In some respects, Gabe McDonough represents the evolving landscape of music in advertising. His background is in indie rock, he’s been playing in bands since he was 14, and at a young age started putting out his own records. McDonough then worked at influential independent label Thrill Jockey Records, and at Chicago’s Empty Bottle Club doing promotions for bands. While in college, he was regularly going to see Fugazi perform–a band which he describes as being “about as anti-commercial as you can get.”
With that background, McDonough now finds himself in the role of senior producer of music and integration for agency DDB Chicago, frequently facilitating and embracing the coming together of music artists, record labels and advertising.
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“Things have changed dramatically over the years,” he observed. “Back in the mid-’90s, record labels had money, people were buying records. Big companies owned record labels and gave you money to make a cool record. It was a healthy revenue stream. Now it’s much different. The traditional record deals aren’t as common. Artists and bands are looking for new ways to get discovered–and there’s no longer a sell-out stigma attached to them connecting with advertising commerce to make that happen. If you’re on a major record label, you tend to get that label’s logo on the back of your record along with an FBI warning not to share the music with friends. Now in a sense artists can have a brand’s logo associated with them–and no FBI logo. Getting your song played on commercials is great exposure, particularly as radio play is harder to get and music videos aren’t airing nearly as widely as they once were. And people who are in their early 20s today grew up wearing logo t-shirts as fashion. There’s more of an acceptance of artists and brands coming together–and artists improving their own brand in the process. But the combination has to be right.”
McDonough’s latest such combination brought the launch of Bud Light Lime together with the launch of artist Santogold’s self-titled album from Downtown Records. “I’m in close touch with record labels on a daily basis,” said McDonough. “Bud Light Lime wanted to make a big splash and knew that music would be a part of that.” McDonough approached Downtown to see what priority releases they had scheduled around the time of the Bud Light Lime introduction. The list he received included Santogold whom McDonough was familiar with as a versatile songwriter. “I knew she wasn’t afraid to write in totally different styles and felt her music would be a natural for the product and the summer vibe we wanted. It was a leap of faith–but an informed one. She fit the brand musically.”
The Bud Light Lime rollout campaign includes two 15-second teasers, two 30-second commercials and viral video work that all feature Santogold’s music. McDonough also had Santogold create a new version of her featured song “Lights Out.” The remix was made available as a free download and ringtone on www.budlightlime.com.
McDonough characterized the remix as “using marketing budgets to give people something to take away from the brand, which in turn seeps into the culture.”
That seepage extended to Sirius Satellite Radio which played the remix. McDonough was informed of this by a friend, noting that on the Sirius display screen the track was identified as “Santogold Bud Light.”
“What’s crazy about that,” said McDonough, “is I’m sensitive to not overdoing things. When you put the remix on your iTunes, it doesn’t come up as ‘Bud Light remix.’ Instead if appears as ‘Lights Out remix.’ It’s interesting that Sirius and fans of the music are identifying it as ‘Santogold Bud Light.’ It’s validation that there is no stigma to the connection. I’m stoked that people like the remix enough that it’s playing on satellite radio.”
In the big picture, noted McDonough, Bud Light has a history of entertaining people with its ads, which makes it a brand that’s simpatico with entertainer Santogold and her music.
Cannes do The intersection of the music and advertising sectors was also evident during the Grey Music Seminar held in Cannes during the recent Lions International Advertising Festival, the featured guests being legendary singer Tony Bennett and his son and manager, producer Danny Bennett. Moderator of the discussion was Tim Mellors, vice chairman and worldwide chief creative officer of the Grey Group. But perhaps most telling were the session’s introductory remarks by Josh Rabinowitz, senior VP, director of music, Grey New York.
Rabinowitz explained how this year’s Cannes session lineup came to pass. He heard Tony Bennett’s acceptance speech at the ’07 Grammy Awards, which honored him and Stevie Wonder for best pop collaboration for their rendition of the classic “For Once In My Life.” When Bennett thanked his “wonderful” sponsor Target, Rabinowitz couldn’t help but notice the snickers from seated VIPs. “A sound which collectively, yet subtly, felt like an apparent condemnation [of the brand association],” said Rabinowitz. “Hauntingly ironic, these 30-, 40- and 50-year-old players don’t even realize how ahead of the curve Mr. B, at the mere age of 80, actually is.”
Rabinowitz’s account of this appeared in Billboard, for which he authors a column. Danny Bennett read this, reached out to Rabinowitz, the two met and from that sprung this year’s popular installment of the Grey Music Seminar.
