Guitar Center Turns Video of Metallica's James Hetfield Into an Ad

Original clip got 1.7 million views

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A new Guitar Center ad featuring Metallica's James Hetfield wasn't meant to be an ad at all.

The 30-second execution was cut from a longer video that the retailer filmed to accompany a cover story about Metallica in Guitar Center's catalog, said Dustin Hinz, vp of brand experience and entertainment marketing. That 13-minute video went up on YouTube in February and has since generated more than 1.7 million views.

In the video, Hetfield, the lead singer and guitarist in Metallica, talks about his first guitar, feeling "in the zone" when he plays, and how, as a kid, he was painfully shy.

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