Pitching Product

Brandweek, Nov 6, 2000 by Rickey Henderson

Both Publishers And Advertisers Are Selling Their Wares

Once the province of jingle factories and sound designers, the soundtracks for commercials have increasingly become a showcase for licensed music. The trend has inspired the music-publishing community to forge alliances with advertising agencies with an ever-widening revenue stream opening up for publishers as a result of licensing for advertising use. "The hipper, indieleaning creative minds that came into this business during the past 20 years are now in a position to call the shots," comments Jonathan Palmer, director of film and television music for Bug Music Publishing. "The agencies want to court a more distinctive identity, and doing that through music makes sense."

Brian Lambert, VP of catalog marketing at Zomba, has observed the development of a more creative collaboration between advertising shops and publishers: "In the beginning, we were only dealing with the licensing people at the agencies, the broadcast-business managers. Once they develop a trust in you, not only are you able to license out what they are requesting, but they'll pass you on to their creative directors. The creatives will tell you that they're designing a new campaign and they need '60s stuff or current teen material or something equally specific. Once the trust is there, then you can pitch material." From the Zomba roster, Nissan has employed the Breeders' hit "Cannonball," and the '70s chestnut "What A Difference A Day Makes" was re-recorded for Amtrak.

"What we're really seeing now is the maturation of the creative process," notes John Melillo, VP of music resources, EMI Publishing. "Advertising agencies are now able to choose from either composed music by an artist who has existing equity in the marketplace, licensed hits or original music or sound design from a jingle house or from another post-production source. There are more opportunities; the agencies and their clients see a broader scope of options in front of them. You'll notice that you're not seeing the same types of pieces being licensed anymore. That's the telltale sign about the savvy of the advertising creatives."

Melillo's music resources have recently placed multiple songs in campaigns for Volkswagen (including tracks by Hooverphonic and Pitchshifter), Nissan (Stone Temple Pilots, Euphoria), Volvo (Spy) and Excite.com (EMI catalog titles "Sittin' On Top Of The World" and "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing"). Commenting on the eclecticism that colors current advertising, Melillo comments, "[Ad executives'] choices are all over the place--and not always hits, either. The Volvo piece utilizes an unreleased Spy song. You couldn't have done that before, as no one had heard of that track. This was also the case with the Euphoria track, which wasn't a huge hit prior to that use."

Fresh from attending the ASCAP Awards in Nashville, Richard Rowe, president of Sony/ ATV Music Publishing, points out recent uses of his company's Beatle copyrights in ongoing campaigns for Phillips ("Getting Better") and Nortel ("Come Together"), contrasting these uses with that of an Erasure track ("Just Can't Get Enough") in commercials for The Gap. "You Really Got Me," a perennial favorite from the pen of the Kinks' Ray Davies, is featured in Gap Kids spots. "With film or TV, music supervisors are open to a wealth of material; with commercials, the agency people invariably have an idea and are very specific about the song that will fit that idea; the Nortel campaign had to have 'Come Together.' One tries to find suitable material for the advertisement and what it's trying to achieve," Rowe says, adding, "It's so difficult to get music out to consumers; [ads] are now another way of reminding people that there's some great music that they should go out and buy."

Commercial placements have been growing for the past four to five years, according to Ron Broitman, VP of film and television music for BMG Music Publishing: "Once some agencies saw some of their competitors [licensing a wider variety of songs], it opened the doors for everyone. With each year, this business increases exponentially." Broitman cites the licensing of Heart's "Barracuda" for a Nissan spot, which gives renewed exposure in a different format to a catalog item and one of the group's core compositions.

SELLING THE MUSIC

"It's certainly one of the biggest priority areas for us by way of exposure for catalogs, as well as a tool to break new bands," Broitman continues. "It's turning into a marketing effort, not just a straightforward licensing situation. Now the agencies are looking for music from all corners of the world--known, unknown--it's opened up completely. This is great for us, because I can approach a commercial usage from the standpoint of licensing, but I can also approach it as a strategic marketing effort. Suddenly, I'm working in conjunction with a manager of a band from another territory to break the act domestically, and we're looking at commercials as a way of doing it."