesome’s 4 chords
however
we felt that enough people would understand the concept
& we’d made it as simple as we could to understand

@hannah_bo_banna
we struck gold

@hannah_bo_banna
if mariah carey came out on top,
the piece wouldn’t have been so successful

we’re going to
win the space race
~ not said by JFK
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
‘win the space race’
is an abstraction
it’s intangible, no one knows what you mean

we’re going to put
a man on the moon
~ JFK
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
you can help make ideas concrete
with the language you use to describe them

what exactly were we trying to say here?
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
who is the best singer?

@hannah_bo_banna
vocal range ≠ quality

@hannah_bo_banna
axl has the biggest vocal range,
we’re not saying he’s the best singer

@hannah_bo_banna
the visuals you use are important too
good data visualisation helps
make abstract concepts more concrete

abstract
concept
@hannah_bo_banna
made more concrete
with the visual

@hannah_bo_banna
comes in two flavours:

@hannah_bo_banna
is the data credible?

@hannah_bo_banna
credible enough for our purposes

is this credible coming from concerthotels.com?
@hannah_bo_banna

only if we’re clear that we talking about the
vocal ranges of the world’s greatest singers
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
we can’t credibly claim to say
who the greatest singer is

we’ll leave that to
these guys...
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
this provokes an emotional reaction

@hannah_bo_banna
would our piece?

@hannah_bo_banna
again here, we struck gold

we knew this was something people were likely to get
@hannah_bo_banna
emotional about - but we didn’t realise
just how emotional they’d get

“this list is emblematic
of the decline of western civilisation…”
@hannah_bo_banna
~ commentor on the Daily Mail’s coverage

@hannah_bo_banna
“this ‘list’ seems very incomplete”
“I can’t believe they didn’t contact you
to round the selections out.”
~ conversation on HuffPo’s coverage

“whoever made this list is mentally ill”
@hannah_bo_banna
~ commentor on Rolling Stone

@hannah_bo_banna
have you uncovered a story?

plus we also had the Billboard Music Awards
@hannah_bo_banna
nominees in there

@hannah_bo_banna
that turned out to be less important

@hannah_bo_banna
this guy was the story

@hannah_bo_banna
would someone look good sharing this?

@hannah_bo_banna
we felt that the unexpected result
+
the emotion (both positive & negative) sparked by the piece
would cause people to share the piece

& the piece went far further than we thought possible
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
hindsight is 20/20
it’s different when you’re in the moment

we *always* get nervous before launching a piece
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
you can never be 100% confident

here are some of the things we debated pre-launch
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
do we need more functionality
to help people understand the piece?

should we include clips of the artists singing
@hannah_bo_banna
those notes?

a nice feature, but are we just adding complexity?
@hannah_bo_banna

can we even do that - what about music rights?
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
should the keyboard work?

we included the visual of the keyboard to help people
‘see’ the vocal range but would hearing it help?
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
again, a nice feature, but
would it actually aid understanding?

@hannah_bo_banna
what are the implications of doing that?
what will it cost?
will we have to delay launch?

@hannah_bo_banna
we have a responsibility to our clients
to get the best results for the least investment

@hannah_bo_banna
our job isn’t to
build the most excellent thinger on the internet

@hannah_bo_banna
our job is to
get results for our clients

we debated delaying the launch to increase functionality
@hannah_bo_banna

but if we did that we’d miss our window with the
@hannah_bo_banna
Billboard Music Awards
& we thought that was a great hook

we decided that the added functionality
wasn’t necessary to the success of the piece
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
in this instance we were right

@hannah_bo_banna
however,
less functionality
shouldn’t be your default position

there will be instances where functionality
@hannah_bo_banna
is necessary

@hannah_bo_banna
152k ‘likes’; 12.6k tweets; 739 LRDs
http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

if this piece had been static as opposed to animated, it
@hannah_bo_banna
wouldn’t have told the story
& we wouldn’t have got the results

@hannah_bo_banna
so what happened when we launched
the vocal ranges piece?

@hannah_bo_banna
there were 4 waves of coverage

@hannah_bo_banna
wave 1:
coverage focused on a claim that wasn’t made in the piece:
Axl Rose was being named as the
greatest singer of all time

@hannah_bo_banna
wave 2:
journalists slate others for drawing
inaccurate conclusions from the piece

@hannah_bo_banna
wave 3:
counter-claim: Mike Patton (Faith No More) is found to have
the greatest vocal range

@hannah_bo_banna
wave 4:
Axl Rose comments

@hannah_bo_banna
controversy attracts coverage
but not always in the way you might expect...

it can be hard to get a brand mention for a piece of content
- particularly when you’re not using proprietary data
@hannah_bo_banna

but when journalists are attempting to deflect the trolls
they’ll mention the brand early & prominently
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
please note:

@hannah_bo_banna
results like this don’t just
*happen*

we spent over 60 hours promoting this piece
@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna
& our efforts paid off

@hannah_bo_banna
the bigger picture

@hannah_bo_banna
getting good at this stuff is hard

@hannah_bo_banna
no, really hard

@hannah_bo_banna
there’s a few things we do
which we think have helped us get better

@hannah_bo_banna
focus on ideas, not formats

@hannah_bo_banna
a music infographic is not an idea;
it’s a format

@hannah_bo_banna
know your sh*t

@hannah_bo_banna
has this already been done?
is it possible to do this?
will our audience share it?
will our target publishers cover it?
have we got proof something like this as worked before?

@hannah_bo_banna
know you’re sh*t

@hannah_bo_banna
or more accurately,
when your ideas are sh*t

@hannah_bo_banna
evaluate all your ideas
simple / unexpected / concrete / credible /
emotional / story / shareable
to give yourself the best chance of success

@hannah_bo_banna
good luck out there x

@hannah_bo_banna
thank you ☺

Hannah Smith
Content Strategist, Distilled
caffeine addict; book worm;
would really like a unicorn...
send cat pictures or questions to:
hannah.smith@distilled.net
@hannah_bo_banna

credits
Images:
axl - http://www.nolandalla.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/axl-rose.jpg
happy ever after - http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/c8972ec570efebca114372a3895032aeb98e5858_m.jpg
strike: http://www.twobluecommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/bowling.jpg
unexpected - http://thabto.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/shocked-face.jpg
emotional - http://adland.tv/ooh/feed-sa-trolley-ambient-south-africa
gold - http://www.4khdwallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gold-texture-wallpaper-7.jpg
no - http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9w1aqMfCG1qz6f9yo1_r2_500.jpg
rolling stone cover - http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d8/0c/41/d80c41d517f2fbe3bd86614d506832b3.jpg
audience - http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/audience.jpg
swing - https://www.flickr.com/photos/21745851@N00/4805435840
danbo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadic_lass/6889892777/in/set-72157629144987013
unicorn - http://queenofheartsonthesleeve.tumblr.com/post/58736423727/ok-not-much-but-here-it-is-3
Big love to to the wonderful Distilled folks who helped me put this together:
Adria Saracino, Mark Johnstone, Paddy Moogan, Phil Nottingham, Tim Allen, & Will Critchlow

Lessons in Virality from Axl Rose's Unexpected Vocal Range

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Lessons in Virality from Axl Rose's Unexpected Vocal Range