“So far away from where you are. I’m standing underneath the stars. And I wish you were here. I miss the years that were erased. I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face. I miss all the little things, I never thought that they’d mean everything to me. Yeah I miss you. I wish you were here.”
The words from the song, From Where You Are, featured in Allstate’s “Tail Lights” commercial–which aired during a recent episode of Friday Night Lights to support Allstate’s teen safe driving program and raise awareness about the risks of teen driving–seem so poignant, like they were written for the campaign.
That’s because they were. With the help of Leo Burnett, Allstate commissioned Jason Wade of the band Lifehouse to write a song for its teen safe driving commercial. In addition to the commercial, the Friday Night Lights episode featured a storyline dramatizing teen driving situations.
The spot shows a stretch of road crowded with cars filled with teens that eventually disappear, with the song playing throughout the spot. A voiceover reminds viewers that “every year nearly 6,000 teenagers go out for a drive–and never come back.” They are then encouraged to go to www.allstate.com /teen, which features a full-length video of the song and an interview with the artist. The song also became available as a single for download on iTunes Nov. 6.
“Rather than license an existing song it was our idea to say, ‘Hey we have all these relationships with artists, let’s just call Jason and have him write something for it. This is where the industry will head,” says Ira Antelis, director of music at Leo Burnett Chicago. “With the merging of artists and advertising, it makes more sense to find an artist that would be right and have them create something rather than trying to find the perfect song to fit your commercial.”
Click here for SHOOT’s 2007 Fall Spot Tracks Top Ten Chart
Breaking down barriers Leo Burnett began establishing relationships with artists a few years ago with its Artist In Residence program, which Wade has participated in. The goal was to build face-to-face working relationships between guest artists and the agency. “It always seemed so unapproachable to have an artist do something. The Artist In Residence program broke down the walls. Because of that you establish relationships not only with the artist but their manager, et cetera” Antelis explains.
“For instance, for this Allstate spot I picked up the phone and talked to a handful of people with one phone call rather than make 50 phone calls to lawyers and record companies. And within two days, we had all the answers we needed.”
Antelis says that this is the most exciting project he’s worked on at Leo Burnett. “You see the spot and say, ‘What a perfect song for that commercial. It’s perfect because it was written for it. I think sometimes we lose sight of that as we try to license and retrofit things.”
He points out that before Wade even signed the contract, he wrote a couple of things and sent them to the agency because he was so inspired by the project. “I think a lot of artists who come here want to be involved on that ground level,” says Antelis.
Other agency music producers agree with Antelis that artists and labels seem to be more interested in the advertising world than ever before, whether it’s to create an original song for a brand like Wade did or to have one of their songs licensed by a brand. “Especially in today’s age, artists realize that if they can get their music in the right campaign, it gives them the opportunity for millions of people to learn about who they are,” Antelis says.
A band called Ben’s Brother, who is well known in England, is reaping the benefits of being a part of a recent campaign for Dentyne. Through a relationship he had with a member of the band, the music producer at McCann Erickson, New York, Mike Boris, was able to license the band’s song Stuttering for a Dentyne Ice spot that is currently airing. The song is now going to be released as a single in the states and the entire album will follow suit. “That wasn’t the case when I first started talking to him. He’s gotten a lot of tremendous feedback from the ad and he’s thrilled because he is getting exposure he couldn’t get otherwise,” Boris says.
Boris also tapped Hardnox, two brothers known for blending traditional hip hop with rock and techno, to create an original song for a commercial promoting the new Samsung Juke phone for Verizon Wireless. “It’s doing great. It’s probably going to be released on their record as well, ” he says.
In yet another example of a recording artist creating a song specifically for a spot, a few weeks ago an artist that performed at Draftfcb, NY’s acoustic lunchtime concert series ended up being tapped by the agency to create a song for a commercial that has yet to air. Artists ranging from James Blunt and Paolo Nutini to Richie Sambora and Hanson have participated in the series.
Regarding the alluded to spot, Gregory Grene, director of music for Draftfcb, explains that the artist who performed was Vieux Farka Touré, a notable guitarist in Africa.
“In one of those lovely pieces of serendipity we had this spot we were working on that we had a feeling his music would serve perfectly. The spot is for a pharmaceutical company, and it’s for a medicine that really changes folks lives, vastly for the better. But because the medicine combats a serious health problem, there was a real balance beam we had to walk. The music had to bring in a powerful element of hope and optimism, but it couldn’t be fluff; and Vieux’s music was the perfect fit. Chris Becker, our CCO, had seen him play the lunchtime concert earlier that week, suggested trying his music against picture, and it was an instant ‘eureka’ moment,” says Grene.
