Another way to drive your employees slowly insane: Have a corporate song Your job sucks and all, but at least your company doesn’t have a corporate song. And if it does have a corporate song, at least it’s not as bad as Henkel’s corporate song, which was recently named the best corporate song in the world by the Stevie Awards. Henkel is the German company that just acquired a handful of P&G deodorant brands, including Right Guard, which it has assigned to EnergyBBDO. For the agency’s sake, I hope Henkel doesn’t get too involved in the creative decisions, because judging by this song, which is called “We Together,” Henkel makes seriously bad creative decisions. You have to listen to this thing. (It’s been recorded in several languages, and there’s even an instrumental version, all of which are on the Web site. There’s also a making-of “We Together” video, if you can believe it.) I guess you’d call it aspirational light rock. Another name for it would be complete and utter shit. The idea of a corporate song is bad enough; you couldn’t find a finished product that’s much worse than this. You can imagine Henkel’s employees, arm in arm, singing it numbly at a corporate retreat, as they all seriously contemplate killing one another and/or themselves. So this is considered the world’s best corporate song? If that doesn’t explain what’s wrong with corporate culture, nothing will. —Posted by Tim Nudd

May 3, 2006 | Permalink

Comments

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Quite similar to soviet or nazionalsocialism totalitarian anthems, but with the happy neocon dressing of our times... Isn't it?

Posted by: Barahona | May 3, 2006 1:15:26 PM

it harkens back to my days in college when i worked at walmart and they forced us to sing songs and do the walmart cheer.

Posted by: Wally | May 3, 2006 2:43:15 PM

Did the United States Post Office ever have a similar corporate song? It sure as hell would have explained a lot ten years ago

Posted by: Mike | May 3, 2006 3:30:45 PM

I don't think an agency that voluntarily changed their name to EnergyBBDO is going to have a problem with a client that has a theme song.

Posted by: ming the merciless | May 3, 2006 4:37:33 PM

ugh, all to y'all getting through the whole thing. I was gagging within 15 secs. ((shiver))

Posted by: carrie | May 3, 2006 6:49:04 PM

Knife goes in, guts come out, that was Hokosaki food corporation is all about...

Or something like that!

Posted by: Rob Mortimer | May 4, 2006 5:22:51 PM

In honor of Henkel's melodorous corporate spank, I will sing the Olive Garden birthday song.

ahem...

Buena Festa, What a joyous day!
Life's Good Fortune is sure to come your way!
C'mon sit back, just relax, and fill your plate the italian way!!! We're so glad you came to celebrate with us today!

Posted by: True | May 4, 2006 5:23:51 PM

I don't know if anything can beat the Glaucoma Hymn from the Association of International Glaucoma Associations (Department of Redundancy Department, anybody?)

I mean, how could it possibly get better than this?

"Glaucoma, Glaucoma, Glaucoma
Constricting vision slowly
Halted by progress of science
Vision of a world united
Beyond all science knowing."

Check out www.globalaigs.org.

The site was featured at webpagesthatsuck.com. I wonder why. The comments from the person who submitted it there (www.webpagesthatsuck.com/glaucoma.html):

"Between the operatic "Glaucoma Hymn" that downloads and plays as soon as you come to the main page (with no "Stop Playing!" button), the bobbing heads of (what I presume are) the AIGS Board in the upper-left hand corner, and no clear explanation of what this organization DOES on the main page.

My wife thought this page HAD to be a put-on of some kind. She couldn't believe any serious organization would actually design a site that looked and sounded like something Terry Gilliam would've designed in his Monty Python days."

I rest my case.

Posted by: Chris | May 6, 2006 2:12:54 AM

There are even a number of different-language versions of this Henkel song -- and a pdf of the sheet music for it -- located here: http://www.henkel.com/int_henkel/ourcompany/channel/index.cfm?pageid=351

They're seriously committed to the idea that this song adds value to their company/brand/employees ... blah, blah.

Posted by: Mike Ross | May 20, 2006 2:28:31 AM

However, I like the song.

Posted by: Sam | May 24, 2006 6:25:24 PM

Henkel is a bad bad company

Posted by: Hans | Mar 7, 2008 10:43:36 AM

The corporate song is actually better than having to work for them....as I did for a number of years. What a shit company, wanted to remind them who won the war almost every day. I have never met such a worse group of tossers in all my life, total arse lickers....Mauro Beccaro, Bernd Schenzle, Jochen Krauter, Klaus Marten, Chuck Evans, Atillio Gatti, Philip Huys, and as for the yanks....total knobs.....the list goes on and on and on

Posted by: exhenkel | Mar 20, 2008 5:29:17 PM

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