Jeff Daniel is a great guy who we've sat next to on a couple panels, and he also happens to helm Rock River Music, a music-brand agency that pioneered in-store CDs and helped put together Banana Republic's ongoing "City Stories" campaign. He'll be contributing here from time to time.
Jeff Daniel
In the course of my work matching brands to bands, I am often asked to appear as a panelist, speaker or roundtable host at conferences. These conferences tend to be focused on music and technology, music and advertising, branded content or music-marketing in general, but somehow they all seem to attract one common demographic, among other groups specific to each particular conference: the developing artist.
To their credit, these artists tend to be driven and dedicated self-promoters, but perhaps that is the self-selected nature of artists who pay to attend these conferences. However, they consistently ask the same question during or after these panels: "How do I get you and your brand clients and agency clients to choose my song or my band for your next major ad campaign?"
We've all heard the story. The music industry has its panties in a twist and is tugging and fumbling its way to sanity ... Oh, will the madness ever end!? The p2p lawsuits, 360 deals, skyrocketing ticket prices, mega-festivals, the enormous looming presence of mega-corporations at said mega-festivals, the demise of indie radio stations, the (further) ascent of the mega-pop star. What does it all mean and where do us middle-class, blue-collar music lovers go?
Somehow it took a fast-food restaurant to do for hip-hop what Jay-Z couldn't: kill Auto-Tune. He recently told a Chicago radio station that his latest song, "Death of Auto-Tune", was, in part, a reaction to a Wendy's spot that parodied the ubiquitous pitch-correction technology:
"I just think in hip-hop, when a trend becomes a gimmick, it's time to move on," Jay said in an interview with Chicago radio station WGCI on Tuesday. "I saw a Wendy's commercial and they're using Auto-Tune. They're joking on it. It's like, OK, enough of that. ... It was a trend. It was cool in the beginning. Some people made great music with it. Now it's time to move on."
That retracted fan account of a Pearl Jam show shot by director Cameron Crowe for a Target ad? Confirmed. Billboard pulled out its big gun -- executive editor Bill Werde -- to get the official word from the band's manager, Kelly Curtis, that the big-box retailer will be a semi-exclusive retail partner for Pearl Jam's upcoming disc, probably titled "Backspacer."
You won't find the word "singles club" anywhere in Mountain Dew's press materials, but that's the best way to describe the current direction of Green Label Sound. The cola brand's free digital music outlet is shifting to a monthly schedule, starting with a release by Inglewood rap duo U-N-I that drops today.
The paid-for clubs of yore, which through the '90s served up 7-inch singles to your doorstep, have shown a resurgence in recent years thanks to a renewed interest in not only vinyl but, of course, singles themselves. The legendary Sub Pop Singles Club wasn't part of an organized marketing push -- quite the opposite, really -- but it and others like it had a similar effect: maintaining a steady stream of buzz.
Quite often I get asked how one gets a song into a commercial, and I'm typically left without an intelligent response. When the subject of "how did you discover so-and-so" comes up with agency folks, I usually don't get enough data to map any kind of path from band to brand. These days, music discovery seems more spontaneous than ever.
Of course, if you're on a major label and already have marketing dollars/people behind you, its a little less happenstance. But what about everyone else in the not-so-silent majority?
With its new Sponsored Song program, ReverbNation is aiming to give some of its member bands marketing dollars that would normally be unavailable to them. According to Hypebot, 1,000 out of the site's 400,000 indie artists are eligible to join the pilot program, whereby advertiser logos will be implanted into the cover art of a song, and bands, in exchange, will receive .50 per download.
Sometimes I feel like a Boy Scout, always shouting "Be prepared!" But, honestly, it's the best way to get what you want in the end, and music licensing for advertising is no exception. Be prepared!
Sure, sometimes the first piece of music you put in your spot will work great, be readily available, and cheap. Other times it won't. First things first: there isn't the perfect music out there. There's the perfect music for your spot. What works for your spot will not just be the music that solves your creative needs, but it will also be the music that fits into your timeline and budget.
It's been a busy week, but we're taking a break to bring you an important piece of news: some of the most mundane products in the world once had their own branded records.
As part of Nick DiFonzo's enormous library of novelty and just plain unfortunate records at BizarreRecords.com, he's assembled a gallery of branded album covers from the likes of Shakey's Pizza to Owens Yacht dealers. If you still think it's strange when Coca-Cola or Procter & Gamble release music under their own name, check out the cover for Gold Bond's "Sound Off... Softly" album promoting their -- ostensibly sound-dampening -- ceiling tiles. Or "Music to Recline By," sponsored by furniture maker Berkline and featuring Richard Maltby and His Orchestra. A few of them even have audio samples.
We've recently re-entered modern society with a cable TV subscription once again -- did you know Time Warner charges for remote controls? -- and we've come to the conclusion that most of the programming we're paying for is this Miller Chill ad in HD.
Really not such a bad thing, though. Not only does it actually make me want to drink this light beer even though I've had it before and can't handle fruit in my pint, but the track from The Dodos in the spot is a perfect mix of lush natural sounds and electric urgency that syncs flawlessly with the visuals.
What, did you think that McNuggets were the only fast-food product with a rightful place in the bedroom? After "nuggnut" Keith Sweat boldly fetishized the deep-fried chicken bits last year, smooth-singing R&B singer Dwele is now trying to do the same for the big McCafe push.
Some of you may remember Dwele as the vocalist on Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" or Common's "The People" -- if not for his solo career -- and in a new Burrell TV spot that landed this week, he's "drizzling chocolate in your ear" at a jazz club that apparently serves McDonald's lattes. He lyrically paints the beverage as "the sweetest kiss to come your way besides me" and works up saucy whip-cream references, all in a sustained falsetto that's quite impressive. It's hammy, but not so much that it sucks all the fun out of it, and he does a pretty decent job of wrapping McD's musical ident onto the end.
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