When SHOOT asked for feedback about the competitive demo dynamic, we discovered it’s still a heated topic. Jack Livesey, co-proprietor of Duotone, New York, compares competitive demos to a fist fight. “The stigma attached to declining [a competitive demo situation] is that we’re afraid or not confident in our music,” he says, noting, “We are confident in our music and are willing to compete, but what good ever came from a fist fight,? Livesey, like a lot of others SHOOT talked to, believes the best work is done when there is collaboration with the clients.
“My mantra: Don’t be afraid to suck and in a competitive situation I don’t think you can ever practice that,” he contends. “If everyone is committed to working together, there’s an environment where everyone is collaborating. You can just throw things out there you never would in a competitive environment.”
Here, agency producers and music houses sound off about the competitive demo:
Josh Rabinowitz, senior VP/director of music, Grey Worldwide, New York I totally think it is abused. You can find one entity to work with. The most important skill is being able to execute what the client wants from the music house side. If you pick one music company, they are going to get there. Every music company has aligned themselves with a whole stable of freelancers and different companies use the same freelancers, so there’s no reason to use three or four companies.
There are two instances when it is useful: when you are trying to do a mnemonic or a sting like an Intel thing or you are trying to come up with a jingle. But everything besides that, it is most useful or most productive to work with one company. And let them know you are going to work with them. Don’t make them feel as if you are just testing them, because they can do it.
Tiffany Senft, executive producer, tonefarmer, New York You don’t demo editors. It’s collaborative until you come out with what you like. Somehow music has lost a lot of the collaboration that I think can make music really great. Agencies seem to be crunched for time and having difficulties getting things approved along the way, and then they think when the cut is finally approved, then they’re ready to discuss music. Which leaves very little time, so they feel frantic and decide to get lots of houses involved. Music should be brought up earlier. The best projects are when you are working closely with the agency and the editor. That’s when the music is used to brand in the strongest way.
An example is the music we did for Quaker breakfast bars out of Element 79. They asked for a pre-score that they could play at the shoot to get everyone motivated. The result was this series of commercials that were really tied together with the music. They felt like they really owned it, like it was part of the branding.
Marc Altshuler, managing partner, Human Worldwide, New York We used to jump up and down and say we hate to compete like everyone else. And then we realized we can tell our client, ‘don’t compete me,’ or we could show them. What we’ve done is created a different model at Human. We’ve amassed about 10 composers on every job and we get everyone on every call, because music is so interpretive and you get the interpretations of 10 different people. We show our clients that you don’t need to compete us. And also we can handle many different directions that way. We give them enough output back that they don’t need to go to two or three different places.
Jan Horowitz, VP/business manager, David Horowitz Music Associates, New York Work closely with your music companies even if you do feel that you want to sample three or five of them because you want to cast a wide net. Go to music sessions. The competitive demo drawback can be if that precludes working closely together. If a producer feels they want to sample the creative wares of a few companies, I don’t see how that is abusive. Unless they aren’t willing to pay for what they are getting. And the most important thing there is to review the list of what a demo fee is supposed to cover and get rid of the term “demo fee” and call it “music exploratory” and put the appropriate money behind it. Since “demo fees” have not changed since about 1977, this industry is due for a major rethink.
Gregory Grene, music producer, Foote, Cone & Belding, New York I do think we are conscientious, at least I try to be. We really try to avoid wheel spinning and pick the right guy for the job and then give him a fair crack at it. When we go with original music, we try and do it for a specific reason–that there is something that could be brought to the scene with the original music that can’t be brought in any other way. I know people are forced to do competitive demoing because of clients. I know people have certain demands and they have to, but generally it feels to me abusive. It feels to me a sign of people who don’t know what they want. In fact, if you really think about what you want, there are usually one or two music houses that are really amazing at it and then a bunch of others who are pretty good at it. Music houses have personalities just like people. If they don’t have a personality, then they aren’t a good music house.
