Last night I saw three commercials in a row, probably on Comedy Central, that prominently featured new, or at least contemporary pop/rock songs...
One was a Shins song I love from Wincing The Night Away. The next was what sounded like Ryan Adams singing behind a glossy cell phone with hearts all over the place. And I’d never heard the third, but that’s not the point. The point is that the commercials exposed me to some compelling music WITHOUT telling me who the band was. (SEE NOTE) And I don’t see a good reason why not.
I understand that Verizon, or whoever it was, wanted me to concentrate on the phone, but now I actually don’t remember what phone it was or even what other products were being flogged on the other ads. I think I’d be MORE likely to have remembered if they’d TOLD me the artist and the song. I think I’d say hey thanks Verizon, or whoever it was, for being my little agent of discovery. I’d have made a little neural connection thanks to a product, and I wouldn’t have minded that one bit. In fact I think the association would have imprinted the product in my mind in the way the advertiser would have liked.
Some music supervisor somewhere worked hard to find that song, and an artist and publisher went through a good deal of excited trouble to make the licensing deal that allowed the song to be on the ad and the ad to make the artist some nice money. Flashing the artist and writer on screen would complete a circle and it would be far more valuable to the artist than the implicit expectation that you should relegate the music to the background, as if it’s forgettable while the product is not. For me that just undermines the whole effort of finding the right song.
Some ads actually do embrace new music explicitly to sell something else. Microsoft has named Band of Horses and The Strokes by name in their ads for the in-car voice command system called Sync. That made for a memorable impression. And sometimes the who-was-THAT mystery will be so compelling that I’ll go to the internet, which was the case with Feist in her famous video iPod ads. But would that ad have been any less compelling or elegant if they’d identified her and saved me the trouble? Seems to me that in the current environment, when artist development is nearly dysfunctional, that to ID artists in commercials would lift all boats – a win-win if ever there was one.
(NOTE: Breaking update. I just saw the ad with the Shins again and I realize I was mistaken about it not IDing the artist. It was an ad for the Microsoft Zune, and while it was subtle (you see the album cover displayed on a guy's Zune screen for a second) they did more or less give you a clue who you were listening to. However I think my point still stands. Most ads that use contemporary music don't ID the artist, and I'm happy to see more counterexamples on the air.)
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