The Times: The online hit parade of cringeworthy company songs
Think of it as Pop Idol for management consultants - a popularity contest for that most cringeworthy of corporate endeavours, the motivational company song. By David Rowan
Once merely the private embarrassment of firms such as McKinsey and KPMG, the rousing corporate anthem has emerged through the Internet as a cult musical genre with hundreds of thousands of devoted fans.
Now it has even gained its own official pop chart - with companies including IBM and Deutsche Bank fighting it out to win the popular vote for songs that really should have stayed in the boardroom. This week's chart-topper is McKC from McKinsey & Company, whose research division boasts in song that "challenges engage us, nothing really fazes us; come hell or high water, you can always count on us."
McKinsey narrowly beat the rival consultancy KPMG, whose in-house song Vision of Global Strategy suggests that No 2 is not good enough. "We will be number one, with effort and fun," the lyrics promise. "Together each of us will run for gold that shines like the sun in our eyes."
Such is the fan base around these anthems that KPMG's song has inspired jungle and heavy-rock tributes, as well as a Nokia phone ring-tone.
It is a "god-awful but heartfelt anthem", according to Chris Raettig, 23, a London-based web programmer who discovered the song. Since then he has turned what marketing departments defend as "aural branding" into an Internet phenomenon. Mr Raettig was working for a small technical consultancy firm early last year when a colleague e-mailed him a copy of the KPMG song. He decided to create a web page to chronicle other examples - "a compendium of corporate cringe" - that within a week had attracted 200,000 visitors. As anonymous whistleblowers continued to submit anthems, Mr Raettig's site collapsed under the weight of more than one million visitors, and he had to appoint a personal communications assistant to answer his e-mails.
The technology-news website ZDNet took over the project last week, and initiated a Top 20 according to the number of downloads for each anthem. ZDNet's Peter Judge believes that such song commissions represent corporate image manipulation at its worst.
"It's the same kind of thinking that leads to name changes such as Consignia," he said. "Above a certain level in any company, executives operate in an environment where reality doesn't intrude very much. The top-level management decides a song is a good thing, and then inflicts it on the sales force or plays it as a backing track at a conference."
Song downloads - from companies including Ericsson and PricewaterhouseCoopers - have in the past week trebled the total bandwidth taken up by ZDNet's British website. More than 6,000 people downloaded the McKinsey anthem on Wednesday, and as word spreads, traffic is growing fast.
The lyrics of IBM's Ever Onward ("Our products now are known, in every zone"), admittedly about 70 years old, were downloaded 5,130 times last week, with technology company SGI rising fast for a song written to promote a new workstation. A typical couplet: "I have a dream, and it's called a graphics pipe/It really works, and it's not just PR hype." The chart has already attracted new submissions, including one from Ernst & Young.
Most of those in the Top 20 were commissioned as motivational sales tools or extensions to company branding. KPMG's tune - which an employee confesses to ZDNet "is awful, awful, awful, and we are very embarrassed to be associated with it" - was written for the German branch in 1999.
A KPMG official was reluctant to deconstruct the song's deeper significance, but suggested that its newfound popularity "has to be a good thing" for the corporate brand. McKinsey officials were also reluctant to discuss their No 1 status. "It's not an official McKinsey anthem," a spokeswoman insisted after confirming the corporate line with New York. "It was just a group of people in our research and information unit getting together to have some fun."
Other entrants in the chart were, however, more excited about their achievements. Jon Bunn, British head of media relations for PricewaterhouseCoopers, was delighted that the company held both the No 3 and No 4 positions.
SHLOCK 'N' ROLL: THE TOP FIVE
1 McKinsey & Company
McKC
We are M-C-K-C McKinsey Knowledge Centre
Na na naaaa na ni na-na-na ni na-na-na ni na...
Hey! M-C-K-C is the place to be;
The team is great, one goddess -see!
You've got gritty, you've got a request
M-C-K-C gonna give you the best.
2 KPMG
Our Vision of Global Strategy
We create, we innovate
We pass the ones that are la-a-ate.
A global team, this is our dream of success that we create.
We'll be number one, with effort and fun.
Together each of us will run for gold that shines like the sun in our eyes
3 PricewaterhouseCoopers
Your World
United we are moving
In unity we stand -
PricewaterhouseCoopers,
Sounding like a band
We don't sell no dogma;
What we got is skill.
4 PricewaterhouseCoopers
Downright Global
Woo! Hey-ey-ey! C'mon c'mon!
Welcome to the firm that is known for innovation, imagination, fascination, total global integration.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, PWC!
5 IBM
Ever Onward
Ever onward! Ever onward!
That's the spirit that has brought us fame.
We're big but bigger we will be
We can't fail for all can see
That to serve humanity
Has been our aim
Our products now are known,
In every zone.
Our reputation sparkles
Like a gem.
