Advertising Agency Jingles & Music

Advertising Agency Jingles & Music

I can only speak from experience. I am finding that more and more advertising agencies are utilizing the magic of jingles and music to brand their clients products and businesses.

A classic example of a jingle that launched a successful long term campaign worldwide in the public consciousness was created by my teacher at UCLA and Academy Award winning songwriter Al Kasha.

In 1972, after reading about one of the worst airline crash disasters in history, Al wrote "Fly the Friendly Skies of United" and approached the beleaguered airline with a positioning statement and catchy melody that would position United Airlines as the leader in security and air safety for nearly thirty years. Even when they dropped the music, they continued with the positioning statement "The Friendly Skies". It was, and remains a clear cut stroke of Branding genius.

Another very popular agency tactic in recent years is to secure the rights to popular songs and utilize the familiarity factor to generate correlation and familiarity with the product.

The cost to secure broadcast rights can vary. I have heard of rights for single market broadcast usage going for as little as $4000 and as much as $60,000 and up... These rights are negotiated with publishers as copyright owners. The agency will then hire someone like me to record a version of the song as a "sound-alike" or to give it an original twist.

Securing the rights to a song does not grant the user the rights to the recorded work. If you are interested to getting the rights to a recording performed by an specific artist, you need to negotiate with the publisher AND the record label. Two separate negotiations and potentially a very expensive proposition. It can become even more than two negotiations when you have a song that was written by three or four co-writers. I recently heard of an agency who was trying to secure the rights to the song "What a Wonderful World" and had to negotiate separately with three publishing companies in order to secure the rights to usage.

So I can tell you with certainty that music is thriving in the business of advertising. As my good friend, co-writer and talented singer/songwriter Harold Payne says in his soon to be classic song Music Speaks:

"Music Speaks louder than words
It's the only thing that the whole world listens to
Music speaks louder than words
When you sing, people understand" c2006