Among the projects cited were: one that created a sonic identity for a major client; a breakthrough short film which has helped an insurance company meaningfully reach out to the LGBT community; a campaign necessitating tailor-made commercial cuts for audiences in specific countries, making for a complex music supervision puzzle; an American factory-themed campaign spanning original music production as well as licensing; and the discovery of a song by a New York band which has proven to be a big hit for a well-known brand.
Among another respondent’s most gratifying “projects” so far in 2014 were the development and maturation of his agency music team, and his involvement in the 2nd Annual AMP Music and Sound Awards, which play an important role by raising awareness of the artistry and value of music and sound in successful advertising, entertainment and branded content.
While the responses from our survey participants were varied and diverse, all the cited “projects” share the common bond of being creatively driven in large part by music and sound. Indeed music and sound have played an integral role in their success.
SHOOT connected with advertising agency music producers, executive producers and heads of music and sound departments for this mid-year survey, posing the following question:
What has been your most gratifying or creatively challenging project thus far in 2014? Provide a brief description and explain why the job was noteworthy.
Here’s some of the feedback we received:
Chris Clark, sr. music producer, Leo Burnett Chicago
The most creatively gratifying project I’ve worked on this year is fortunately also the most collaborative: the Allstate short film “Safe In My Hands” and the original song of the same name by emerging singer/songwriter, Eli Lieb. The short film and song are the centerpiece of Allstate’s “Out Holding Hands” campaign, which encourages members of the LGBT community to share their special and everyday moments, out holding hands together. During the course of several months, I worked with our music savvy client and Allstate creative team to determine exactly what we needed from an original song to perfectly score the beautiful animated film they were creating. We were lucky to find an artist with the pop songwriting prowess of Eli Lieb, but even more importantly, we were lucky to find an artist so willing to write an original song from a deeply personal and emotional perspective.
I had the pleasure of working directly with Eli and his manager, Pablo Mathiason, to mix up ideas on the ideal instrumentation, structure and general feeling we wanted people to take away from the music and lyrics. I was pretty amazed when Eli wrote the music and hook-heavy vocal melodies early on in the process–the song structure felt like a big emotional pop song immediately. Our creative team wrote a very inspirational concept and story that really helped Eli focus in on the message of rising above and being proud of yourself and your relationships. I think the resulting original song is something we can all immediately relate to, and I especially hope it becomes a resounding rally cry for the LGBT community for whom it was written.
The spirit of collaboration I found working directly with Eli were analogous to the total collaboration between our teams at Leo Burnett and Allstate. Its really refreshing to work on a project with an incredible social purpose that only came to life because of the dedication and passion shared by an artist, an agency and a client.
Peter Gannon, sr. VP, executive music producer, McCann New York
One of the first projects of 2014 was one of the most interesting music challenges. It was for a Chevy Cruze commercial, “The New World,” that spans seven countries, including specific cuts for Brazil and French Canada, and tackles the universal debate of what music will please everyone. The challenge was to find music from each market that would be authentic, humorous, show a level of local knowledge, and work with the film.
This was a complex music supervision puzzle. I had to reach deep into networks and resources to provide a level of accurate music whether it was for markets I was familiar with or not. The result is a fun spot that an American audience can appreciate as a tour around the world, and that someone from Moscow, Shanghai, Mumbai, Montreal, or Rio, would recognize as, “hey, that’s what I would hear back home!”
It was a great team effort between colleagues at Commonwealth//McCann–the global Chevrolet agency–production, business affairs and vendors.
We had choices to choose from, versus having a scramble.
This project was creatively, strategically, and from a process point of view, very gratifying.
Paul Greco, director of music & radio, JWT New York
Projects for two clients come to mind. Both are very near completion.
First, Nestlé asked us to launch Outshine Fruit Bars, a relatively new product for them. JWT creatives and the client were looking for a new song from a new band to help launch the campaign. We found a song called “Greenlight Burn Bright” by a NY band called Romans Are Alive that has been a big hit for the brand and response has been very positive. The client is partnering with the band for promotional events and downloads of the song as well. It’s been a great collaboration.
Another Nestlé brand, Stouffer’s, asked us to help them create a “sonic identity” for the brand. After months of hard work we have been able to create a brand theme and sonic logo for Stouffer’s that will be their identifying sonic persona. Lots of great effort from concept creation right through the final music recording achieved a great outcome.
Eric Korte, VP, music producer, Saatchi & Saatchi New York
One of the most recent compelling projects from a music production and licensing standpoint was the campaign we created for Walmart, focusing on the rebirth and renewal of the American Factory. Walmart was a relatively new client for us at the time and it was critical that the message of the ads–that Walmart is investing billions of dollars in American factories–connect in a dramatic and impactful way. Music was a high priority (two of the three spots have no narration) and we explored multiple ways of finding and developing the right tracks.
Ultimately, for two of the three spots, we worked with composers Robert Miller out of Stimmung (“Lights On”) and Adam Taylor out of Future Perfect (“I Am a Factory”) to develop emotional, cinematic orchestral scores (Adam also scored our recent Duracell campaign).
For the third spot we explored creating unique covers of well-known songs and actually had two celebrity singers from the country world record demos. It was a fascinating creative experience and I’m very proud of the work.
Josh Rabinowitz, executive VP, director of music, Grey New York
My most gratifying project over the past six months has been to develop, manage and guide a stealth music team that can now handle each and every aspect of the process of music for Grey. The creative demands and reputation of our agency in the communication space has necessitated that we raise our game up a notch and we have been able to do so. The team–music producers Zach Pollakoff, Ben Dorenfeld, David Steinberg, business manager Kirsten Messier and our director of licensing Amy Rose–has worked diligently to create a reputable, respectful and powerful team of solid ad music professionals.
Additionally, being part and parcel of the 2nd Annual AMP Music and Sound Awards Board this past May has been most gratifying and quite challenging, to say the least–a great turnout, a credible Awards program, and, a fantastic show are certainly something I’ve been proud to be a part of and find very easy to brag about anywhere and anytime.
