Forget about whether the glass is half full or half empty. In our survey of advertising agency music producers, clearly as we are about to reach the halfway point of 2011, the year is full–of trends and challenging, fulfilling work. And there’s much to look forward to in the second half relative to music and sound.
To gain insights into and reflections on 2011 thus far and what might be in store for the rest of the year, SHOOT canvassed agency music producers, posing the following two questions:
1.) Are there any creative and/or business trends or developments you would point to thus far in 2011 as being most significant in the music and sound arena, perhaps carrying implications for the rest of the year and beyond? (This could include observations on how your role at the agency has evolved this year, for example; or any other trends that strike you as relevant.)
2.) What has been your most gratifying or creatively challenging project thus far in 2011? Provide a brief description and explain why the job was noteworthy.
In terms of trends and developments, responses ran the gamut from more interesting music in libraries to the globalization of music, the increasing prominence of streaming/cloud-based music services, the growing relevance of YouTube on the music scene, the rise of music subscription services as well as brand partnerships involving music and related performers, concert tours and events, even the emergence of music discovery tools like MTV’s Music Meter to find up-and-coming bands and to see what’s trending.
Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received from agency music executive producers, producers, directors of music, and an agency broadcast producer–Michael Gross–who is known in some circles as the “unofficial official music supervisor” of TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles:
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2.) Every day has been pretty gratifying so far since it’s still relatively new to me. I’ve enjoyed developing my relationships with the labels, publishers and music houses. It’s been challenging to try to convince some of our more conservative clients to take risks involving music. So many of them tend to see music as something that helps move a spot along and they like what they are familiar with. There are so many opportunities for brands to reach people through music partnerships. I’d like to help our clients think bigger in the second half of the year. |
 Ryan Fitch, music producer, Saatchi & Saatchi New York1.) Music production has definitely become more global this year. We have been creating more and more ads for clients that will be used in different markets around the world. It becomes a challenge to score original music when there are many individual markets and various cuts involved. Budget constraints continue to be another challenge. It is especially tricky to do song searches when there is a small budget and the specifics of the targeted markets have not been defined. At the same time, I’m hearing interesting new music from companies in smaller countries that have a unique sound and aesthetic. Usually these companies are hungry to do good work and it can be refreshing to get a new perspective and sensibility, especially when it comes to how they approach working to film. Despite all the challenges, there hasn’t been a dull moment. It’s a really rewarding and exciting time to be in the industry.” |
 Michael Gross, broadcast producer, TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles1.) What’s evident in music these days are that brands continue to be a primary source of revenue for music licensing. Production budgets may shrink, and people aren’t shilling out for $20 CD’s anymore, but when music works with a TV campaign in an ideal way creatively and for a company image, that brand will pay to secure that track. And they will pay top dollar. That’s where advertising still stands out amongst the rubble. It’s not just limited to traditional broadcast though. You see it also across new media platforms and in emerging brand partnerships, the latter of which to me is really exciting. Not long ago I had a chat with a music photographer friend of mine, where I questioned the role of a music supervisor on the ad side. I must have been having a bad day…I told her the film and TV side seemed so much more enticing, and more creatively rewarding. Well she looked at me like I was from crazytown! Brands are where there is still good money to be made in music, whether it’s a Nissan TV ad featuring Elvis or Heineken sponsoring all the beer tents at Coachella. A brand partnership with music remains vital and rewarding, and there’s a helluva lot to discover on this front right now. A trend that I see in music really taking off is in streaming/cloud based music services. More and more music fans are turning to services like Pandora, or apps on their phones like the one that Napster offers. The absolute beast in this conversation though is YouTube. Anytime someone needs to reference a song, that’s where they go. I get YouTube links in emails all the time for music–people aren’t attaching mp3’s and they aren’t telling me to listen to the clips on iTunes–they’re sending me YouTube links to click on. Music companies and brands should continue in 2011 to explore how to maximize this trend towards streaming music as the primary listening source. 2.) Working across all the brands at Chiat has been a gratifying experience for me in 2011. We have a nice range of clients looking to do interesting things with music, whether it’s a dance jam needed for Energizer or a lost soul nugget for Nissan, opportunities to do something cool abound. PepsiCo brands have in particular been very rewarding creatively for me this year; we have some really great ideas on the table that are letting me take the music stuff to a conceptual level. A lot of times people just want a song that serves as a bed to the storytelling. When you can elevate the music to work in tandem with the creative, really make it a partner in the storytelling, then you’re doing your job. Pepsi has allowed me on multiple projects to take the music to that place very quickly. But apart from all that, it just feels good when a creative asks you for some really fun music for a project and your review session with them turns into a dance party! |
