It is said music is a universal language, so to wield a language that can reach everyone is a very powerful tool. Following this logic, it is no wonder that music is another weapon in a marketer’s arsenal to persuade us to sit up and listen (excuse the pun) to what he is selling. When so much money is spent on the visual element of TV advertising it makes good sense for effort to be put into the audio side of things. I’ve collated a few of the ads that we have loved for the music… the soundtracks so perfectly enhance the brand messages.
Sony Bravia – Jose Gonzalez, Heartbeats
An oldy but a goody. The song is beautiful and blends so well with the visual delight of the stream of incredible colour cascading down the streets of San Francisco in the form of bouncy balls. Ha ha bouncy balls, love it! The spectacular visual effect is a fun celebration of colour and the happy, chilled out, natural joy of Jose Gonzalez’s track enhances the unique brilliance of what Sony has created.
Converse – Pharrell, Santogold and Julian Casablancas, My drive thru’
Not strictly a TV ad, but I’m sure you’ll let me off this little discrepancy as this track and video rocks. It was produced for Converse‘s centennial celebration. The style of the video is very fresh, the reference to Converse is artfully done, and this collaboration of artists to create ‘My drive thru” has not been seen before… all the elements work together perfectly to create this very cool unique content. It is just simply pumping, and if you are not swayed on the first listen then play it in your office on repeat every day for two weeks… one particular Gorilla did this and we all still love it!
John Lewis – Fyfe Dangerfield, She’s always a woman
It is this ad for John Lewis (a department store in the UK) that initially made me consider the relationship between advertising and music. This ad is cute and the fluidity of time passing is effective, but, what really got me thinking was the fact that a friend of mine saw the advert on TV, called her mother on skype, and then sent her a link to this song on Facebook… simply because she thought she’d love it. She sent her Billy Joel’s original version and then I let her know about this new Fyfe Dangerfield (from the Guillemots) version.
My friend was able to get hold of the track on YouTube and then spread the love through Facebook… a great example of how Facebook can have a positive effect… so don’t listen to all those Facebook-haters! But this post is not about Facebook (if you want to read more about how Facebook is not actually evil check out this blog)… it is about how great music makes ads so much more enjoyable.
It is very cool when adverts remind us of amazing songs from the past we loved and awesome new songs we can starting loving. I know I keep harping on about this, but advertising is always in our faces, but I don’t mind just as long as it is interesting, enlightening and starts conversations. Using amazing music to enhance adverts creates excitement and starts people talking, this is exactly what advertising should be doing. So here’s to the joy of music and more importantly, to sharing this joy.