Source: downloads at www.zdnet.co.uk
(The Times, April 3, 2002)
Once merely the private embarrassment of firms such as McKinsey and KPMG, the rousing corporate anthem has emerged through the Internet as a cult musical genre with hundreds of thousands of devoted fans.
Now it has even gained its own official pop chart - with companies including IBM and Deutsche Bank fighting it out to win the popular vote for songs that really should have stayed in the boardroom. This week's chart-topper is McKC from McKinsey & Company, whose research division boasts in song that "challenges engage us, nothing really fazes us; come hell or high water, you can always count on us."
McKinsey narrowly beat the rival consultancy KPMG, whose in-house song Vision of Global Strategy suggests that No 2 is not good enough. "We will be number one, with effort and fun," the lyrics promise. "Together each of us will run for gold that shines like the sun in our eyes."
Such is the fan base around these anthems that KPMG's song has inspired jungle and heavy-rock tributes, as well as a Nokia phone ring-tone.
It is a "god-awful but heartfelt anthem", according to Chris Raettig, 23, a London-based web programmer who discovered the song. Since then he has turned what marketing departments defend as "aural branding" into an Internet phenomenon. Mr Raettig was working for a small technical consultancy firm early last year when a colleague e-mailed him a copy of the KPMG song. He decided to create a web page to chronicle other examples - "a compendium of corporate cringe" - that within a week had attracted 200,000 visitors. As anonymous whistleblowers continued to submit anthems, Mr Raettig's site collapsed under the weight of more than one million visitors, and he had to appoint a personal communications assistant to answer his e-mails.
The technology-news website ZDNet took over the project last week, and initiated a Top 20 according to the number of downloads for each anthem. ZDNet's Peter Judge believes that such song commissions represent corporate image manipulation at its worst.
"It's the same kind of thinking that leads to name changes such as Consignia," he said. "Above a certain level in any company, executives operate in an environment where reality doesn't intrude very much. The top-level management decides a song is a good thing, and then inflicts it on the sales force or plays it as a backing track at a conference."
Song downloads - from companies including Ericsson and PricewaterhouseCoopers - have in the past week trebled the total bandwidth taken up by ZDNet's British website. More than 6,000 people downloaded the McKinsey anthem on Wednesday, and as word spreads, traffic is growing fast.
The lyrics of IBM's Ever Onward ("Our products now are known, in every zone"), admittedly about 70 years old, were downloaded 5,130 times last week, with technology company SGI rising fast for a song written to promote a new workstation. A typical couplet: "I have a dream, and it's called a graphics pipe/It really works, and it's not just PR hype." The chart has already attracted new submissions, including one from Ernst & Young.
Most of those in the Top 20 were commissioned as motivational sales tools or extensions to company branding. KPMG's tune - which an employee confesses to ZDNet "is awful, awful, awful, and we are very embarrassed to be associated with it" - was written for the German branch in 1999.
A KPMG official was reluctant to deconstruct the song's deeper significance, but suggested that its newfound popularity "has to be a good thing" for the corporate brand. McKinsey officials were also reluctant to discuss their No 1 status. "It's not an official McKinsey anthem," a spokeswoman insisted after confirming the corporate line with New York. "It was just a group of people in our research and information unit getting together to have some fun."
Other entrants in the chart were, however, more excited about their achievements. Jon Bunn, British head of media relations for PricewaterhouseCoopers, was delighted that the company held both the No 3 and No 4 positions.
SHLOCK 'N' ROLL: THE TOP FIVE
1 McKinsey & Company
McKC
We are M-C-K-C McKinsey Knowledge Centre
Na na naaaa na ni na-na-na ni na-na-na ni na...
Hey! M-C-K-C is the place to be;
The team is great, one goddess -see!
You've got gritty, you've got a request
M-C-K-C gonna give you the best.
2 KPMG
Our Vision of Global Strategy
We create, we innovate
We pass the ones that are la-a-ate.
A global team, this is our dream of success that we create.
We'll be number one, with effort and fun.
Together each of us will run for gold that shines like the sun in our eyes
3 PricewaterhouseCoopers
Your World
United we are moving
In unity we stand -
PricewaterhouseCoopers,
Sounding like a band
We don't sell no dogma;
What we got is skill.
4 PricewaterhouseCoopers
Downright Global
Woo! Hey-ey-ey! C'mon c'mon!
Welcome to the firm that is known for innovation, imagination, fascination, total global integration.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, PWC!
5 IBM
Ever Onward
Ever onward! Ever onward!
That's the spirit that has brought us fame.
We're big but bigger we will be
We can't fail for all can see
That to serve humanity
Has been our aim
Our products now are known,
In every zone.
Our reputation sparkles
Like a gem.
Source: downloads at www.zdnet.co.uk
(The Times, April 3, 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, April 03, 2002
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