In recent months, several advertisers have showcased the songs of major recording artists. Nissan, Nordstrom’s and others have used tunes from Moby, and Jaguar used Sting’s single "Desert Rose" to promote its cars. In a move to make recording artists more readily available to compose original music for ads, Jeff Koz, owner/creative director at Hum Music+ Sound Design, Santa Monica, and Dave Curtin, who is Hum’s director of special projects, have launched a satellite shop, SubZero, also in Santa Monica.
Curtin, who joined Hum less than a year ago, has taken advantage of his years in the music business to set up SubZero, a venture that will act as a bridge between ad agencies and recording artists. The ultimate goal, though, isn’t the licensing of hot tracks or arranging of celebrity performances. It is to put agencies and artists together to create original music for commercials.
SubZero provides a way for agencies and advertisers that want a particular sound, but don’t want to pay exorbitant prices to license an existing track. SubZero is just getting off the ground now after putting together its first deal: an original rap riff written and performed by LL Cool J for the Gatorade spot "Leave It on the Floor," directed by Fritz Flieder, who was then with Ritts/ Hayden, Los Angeles, via FCB Chicago. The basketball-themed spot began airing this month.
SubZero is run by Curtin, who joined Hum in April after 15 years in the music business, starting as a club DJ while studying at San Diego State University, and continuing into work for management companies, agencies and record labels. Some of his former roosts include now defunct First Global Management, where he was an assistant manager, and Performers Of The World (POW), West Hollywood, where he served as a booking agent. Curtin also freelanced as a music supervisor and commercial music producer. Some of his producing credits include spots for The Gap and Budweiser. "My whole background has been on the music business side of things," Curtin says. "I’ve always done artist development, and I’ve also produced quite a few projects."
Koz believes the time is right for SubZero, now that artists like Sting, Moby, LL Cool J and others are realizing that no stigma is attached to doing a commercial. "It’s marketing and expression," explains Koz. "An artist like LL Cool J thinks it’s a cool thing to do a commercial. He’s proud of [his work in advertising], and is telling his friends about it. It’s not, ‘Let’s take the money and hope nobody finds out.’ "
Koz calls SubZero a hybrid between a music house and a recording artist. "It’s taking what a music house does and dumping that all into the lap of what a recording artist is capable of doing," he says. "Instead of asking a staff composer to rip off a recording artist, why not go to the recording artist and ask him to create something original and fresh and inspired by this whole process?"
Curtin affirms that artists no longer perceive commercials negatively. "[Doing music for ads is] a lot more acceptable than it was five or ten years ago," he says. "Record companies also are looking at advertising as an extension of their marketing game plan. If they can get one of their artists placed in the right commercial, it can increase record sales."
While Curtin and Koz emphasize that SubZero is in its infancy, they say the initial reaction from advertising agency producers who are familiar with it, like the concept. Tony Wallace, the senior producer at FCB Chicago, who did the Gatorade spot, says that he would "absolutely" use SubZero again. "As a producer, I trust them to get me into who’s hot, and who’s coming out with something new," he says. "I really trust those guys because they are on top of everything. They’re the specialists."
Wil Wilcox, director of broadcast production at J. Walter Thompson (JWT), Chicago, likes the concept of using a company such as SubZero to get original music from established artists. "You can’t get close to any existing work," he states, citing the risk of copycat litigation. And he points out that licensing an existing track can be extremely costly. "With what SubZero is doing, you can find an artist who realizes the potential of tying in with a good product. It’s like what Sting did for Jaguar. That tune helped Jaguar and helped his album. With SubZero, you can go that route. It has great potential, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity of working with those guys."
Wilcox may possibly use SubZero for JWT client Miller Genuine Draft. "In many of our commercials we are looking for such bands as they have access to," he says. "I believe if you get the right band with the right commercial, it helps all parties. In the long term, more and more clients are going to see that."