Underscoring the difference between the Grammy experience and today’s reality, Rabinowitz in his Cannes session intro noted, “Cannes 2008 is flooded with industry music folk, collectively thirsting for an alignment with brands–after the massive successes of artists like the Israeli born Yael Naim, whose sweet tune of innocence, ‘New Soul,’ became a global hit because of its use in an Apple Airbook ad, or the Canadian artist Feist being propelled to global recognition through the use of her addictive track “1,2.3.4” for the Apple iPod Nano, or even Epic recording artist Sarah Barielles, whose international pop hit ‘Love Song’ broke in the U.S. through a Rhapsody ad.”
Furthermore, Rabinowitz cited two other noteworthy bits of branded music news in the past year: Groove Armada signing a deal directly with the Bacardi brand, outside the jurisdiction of the record labels, and the Columbia Records’ release of John Legend’s “Live From Philadelphia” CD, which topped the U.S. charts and was available exclusively through one retailer, Target.
During the Cannes seminar, Tony Bennett said, “Danny has always been very careful in choosing the right ads for me to be properly involved with and there have been quite a few. I loved the ads that Target created for my eightieth birthday. Those meant a lot to me.”
Reading labels Advertising and the recording industry are also coming together on a deeper, more direct business level as agency investment in record labels has started to surface.
This month, for example, Euro RSCG Worldwide announced that it had bought a majority ownership stake in The:Hours, an independent record label and music content production company, with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Paris.
Launched earlier this year, The:Hours is headed by media/entertainment entrepreneur Fabien Moreau and the founders of Recall Records, Alexandre Sap and Leslie Dubest. Sap is CEO of The:Hours.
Euro RSCG Worldwide global chief executive David Jones said in a released statement, “It’s an amazing time to be in our business and there are huge opportunities to be seized by those agencies that create new future-facing business models for their clients. We believe that music is one of those, hence this exciting initiative to acquire our own music agency and record label.”
Jose Cabaco, chief creative officer of Euro RSCG in North America, added, “We’re looking for new ways to leverage the different disciplines that are part of our business. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of having The:Hours work together with the creative department of the [Euro RSCG Worldwide] New York office on our client briefs.”
The:Hours recently completed a worldwide music campaign for Cartier, which launched on May 26 on www.love.cartier.com. The original music content created specifically for this campaign includes songs from Lou Reed, Phoenix, and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard.
“Today brands want custom content and ideas,” said Moreau, who serves as chief marketing officer for The:Hours.
“Through this partnership, we can help our clients to be recognized as tastemakers, and create an intimate and unique consumer experience.”
Word is that new music campaigns for selected, undisclosed brands are currently in development.
On the record label front, The:Hours features a roster of artists and bands ranging from indie rock to electronica. The:Hours’ Sap noted that via its relationship with his company, “Euro RSCG is setting up a new model in the industry and now will have direct access to artists, music supervisors, industry entrepreneurs, music publishers, and distribution networks such as Universal and iTunes.”
Albums from The:Hours are slated for distribution by Universal. The latest artist to sign with The:Hours is Fires of Rome, a New York band whose single “I’ll Take You Down” was originally written for the Fantastic Four motion picture.
Meanwhile, also getting its feet wet in the label pool is Tokyo advertising agency Hakuhodo which along with Team Hakuhodo Records (the ad shop’s creative team that builds advertising and marketing campaigns driven by music) and Victor Entertainment, Tokyo, have jointly established Chikyu Records.
The new Chikyu label plans to distribute eco-friendly, environmentally themed music and products. Chikyu will function as a platform for collaborations between companies and creators to release green consciousness-raising music, produce songs for commercials, and implement events and other activities.
Electric signing And a growing number of music houses continue to diversify their rosters by tapping into recording industry talent, among the latest developments being Yessian Music securing Zach Shipps of the band Electric Six as an artist in residence.
Having just come off tour, the band is residing in Detroit for the next few months, working on a new album and preparing for a new world tour in the late fall.
Over the past couple of years, Electric Six has released such underground hits as “Danger! High Voltage” and “Gay Bar.” Plans call for Shipps to shuttle between Yessian’s Detroit and New York studios, composing music for advertising, gaming and film.
Electric Six recently wrapped a series of songs for the California Milk Processors Board (CMPB) via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. The band created original songs for the CMPB’s “White Gold” campaign which launched on the web encompassing such sites as MySpace and YouTube.
“The Milk project was pretty great, and a chance to make music outside of our indie-metal-garage-disco box,” said Shipps who said he’s eager to pursue other advertising projects as a Yessian artist in residence.
Brian Yessian, executive creative director of Yessian Music, related, “We are excited to bring more of the album world to the ad business. Zach creates some amazing tracks and we already send his Electric Six material to agencies via our Dragon Licks licensing division.
“Now that he is writing for us,” continued Yessian, “we will be able to showcase the unique rock sounds of Electric Six in the original songs and post-scores we write for advertising, film and gaming.”
