Music in advertising

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Music in Advertising means integrating music in (mass) electronic media advertisements in order to enhance its success. Music for this purpose provides different characteristics which makes it especially interesting for usage in advertisements.

The Function of Music in Advertising

Music can fulfill several tasks when it is used in advertisements. David Huron therefore chooses six categories in which “music can serve the overall promotional goals in one or more of several capacities.”[1] Mostly the use of music is not only intended by one of the following attributes but they are interdependent and interrelated to each other. The categories he claims are described as follows.[2]

Entertainment

The entertainment aspect of music helps making an advertisement more appealing to the viewer by simply making it more attractive respectively more aesthetic. By this increase in attractiveness an advertisement is able to engage more attention. From this point of view “music need not necessarily manifest any special affinity with a particular product or service in order to play an effective and useful function.”[3] The music functions more as bridge between viewer and advertisement in this case.

Structure and Continuity

Another basic attribute of music is to support an advertisements structure and continuity. Therefore “music is used to mediate between disjoint images”[4] Also it can emphasize dramatic moments within the advertisement. Accompanying i.e. a TV commercial music structures the told narrative, can tell a narrative itself or function as anchor which completes the overall meaning. It can i.e. create antagonist and protagonist within this narrative by giving them typical musical figures, harmonies or melodies.

Memorability

It is far more likely to memorize a piece of music than spoken language or images because “music tends to linger in the listeners mind.”[5] “Early advertising music also had different aims. Music then was primarily used as a mnemonic device. Rhyme and reception were enlisted to keep a brand name in mind. ‘Singing commercials’ or jingles made up a self-contained genre.”[6] Huron adds that it is “the most common musical technique for aiding memorability and hence product recall.”[7] Companies use these for example to make the customers remember their phone number, webpage, their company name or at least a catchy slogan linked to the brand. But also non-jingle music can perform this task and stick in the customers mind.

Lyrical Language

In contemporary adverts the advertisers must overcome the viewer’s skepticism which developed over years through desensitization. This can become a pretty hard task. But since advertisers favor mostly poetic, emotional appeals over logical, informational appeals due to the shift from modern to postmodern advertisement music turned out to be a perfect tool to reach this goal. Music can provide a message without the customer consciously noticing it. For providing rational facts in the same time “mixtures of speech and song provide advertisers with opportunities for both logical, factual appeals [through spoken and written language] and emotive, poetic appeals [through music].”[8]

Targeting and Authority Establishment

Different types of music can be attributed to certain kind of groups or life styles which makes it possible to appeal to these groups over using certain kinds of musical genres. Music can therefore function as a “nonverbal identifier for certain groups with different musical taste because it is “arguably the greatest tool advertisers have for portraying and distinguishing various styles.”[9]

Looking at these contributions of music towards advertisement it becomes obvious that these attributes work together in inseparable ways. Of course there could be added other categories. There is for example a difference between diegetic (the source of the music is visible) and non-diegetic (the source of the music is not visible) use of music which can have totally different effects in result depending on the adverts context. The overall task of advertisers nowadays should be to develop a “considerable practical experience in joining images and music to social and psychological motivation”[10] and by this process create meaning which appeals to the target group and helps the advertisement to succeed.

Interaction of Music and Brand

In general one could say that music can be altered in meaning depending on its context. This is of course an opportunity for advertisers to create meaning for their brand by employing musical pieces for their own interest. But music has “a potential for the construction or negotiation of meaning in specific contexts.”[11] That means that some music can match better with one type of products than with another type. Different musical types can i.e. target high culture or popular culture oriented customers. The reason is that “musical styles and genres offer unsurpassed opportunities for communicating complex social or attitudinal messages practically instantaneously.”[12] One could literally say that music is worth a thousand words. That’s why music became more and more important to advertisers. They have the chance to transfer specific characteristics connoted to certain musical types to their products. “Music now is more often employed as ‘borrowed interest’ capturing a feeling, setting a mood, recalling past experiences and playing them back on behalf of the sponsors.”[13] All these attributes help an advertisement appealing to the life world or lifestyle of the targeted group.

And of course “music transfers its own attributes to the story line and to the product, it creates coherence, making connections that are not there in the words or pictures; it even engenders meanings of its own […] the music interprets the words and pictures.”[14] It is obvious that a brand’s, product’s or service’s value is enhanced by the connection to music. It adopts meanings which are inherent in the music because “the object itself is not enough to sell it; it must also be linked to some sort of personal meaning, the very essence of branding.”[15] That means that a brand or product has to pick up some kind of connotation which is added by the music. Also a certain artist can change or shape an advert so that it fits a certain target group. “Advertising is not about what the product does but who the consumer is”[16] and so advertisements have to find a good balance between adopting meaning from a used musical piece or artist and providing context in return to become authentic. Both the music and the advertisement can benefit from this symbiosis. There are artists and music bands that became famous through having their music inside of adverts which can in return mean to sacrifice their music to the brand.

“The joining of music culture, through either a licensed track or the appearance of an artist, with a product or service in a commercial brings new connotations to both artist [and also the music] and company while naturalizing the relationship between the two. The value of articulating popular music to a product can be seen as especially important to advertisers competing with products similar, if not identical, in use-value.”[17]

Music Bed

A music bed is a part of a jingle, or alternatively the entire jingle, where there are no sung vocalist. In other words, if refers to a section where only instruments are heard. Music beds make it possible for a voice over to be spoken over the top, without the spoken words being interfered with by the sung vocals. For this reason, companies usually have different cuts of their jingle, so they can use each of the different versions for different purposes, depending on the context.

References

  1. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  2. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  3. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  4. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  5. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  6. ↑ Carrie McLaren, Rick Prelinger „Salesnoise: the convergence of music and advertising“, Stay Free! 15 fall 1998, p. 1
  7. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  8. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  9. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  10. ↑ Huron, David (1989). "Music in Advertising". The Musical Quarterly 73 (4): 560–569. Retrieved 22 April 2011. 
  11. ↑ Nicholas Cook „Music and Meaning in the Commercials“, Popular Music, 1994, vol. 13, nr. 1, p. 39
  12. ↑ Nicholas Cook „Music and Meaning in the Commercials“, Popular Music, 1994, vol. 13, nr. 1, p. 35
  13. ↑ Carrie McLaren, Rick Prelinger „Salesnoise: the convergence of music and advertising“, Stay Free! 15 fall 1998, p. 1
  14. ↑ Nicholas Cook „Music and Meaning in the Commercials“, Popular Music, 1994, vol. 13, nr. 1, p. 38
  15. ↑ Bethany Klein „In Perfect Harmony: Popular Music and Cola Advertising“, p 4
  16. ↑ Bethany Klein „In Perfect Harmony: Popular Music and Cola Advertising“, p 6
  17. ↑ Bethany Klein „In Perfect Harmony: Popular Music and Cola Advertising“, p 5

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