It is the relationships Curtin has with record labels, publishers and management companies that are SubZero’s biggest selling point. In fact, SubZero was conceived to take advantage of those relationships, Curtin says. "We wanted to figure out how we could start incorporating talent into what we were doing, which was commercials," he explains. "We have our creative alliances with Priority Records, Maverick Records, Astralwerks, a few labels out of the U.K., and on the management side with Artists Management Group (AMG). Any time a project comes across my desk that I think might be right for one of our [artists], I’ll call them. That’s how these conversations have been taking place."
Curtin keeps tabs with labels to stay abreast of when an artist has a new CD coming out that could benefit from exposure in a commercial. "That also appeals to agency creatives, who are going to feel they are getting in on something early, before other people are," Curtin notes. "That’s a lot of what we want to bring to the table. We want to have an artist in a commercial six months before the record comes out."
The Gatorade spot with LL Cool J may have been SubZero’s first project, but Curtin and Wallace say the way it unspooled is a good example of how the process can work. It goes like this: The FCB creatives—creative director/art director Geoff Edwards and creative director/copywriter Colin Costello—heard that Hum was setting up SubZero, and came in to talk about it. About a month later, they called and said they were working on a Gatorade project and had sold the client on the idea of using a well-known, street, hard-core rapper in the spot.
Costello and Edwards had originally wanted to license a rap tune, but when they narrowed it down to a particular track, they found it was outside their budget. Curtin and Koz asked the creatives who they had in mind, and Costello and Edwards gave them a wish list of about a half-dozen artists, including LL Cool J. Management firm AMG represents LL Cool J, so Curtin got in touch with the company, and received an expression of interest from the rapper. They then negotiated a price that reflected LL Cool J’s interest in promoting an upcoming release, and came back to FCB with a formal bid that the creatives found to their liking. The process involved little work from the agency, and from the business affairs people, who didn’t have to make the usual flurry of phone calls.
A few weeks later, while LL Cool J was working on a movie in Toronto, he came to New York. Curtin and the creatives flew in and met with him at the Hit Factory, one of New York’s top recording studios. They sat with LL Cool J’s producer—his composer on the Gatorade track—the mono-monikered Self, and picked two instrumental tracks from a selection of about half a dozen. LL Cool J picked the one he liked, went into another room, wrote the lyrics in about half an hour and proceeded to record it.
Curtin brought the music back to Hum’s office, performed a few tweaks, made it a perfect 30 seconds, laid it back to picture and finished the spot. "We felt all along we wanted to go with a big song or a big name on this," says Wallace. "That was going to be a huge part of the spot to make it really stand out. The process was smooth; it benefited all parties involved—and it turned out great."
And while the track isn’t on an upcoming LL Cool J album, Wallace notes that the artist’s style and sound are hard to miss. "He’s someone who is going to stick out. You’re going to know him," states Wallace. "He talks a lot about bashing the competition and sings about how he is the ultimate competitor. Lyrics like that fit well with Gatorade."
The aim was to have viewers of the spot wonder what CD included the song, Wallace explains. "Our main focus was to find a song that when someone hears the spot, they’re going to say, ‘Hey, where’s that song from?’ Not, ‘Oh, LL wrote a song for Gatorade.’ We wanted it to look like we got a cool song."
While original tracks are SubZero’s reason for being, Curtin and Koz report that the firm can also facilitate licensing of existing tracks, and lining up celebrity talent for performances of other original music. Film and television music are also on the agenda, and Curtin has put together the first of what he hopes will be regular compilation CDs of unsigned artists who may be appropriate for spots.
Koz says a number of projects are currently under serious discussion, including a major auto account that is considering using a singer in much the same way Jaguar is using Sting. For now SubZero operates out of Hum’s offices, and most staff is shared with Hum, but Koz thinks it will soon be out of the nest.
"We’re trying to reinvent the way people think about getting celebrity or high-profile music to work in spots," Koz concludes. "SubZero leverages the experience that I have as a music composer in this industry. There’s a minefield of what can go wrong when a big advertising agency calls a big recording artist to create a big piece of music for a big client with big bucks. The gap we’re filling is to creatively shepherd this project from inception all the way to the end."r
