The very name “advertainment” sends exciting vibrations down the spine of anyone with marketing in the blood or communication in their genes. And it produces a shiver of disgust from many of my colleagues in the music industry.
“I don’t want my songs to get involved in publicity,” they say, completely forgetting that by wearing the brand’s running shoes, a T-shirt that sells Fender guitars, and a baseball cap with the Peavey logo, their lives are involved in publicity. . Also, if they attend an awards show, they happily declare the names of the brand and the designer of everything they wear.
They also ignore the fact that radio itself is a form of entertainment. What is played has little to do with musical achievement or artistic merit, but is directly related to the endorsement of large corporate distributors. I have been told to budget between a quarter of a million dollars and $ 350,000 in promotional costs to get national radio played on commercial radio stations (with the appropriate name). Is it any wonder that corporations are looking for ways to create a bit of brand awareness in songs?
Fire up any rap, urban or hip hop station and you can start counting product mentions in the lyrics, some paid, some just by chance. In the field of electronic pop, I have done it myself. On my album “Electro Bop” there are songs like “Paranormal Radio” (which starts out as a documentary about American Technology Corporation’s HyperSonic sound system), “Sheena Sez” (about radio host Sheena Metal) and “Check the Tech “(on the joys of watching the TechTV channel).
Has this publicity hurt the acceptance of the album? Not that I have noticed. Many emails from around the world cite “Paranormal Radio” as their favorite track. No person has complained about the advertising messages, I guess because the audience of my dance-oriented music is delighted to receive information about technology and a rock fanatic like Ms. Metal.
Ads and entertainment go hand in hand in many other ways, some quite strange. In music alone, we’ve all wondered about Bob Dylan’s “Love Sick” in Victoria’s Secret commercials (not to mention Mr. D himself smiling between shots of the gorgeous lingerie-clad bodies). But don’t overlook Keith Richards in the “Cover Girl” ad playing “Honky Tonk Women,” or Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger” in the Herbal Essence ad, or “Lust for Life soaked in liquor / drugs. / Iggy Pop sex “” At full volume throughout Royal Caribbean commercials. (I love working with the account executive who was able to sell that concept!) By contrast, Sting humming from the back seat of a Jaguar it looks like a demographic compatibility model.
And that’s the point: Ads and PR are routinely dismissed as silly, annoying, intrusive, or a waste of time until such time as they provide data that the reader or listener wants. Then all of a sudden the sponsored post is seen as helpful and instructive. So the trick is to get the right mix of audience and message.
One problem is choosing your means. Just listing the advertising media can be overwhelming: TV, radio, outdoors, newspapers, magazines, transit, direct mail, Internet banners. Many of these have subsets: paid inserts (infomercials) in newspapers and magazines, sponsored “news releases” and infomercials in the broadcast media, static or animated ads in stadiums, those dreaded web pop-ups, brand names on uniforms. and sports teams (can you say NASCAR?), etc.
One of the most enjoyable categories for music and advertising producers is viral net marketing, which has had some notable success stories like BMW Films, the Seinfeld AmEx campaign, and of course Burger King’s Subservient Chicken.
We haven’t even considered co-op advertising, which can be anything from a myriad of logos at the bottom of an event poster to brand name music tones and the Intel trademark of flashing light that ends all other commercials for someone else’s computer products.
But it extends further. Consider: Magazines that sell cover stories; product placement in movies and television (and yes, live theater); brand clothes; stickers; even flyers stuck to parked cars. There are advertising messages on private cars (and those anti-humanistic trucks that some insist are called SUVs). Pull over behind a vehicle in traffic and you can read a car dealer ad under the license plate, plus another PR piece for the state on the license plate itself. (Come on, don’t you think it’s an exaggeration to put “Land of Enchantment” on all vehicles licensed in the state of New Mexico?)
You may think that this plethora of options makes it easy for companies to get their messages across to their specific demographics, but the opposite view can be well argued. TV audiences are turning to Tivo and pay-per-view. Radio audiences are discovering XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. Newspaper readership is becoming an oxymoron. Movie audiences can be heard moaning, mocking, or booing the pre-feature film commercials.
This means that there are many people working on new ways to bring the benefits of the product to the brains of consumers. I do it with humorous radio scripts and subliminally seductive music, but there will be some innovations in our industry and, at the risk of sounding silly, I will make a few predictions. In the coming years, we will see:
* Debit card scanners on televisions, so you can order during a commercial just by flipping your remote.
* Barcodes on songs, so you can download from iTunes by swiping your XM or Sirius player with your Visa or MasterCard.
* Credit cards built into wristwatches, so your “plastic money” is always at hand.
* Links to product sites in all DVD movie scenes or computer games. Want the shoes from the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game? Click, click, click and they are directed to you via FedEx (note the location of the product for the great competitor of United Parcel Service).
* Infotainment broadcasts will appear everywhere: in public restrooms, at Starbucks, at traffic lights, at the gas station, in your mailbox, on packages you buy, packages delivered to your door, etc.
* Captive transmissions. Just as you can preview music on packaged CDs (available in the EU now, but in the US coming soon), product benefits, pricing, and warranty information will play as soon as you pick up a product. in the shop.
* Digitized logo placement on syndicated TV show broadcasts (“Hey, we can sell product placement another three times!”)
* Lists of brand ingredients on menus.
* Corporate art that takes you on a virtual tour of the company.
* Interactive commercials, where you can play Jerry Seinfeld and / or Superman (or the driver of the BMW) in a five-minute escape from reality (and reality television).
* Holographic projections of commercials for postage stamps, house and car keys, magazine covers and ad pages, etc.
And these are just the changes we will see in the coming years. We’re not even discussing the opportunities for entertainment once we go beyond the traditional broadcast methodology; When microchips are embedded under your skin, YOU will be the receiver of signals from TV, radio, satellite, telephone, and global positioning systems. And at that point, the possibilities of marketing communication through advertising will become truly mind-boggling.
Are these prospects exciting, scary, or both? My opinion is positive. After all, many of these new forms of communication will need my scripts and my music.
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