 Eric David Johnson (aka DJ Bunny Ears), executive producer of music & creative integration, DDB Chicago1.) The most significant creative and business trend that I see developing and am participating in personally as an agency music producer is in expanding my overall role. In the past, I worked in the capacity as a music supervisor/producer to create original music or find existing music to license. That continues to be the case, but the biggest change is that I am expanding my role by essentially becoming a hybrid of producer plus creative. In this proactive and integrated role, I am attempting to magnify our agency’s offerings by working with our creative and production teams to create and execute unique new media and media-agnostic opportunities/projects for our clients by utilizing music in a way that will allow more complete storytelling and branding–connecting to, building relationships with, and authentically engaging the audience/consumers. Often, this translates as brand partnerships, or strategic marketing: sponsorships of tours, product placement in music videos, live events, social media, exclusive content, etc. Therefore, I see the future of leveraging music in this fashion to become more and more commonplace across the industry. This will hopefully create more interesting, cool, fun and engaging collaborations and projects. As such, I’m finding this to be a really exciting time for my role in particular, and for music in advertising in general. 2.) Since I’m still fairly new to DDB, I’m just really getting going here, with many great projects yet on the horizon. That said, right off the bat, I’ve gotten to license a couple of great songs so far: “Are You Ready?” by Fatty Gets A Stylist for the NY Lottery campaign, and “Second Chance” by Peter, Bjorn and John for Bud Light Lime. But my most gratifying project so far is one that is nearly finished. It’s with DDB LA for a video game called “Deus Ex Human Revolution” and we are working with the music company Beta Petrol and members of the band Dirty Projectors to create an original song that will be used in the TV commercial, as well as exist as an exclusive song online. |
 Gabe McDonough, VP, music director, Leo Burnett, Chicago1.) It seems like in the past year or so, the amount of people pitching music non-exclusively has exploded. I’ve also noted country music popping up in more places than just truck ads, which is cool. 2.) We licensed a 1970’s version of Johnny Otis’ rock ‘n roll cornerstone, “Willy and the Hand Jive,” for Delta. As we were working through the paperwork I saw that there were only two musicians listed for the whole track. I thought there was some mistake, called the manager and asked what was up. “Oh his son did all the music and the backup vocals–” At that moment it clicked and I felt like an idiot for not realizing that Johnny Otis’ son is multi-instrumentalist whiz Shuggie Otis! I geeked out hard on the manager after that and scored a copy of Shuggie and Johnny’s rad collabo “Cold Shot” for my trouble. |
 Rani Vaz, sr. VP/director music production, BBDO New York1.) More than ever, the work asks us to find inventive ways of working with composers and musicians–often the context requires finding not just musical, but also technical and practical solutions to those important “how the hell do we do that/build that” questions. The tools might be different but music/sound and the importance and impact it has to move people’s hearts and enhance the work remains stronger than ever. For any given project, there are many ways of working and so many tremendously talented people to work with. Flexibility is key as each project has the potential to be a new and different creative challenge. Sometimes, it seems we might have too many options, but the best work always, always finds its way. |
 Josh Rabinowitz, sr. VP/director of music, Grey Group, N.Y.1.) A musical influence/citation/allusion trend that I can certainly point to, and my team would corroborate this, is that as back in the day we were asked to reference various artist/flavor-of-the-months like Beck, or Moby, or Coldplay, or Phoenix, or Danny Elfman, or the Verve, or Passion Pit, or Feist, or Yeal Naim, or something “like Target does,” now the definitive flavor-of-the-past-several-months is the Black Keys. And, we have no problem with that, because they def have a vibe, a simplicity, a grit, and an aura that can stir emotions and feelings on so many types of executions. Additionally, they tore it up on the Colbert Report with Vampire Weekend on the Sell-Out-Off: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/video-vampire-weekend-and-black-keys-fight-it-out-on-colbert-report-20110112 2.) As a team, I would say our most challenging and gratifying work has been on DirecTV and KetelOne–“Don’t Just Watch TV, DirecTV” and “Gentlemen, this is Vodka.” They’ve been massive undertakings, creatively inspired work and production, with so many moving parts, and a chance to kick out some great scores, high end sound design, and even work with some new emerging bands likes Alberta Cross. The entirety of my team is fully immersed in all of this and they are Amy Rosen, Don McNally, Ryan Duda and Zach Pollakoff. My most challenging and gratifying personal project, year after year, is finding and engaging a great and meaningful artist to participate in the Grey Music Seminar at Cannes Lions in June. I created this, with Tim Mellors, Grey’s vice chairman, back in 2007, and we’ve had a great run of meaningful musical talent, and are now in our 5th year. This year I was able to get Patti Smith, whose story and multifaceted allegiance to creativity at all costs will be a great discussion at Cannes this year. Also, last year’s Yoko Ono event was a smash, on so many levels. |
Dan Burt, music producer, 
Jessica Dierauer, executive producer of music and creative content, 