That said, I'm not sure I'd be so quick to be 100% dismissive of what he was saying.
I think about 2 of the more iconic game composers who have been quite successful-- Tommy Tallarico and George Sanger (aka "The Fat Man"). Both really got marketing and i don't think they'd disagree that their image/persona were in part responsible for their success. The Fat Man is a great name/moniker for George who is a tall, lanky, skinny Texan. He'd always go to shows with his cowboy hat, studded jacket and boots; Tommy for years never went anywhere in public without his "Gold Lame" jacket. They both also happened to be prolific and talented, but understood that one vector to success is splashy marketing (there are other vectors as well). Everyone noticed (and remembered) George and Tommy. Everyone else just sort of blended in. But--here I would agree with you completely-- that worked for Tommy and George because their marketing persona were based on aspects of their own personalities; so it didn't come across as fake (even though in normal living, neither of them wore fancy jackets around..).
I can completely see how turned off you would be by "Gamer Nerd Gurl" suggestion. But the notion of creating a way of presenting yourself in public that is memorable and a bit out of the ordinary has some merit. But it has to be 'true' to who you are, or it will come across as phony and fail.
And, yes things like having a good logo, font discipline, color scheme are marketing 101. Now I think he's overstating things quite a bit (and I would argue that business plan comes before logo design
) -- marketing to end consumers (which he has to do) is a bit different than B2B (Business to Business) marketing which is what a came composer does. My own studio web site doesn't follow good web design rules at all and is in some ways embarrassingly poor, but I've been very fortunate that I don't really need to market myself. But when I created GameSoundCon , I had a professional marketer/web designer do it because I was going to need to do more formalized, professional marketing. So it needed to look a lot slicker.And yes we talked back and forth about the "feeling" visitors to the site would get, and what the main colors would be, etc. I'm curious... aside from your icky feeling in your stomach about marketing, were there particular reasons you opted not to take him up on the offer?
If "composer in residence" meant you would have to not do any work for anyone else, that'd be a deal breaker as a contractor. But if not, I have certainly been willing to negotiate somewhat lower rates in exchange for volume. But an in-house (Full time employee) composer who worked with different developers sounds like a pretty cool gig.
My point is that, regardless of his presentation, he is correct that an independent composer has to think about marketing themselves. In that sense, we're like tiny small businesses, and we need ways to a) get people to notice us and b) get people to remember us. Does it take the place of ability, drive and talent? No, of course not. But it can be helpful. I would say your CEO's big flaw, though, was a presumption that slick marketing is required to make it. it is only one of many ways to try to be successful as a game audio professional.
Thanks for an interesting/thought provoking posting..
Brian Schmidt