He points out that thanks to the wonders of the Internet, Vieux composed to picture from a studio in Mali, and then the agency placed a perfect AIFF of his track against the final in New York. Greene says similar discoveries have happened with four other lunchtime concert artists within the past month or so.
“Of course, we’ve worked with ‘legit’ artists on tracks before, notably with Abija, a top Jamaican artist (whom we recorded in Kingston); with the Go-Go’s; with Frank Reader, the singer with the Trashcan Sinatras, whom we recorded in Abbey Road; and others. But the direct evolution from lunchtime concert to commercial is new and exciting for us,” Grene says.
Another major development overall, according to Grene, is the mentality behind licensing with the labels looking to the agencies as collaborative partners. “I’ve had more than one label talk about the ad agency as the new radio. So we’re getting a massive amount of more interest and willingness to make stuff happen–to the point that we’ve broken tracks before the CD came out, and when it did, the CD was stickered with “as featured in the commercial.”
Cost effective This new collaboration seems to be driving the cost of licensing down, a trend Rani Vaz, director of music/radio production, BBDO, New York, believes will continue going forward. “We are seeing costs go down on the licensing end. Labels, publishers, independent artists–people are definitely more interested in our world and I think we have better ability to get a piece of music at a more reasonable price. We know that the online arena is going to level the playing field even more in terms of costs,” she says.
Boris agrees. “Licensing is getting less and less expensive because there seems to be a lot more in it for them, they’re getting exposure through us. Years ago it used to be what was in it for them was just a monetary award. Now it’s a great place for exposure as we are finding more and more places to run ads, more places to get an entertaining message across. Overall, there are more creative uses for music.”
Vaz believes music will only become more important as different types of media are explored.
“You are not in your living room forced to watch a TV commercial because it’s part of your show; you are actually as a consumer going out and seeking an experience because you have heard about it through word of mouth. Music can be part of what makes something compelling and sticky to stay with and observe, rather than just being the background soundtrack to something you have to watch. So there’s an opportunity for music to really be actually more powerful than it’s been,” she says.
Online arena The downside to nontraditional media like interactive websites and viral video advertising is budgets aren’t always up to where they should be for these types of things, points out Ryan Fitch, music producer at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York. “Clients are curious and want to try stuff but they haven’t really backed it up with the finances to do it sometimes. It’s been fun just trying to figure out how to pull some of these things off.”
For instance, working on the Internet component for Wendy’s Hot Juicy Burgers campaign (www.hotjuicyburgers.com) posed some challenges. The tricky part was keeping the site connected to the music they had already established in the TV spot. “We did a humongous recording at Capitol Studios with a 20-piece orchestra and a 10-piece choir, which is pretty enormous. To try to apply that to Internet was really tricky just for the budget restraints. When you start applying triple scale to all that talent, it gets pretty insane. So luckily with that one we were able to find ways around it. We decided we could use the same music basically with the demo version that existed before we went to Capitol studios. It sounded really good but didn’t quite have all the finesse of the real players on it. We were able to go back a couple of stages and use some earlier versions that worked really well.”
The good news is clients are starting to come around. “The biggest challenge,” says Grene, “was helping folks to understand that the web is not, in fact, free–that you do require a budget, as you do in any other advertising. Happily that learning curve has progressed with huge rapidity, and we’re in a miles better place now than we were even a year ago.”
Future With all this discussion about licensing, Karl Westman, senior partner, executive music producer, Ogilvy & Mather, New York, can understand there might be some concern on the supplier’s side because the percentage of licensed music to orginal music might be changing. But he is quick to point out that there is always a need for original scores because of what they give in the way of customization, ownership and “the ability to truly help tell a story and to support a message because if its ultimate flexibility.”
Boris adds, “There are still ideas that are not driven by music but that need music to support them.” He related that the majority of the agency’s Mastercard spots are still scored.
Antelis’ biggest concern is that in the rush to find the latest licensed music or artist of the day, people will neglect what their client is about or what the sound of their client is. “So they find the greatest song ever without really thinking, ‘Does this really work for who we are as a brand or what our company is about?’ I’ve seen a lot of that on the air. I think that is the thing to me that is a little bit troublesome. Because everybody wants to catch the latest fad and sometimes they are neglecting who they really are,” Antelis says.
But that wasn’t the case for the Allstate campaign and the accompanying music he discussed earlier. “It’s the kind of song that’ll make you cry. This is the type of thing that makes a monumental mark in advertising, that you have a song written for a specific thing that goes on to be a record on its own.”
Click here for SHOOT’s 2007 Fall Spot Tracks Top Ten Chart
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