“I was pretty much afraid of everything. Afraid of the world, afraid of speaking – a really, really shy kid. And music was a way to speak. As simple as that.”
These words belong to Metallica’s James Hetfield, from the opening lines of Guitar Center’s most popular video on their YouTube channel.
The video does what many other corporate videos fail to do: It opens on an emotion soon followed by a promise to the viewer. Also, there’s a main character who’s got something at stake and is not trying to hide it.
Whoever edited this sure knows the key elements of storytelling.
Is this the best piece of corporate media ever?
But then again, it’s not just any video on any YouTube channel. In September, Guitar Center took home three top awards for their YouTube channel at CMI’s Content Marketing Awards 2014.
To me, the James Hetfield video is the best piece of corporate media I’ve ever seen. It’s a piece of content The Rolling Stone Magazine should have done, but didn’t do. It made me want to play music again and even – I’m sure marketers will love to hear this – visit one of their stores and buy the whole thing!
