True story. I know this producer—works for a great little film company in one of your "non-traditional" production markets (read small market)—who has found a unique way to compete for big-market clients. The company simply adds a line item to the bidding worksheet called the "NFR."
Don’t bother looking for it on your AICP form, you won’t find it. It stands for "No #@%&@!# Reason," and it’s there solely because if this great little film company doesn’t add it to the bottom line, they stand no chance of getting jobs from those occasional types who think it’s got to be expensive and trendy to be good. Or, to quote: "They love our reel. But if I don’t add $75,000 to my bid, they don’t take me seriously."
I must note here that this was not conveyed to me with any sort of contempt or even predatory glee. It was matter of fact, and with not a small amount of regret, I might add. It actually bothers them to have to add the NFR, they tell me. But all is fair in love and war and commercial production. So they employ the NFR in order to allow their great little film company to compete in an environment in which certain agencies in certain markets simply feel some strange obligation to spend too much for production.
I guess it’s like my wife’s next pair of shoes: if they’re not expensive beyond all logic and reason, if they don’t have a certain name slapped on and if they’re not purchased in a certain store in a certain city, then they can’t possibly be good shoes. (Sorry, baby.)
Nowhere do some clients spend proportionately more for "cool shoes" than in the realm of commercial music. Specifically, in the area of music licensing. The reason, according to one industry publication, is that "the commercial music jingle is dying."
According to The Association of Music Producers, original music production was off 25 percent in 2002 (after soft years in ’00 and ’01). The culprit? How about those very same folks for whom great little film companies have to pad their budgets to be taken seriously? I’m talking about the folks who are driving the trend toward licensing big tunes and big artists because everyone else is, not necessarily because they make any real marketing sense.
I don’t know, call me old fashioned, but from my own 20-year perspective as an agency creative and broadcast producer, I would rather spend $34,000 (4-A’s average) on smart, effective, memorable and timeless original music, than $250,000 to $1 million on "cool" licensed music that on its best day had to be shoe-horned to fit my brand. Not to say there aren’t some good efforts like Chevy’s timeless "Like A Rock." Or even our own modest and reasonably priced adaptations of licensed tunes for The Travel Channel or Stations Casinos. It’s just that with a lot of the licensed music out there, it appears that it’s more important to be cool than to be … well, right.
So "The Unsinkable Taste of Cheerios" is gone, along with "I Wish I Were An Oscar-Mayer Wiener" and "GE, We Bring Good Things to Life"; replaced by The Stones or Aerosmith or Celine singing something vaguely related to whatever car brands they’re not driving. Or cruise lines they’re not sailing. Or beers they’re not drinking. Or banks they’re not laughing all the way to.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never bought a car because some self-serving hipster thought that Celine singing about it was cool. But I have, along with millions of other folks, considered Cheerios because I remembered their song and the promise that Cheerios would taste good. Which makes the relatively small investment in something like "The Unsinkable Taste of Cheerios" so much more worthy and valid than if it had been Robert Allen Zimmerman singing "Jokerman" for whatever silly reason.
And you don’t even need to spend the $34,000, if you don’t have to. For considerably less, you can still find original music that creates an indelible signature for a brand and its personality—and go to Cannes and win Clios in the process. We’ll be happy to show you ours if you don’t believe me.
Since coming here to work for my favorite music house three years ago, we’ve done maybe a dozen projects that, for talent or market distribution or production reasons, required that $34,000 4-A average expenditure. Our average production—for a client list that ranges from your local bank or homebuilder to the likes of Monsanto, Best Western and Coca-Cola—is still not much more than $10,000. And I’m pleased to be able to say this—proud, in fact, to be able to partner with like-minded agencies looking for good, smart work at a good, smart value!
Oh, and to those who think that all this is some kind of sour grapes because of that 25 percent drop in original music production lost to music licensing? We, ourselves, weren’t off 25 percent. And for a good #@%&@!# reason! Because there are still a lot of cool agencies out there who know what commercial production should cost and who—out of respect for their own clients’ production budgets—turn to us or the hundreds of great little off-market production companies just like us who wouldn’t even consider having The Who sing for Toys ‘R’ Us.
