I
was still getting my feet wet in the world of business to business marketing.
Watching people clean a bathroom is boring. I was tired of taking before and
after pictures of stains being removed. Rather than continue with the same old
marketing tactics I convinced my boss to make a hip-hop music video. His only
condition was, he wanted to be in it.
 |
| We give out a limited run of Scrub Masters t-shirts. |
It
was my second year working in marketing. Most my skills involved video
production and radio. My boss, acting CMO Danny, wanted to be a viral internet
star. I wanted a viral video. We were on the same page. The idea I shared to
Danny was to make a music video of our industry. Not just any music video, a
hip-hop music video. Danny's head exploded and the project was green-lighted.
Writing
a hip-hop song is not something they teach in college, however, college taught
me how to network. While I was at Weber State University I worked for the
college radio station KWCR Weber FM. My work at the time was as the Production
Director. I made radio ads for sponsors. The Program Director was my friend,
Billy Bomber Jr., he was also studying audio production and was a real
musician. He could write, play, record and produce music. (Not to mention he
sang and played the saxophone).
 |
| Billy Bomber Jr. performing with "Shaky Trade" |
I
still had Billy's contact info, we re-connected. Then Musical Magic happened.
Billy took my really crumby "first temp" at the song, used his Bomber
art and transformed it into a real song. Here's an excerpt from my original
notes to Billy.
Warning:
I do not have a talent for writing hip-hop.
"Listen
up to hear how you gonna get your biz spit-and-spam
Pull
out that phone and Just call us up and we’ll come clean
Are
your restroom messy and musty, halls flooded with popcorn and cheese
Gum
all stick up in your seats, candy meltin’ in the cup holder
Does
your lobby look like a rummage sale on a Spring day
"If
you ain’t there don’t mean we don’t care
Nighty
janitorial is a sandman tuckin’ you in, sweet dreams
Our
peeps go in and pull an all nighter make it shiny
Sweeping,
mopping, dusting and taking out the trash
Backpack
or upright vacs get that dirt all sucked up
Every
new dusk a brand new mess waitin’ for us
We’ll
be there, put us to the test and lean on us"
The
Scrub Masters were modeled after the theme of The Beastie Boys. In
the song each MC would rap a line about Simply Right. The three dudes in the
music video were employees of Simply Right. The Scrub Masters were made up of
Jason Kilgore (now the CFO/owner), Danny Kilgore (Now the CEO/owner), and Erick
Gomez (Regional Supervisor, he's now moved on to a different company). They all
actually rapped their parts, which were recorded in Billy's basement studio.
 |
| Jason Kilgore, Danny Kilgore, and Erick Gomez made "The Scrub Masters." |
If
my memory serves me correctly, we filmed the entire music video in two days.
Two locations in Ogden, Utah were used in the video, Marketstarr and Newgate
Cinemark. Ben Sent a local photographer allowed me to rent his equipment and
two of his trusted co-workers to film the project.
As
for video productions go, it was a fast and easy shoot. The hardest part of the
whole production was figuring out what our rappers were going to wear. Simply
Right uses the color “vine green” on all our branding. Finding a passable “green
color” was a challenge. Outside of Ogden is a well-known country/ military
surplus store called Smith and Edwards. I was able to find olive
drab green coveralls. All the overalls where size large. Therefore, the suits
would look baggy on the rappers. The polos used are the official shirts used in
the company.
Once
everything was shot, I was then tasked to edit. Editing a music video is a time
sucker. You have to really enjoy the art of editing. I had about 5 hours of
footage I had to cut down to 3 minutes and 32 seconds. All the video also has
to sync-up to the music.
After
all the edits were completed, I ended up with two cuts of the music video. The
original owners did not like my first cut. They told me I had to remove any
scenes deemed too sexual inappropriate. I had to make three major cuts. These
removed cuts were also made into teasers. I was going to use the teasers to
campaign the release of the music video. The owners buried the whole online
video campaign. That was a major bummer.
Removed Danny Teaser: A scene of Danny having popcorn poured onto his face.
Removed Jason Teaser: A scene of Jason walking on all fours acting like a cat while toilet paper rained down on him.
Removed
Erick Teaser: The scene that made the owners really upset was Erick removing
his coveralls in a dark movie theater being misted by water. The owners said
Erick's tattoos were "too gang-related." This statement makes me
laugh now due to the fact almost every other person today has a tattoo.
Not
everything about the campaign was cancelled. During September of 2014 we
premiered the music video to the entire Carmike Cinemas company. The next day
we used the Scrub Masters as our trade show booth. The booth was simple, we had
the rappers signed posters, t-shirts and CDs for employees of Carmike Cinemas.
This
simple campaign of premiering our music video, then hosting a signing as our
booth turned out to be one of the greatest branding attempts, I've ever worked
on. Carmike Cinemas never forgot who Simply Right was after this event.
However,
the story of our relationship with Carmike Cinemas has a bittersweet ending.
The Theater company was purchased by AMC Movie Theaters, AMC moved all their
facility services in-house. Many of the general managers still run their
theater and the Scrub Masters poster still hangs in their offices.
I
was really hoping to get approval to do a similar booth at CinemaCon 2015. All
the logistics were worked out but in the end the owners shot down this trade
show campaign as well.
Now
in 2019.
Working
on Scrub Masters taught me a brand is most effective if you can connect with a
customer on a personal level. We gave them something off-the-wall, something
they could talk about. We gave them a little bit of magic. Scrub Masters was
Simply Right at it's most fun and creative. With more experience in branding,
I'm hoping to re-create the same magic again.
EXTRAS:
Here
are the behind Scenes to the Scrub Masters's What'cha Wanna Clean music video.
