I’m not a fan of Oasis, I much prefer Blur, but the other day I read something Noel Gallagher said that I found really interesting.
He said he learned to write choruses for his songs from the chants he heard growing up on the football terraces.
That was his musical education, something that could be picked up and repeated by a crowd of tens of thousands of people.
It had to be simple and understandable with a rhythm that was easy to join in.
Why I found that interesting is Noel Gallagher was describing what ad-people call going viral.
How you get a campaign to go viral is to trigger your audience to repeat it until it takes on a life of its own and becomes what’s called a meme.
At that point you will have created an enormous amount of free advertising.
Noel Gallagher knew that if everyone joined in with his songs they’d be more popular, they’d be repeated more often, and that was airtime he wasn’t paying for.
Take the chorus in ‘She’s Electric’, or ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, or ‘Wonderwall’.
Your mind can’t help joining in when it gets to the singalong chorus.
As I say, I prefer Blur but their songs have exactly the same effect.
Take ‘Country House’, or ‘Girls and Boys’, or ‘Song 2’, or ‘Parklife’.
As soon as they get to the chorus I can’t resist joining in, especially if I’m driving.
For me, it’s a profound insight that he learned to write choruses from listening to the chants on the terraces.
We can all learn a lot from what catches on with crowds.
Once, when Paolo Di Canio was at West Ham, he was playing so badly he asked Harry Redknapp to take him off.
Then the crowd began singing his name PAU-LO DI-CANIO to the tune of Verdi’s ‘La Donna e Mobile’ from Rigoletto.
He was so moved he immediately ran back onto the pitch and scored a goal.
It works the other way round too, when West Ham, from the poor side of London, were playing Chelsea, from the rich side, the Chelsea fans chanted at them (to the nursery rhyme): “The Wheels on Your House go Round-and-Round”.
Another time, West Ham had a player called Bobby Zamora who wasn’t popular. Whenever he got the ball the fans used to sing (to the tune of ‘That’s Amore’): “When the ball hits his head and it lands in row Z, that’s Zamora”.
The best advertising had a symbiotic relationship with the football terraces.
Eric Cantona was a favourite with Man Utd fans.
One of their chants when he scored was: “Ooh, Aah, Cantona. I said Ooh, Aah, Cantona”.
The Daily Star knew who their audience was and immediately nicked it.
Their advertising campaign line became: “Ooh, Aah, Daily Star. I said Ooh, Aah, Daily Star”.
It can even happen the other way round.
Alan Parker directed an ad for Wonderloaf about their bread being baked locally.
The ad ended with a baker sniffing a loaf and saying “Yes, that’s one of Cyril’s – nice one Cyril”.
Spurs supporters hijacked it, they had a player called Cyril Knowles and every time he scored they’d sing:
“Nice one Cyril. Nice one Son. Nice one Cyril. Let’s have another one.”
60,000 people chanting your advertising slogan, that’s free advertising, that’s earned advertising, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
Using our initial campaign as seed-corn to create advertising we’re not paying for.
America learned that lesson very early on.
Their national anthem “Oh Say Can You See by the Dawn’s Early Light” was originally a poem written by Francis Scott Key, but it didn’t catch on because there was no way for a crowd to join in with a poem.
Which was why they added the tune everyone knows today, but what most people don’t know is where that tune came from.
It was originally a drinking song from the pubs in London, called “To Anacreon in Heaven”.
Everyone can easily join in a pub drinking song which is why it became popular.
Without that tune, “Oh Say Can You See” remains just a poem no one joins in with.
Getting our ideas to go viral means ‘word-of-mouth’ and that’s the most valuable advertising space of all.
And that’s what Noel Gallagher can teach us.