There once was a ship that put to sea,
And the name of the ship was Bee-Too-Bee...
The writer/performer is the incredible Nina Bell, head of demand gen at MarketingProfs and now VP of Sea Shanties. Endorse her on LinkedIn for Shanty-Writing. (That's Nina in the header image.)
A sea shanty? For B2B marketing?
A little weird, right? A wee bit random?
Nay-nay, matey.
In fact, that sea shanty was strategic. (<-- Possibly the only time "sea shanty" and "strategic" have been used in the same sentence.)
Here's how (and what you can learn from it).
* * *
The theme for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum Spring Edition was Moments That Matter—how we can both uncover and lean into the moments that matter most to our organizations, our customers, and to each of us as professionals and people.
If you're on TikTok (or have a teen who is), you know that sea shanties are having A. Moment. (Uppercase A. Uppercase M.)
It all started when Scottish postal worker Nathan Evans
posted a rendition of a 19th Century whaling ballad called
The Wellerman to TikTok in December of 2020. The original (
Soon May The Wellerman Come) was written in New Zealand by
an anonymous teenage sailor between 1860 and 1870.
(Fun fact for the nautically curious: a "wellerman" worked on supply ships owned by the brothers Weller—Edward, George, and Joseph—who emigrated from England to New Zealand and founded a whaling station at Otakou, in Dunedin.)
Nathan's TikTok post became a viral hit: His original video has 2.1 million Likes and 33.4K comments.
Nathan's Moment accelerated to Momentum: The #Wellerman hashtag on TikTok has 396.9 million views; the #SeaShanty tag has 5.3 billion (billion!) views.
The Wellerman Moment fueled shanties and Nathan's career: A UK division of Universal Music signed him to a record deal. Nathan quit his post office job. He now has 1.2 million followers on TikTok.
* * *
What is it about sea shanties—and why right here and right now—that is launching careers and setting social media on fire?
Sea shanties were written by 18th century-sailors, mostly teenagers and young adults, stuck on ships for months (sometimes years), complaining about the drudgery of their long, endless days.
The isolation. The separation from family and friends. The vast stretches of time to fill. Dreaming of better days.
You know, kind of like teens in a global pandemic. Kind of like all of us.
The shared shanties become the 19th century answer to Netflix and Instagram and Clubhouse.
Strap some KN95s on the sailors and call a ship a floating quarantine... and the whole analogy is almost overwritten.
* * *
What does this have to do with me and you and Marketing in 2021?
Two things:
1. Like shanties, your stories unify people around a point of view.
They feel accessible: You don't need to carry a tune to join in; you can sing like T-Swift or screech like a baboon. It doesn't matter. Sing right along.
They are stories you can make your own: Nothing is more powerful than a story that we can easily internalize. Nothing is better than story to convince ourselves and others that this is better than that. [h/t Nancy Harhut]
2. Be a student of pop culture.
Marketing, even B2B marketing, does not exist outside of pop culture and its undercurrents. It doesn't need to steer clear of them.
In fact, we need to watch for those Moments on the horizon.
And embrace them. Try them on. Adapt them. Map them back to your strategy and your story.
Like... You aren't alone. We're here for you now. And... this voyage will end and we'll disembark and go to pubs again.
Pro tip: How do you know when you should pay attention to a cultural trend? Use my friend Andrew Davis's benchmark for when a trend is usable for marketing: "If it's on the Today Show, it's mainstream. It's no longer one of my weird niches." (You can insert almost any morning show or magazine there.)
Have some fun, mate! Smooth sailing to better shores.
* * *
Here are a few things worth knowing this week.
▶️
The Power of a Personal Email. Give this approach a try if you want to re-engage your audience. >
"Sending an email from your company's founder/CEO to everyone who's tried or considered your product and inviting a direct, personal reply, is a
powerful, underutilized tactic." [via Rand Fishkin; h/t Ashley Guttuso]
P.S. How happy does that quote ^^ make me?
This happy.
SPECIAL EVENT
