What can you tell me about music in TV commercials

By Andy Hughes

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Every time an advert comes on TV, there seems to be a pop song as a soundtrack, why is this < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Advertising is all about making people remember the product that's being advertised. If you show someone an image on their TV at tea time, and they remember the item being advertised when they go shopping the next day, the advertisers have done their job. A big plus in helping people remember a particular advert is to link it with a well known song, which can stick in the memory even longer than a visual image, hence the popularity of pop music in television advertising.

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Is it a recent phenomenon

Not really, one of the earliest commercials using a pop song was for bread, which combined an image of a girl in a balloon with a catchy song. In those days, the advertisers found their song was popular enough to release as a record.� The song was Can't Let Maggie Go and it was a hit for Honeybus way back in 1968.

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So who got the idea going again

The responsibility rests fairly and squarely with Levis, the jeans company.�It combined a memorable image of male model Nick Kamen popping his jeans in a laundrette, accompanied by Marvin Gay's classic I Heard It Through The Grapevin. The impact made by this combination led to a series of ads using top pop tunes. Everyone from T Rex to The Clash got a new lease of life, the latter even got a number one from the re-release of Should I Stay Or Should I Go, entirely due to the impact of the TV advert.

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Who else has used pop songs to advertise their products

Just about anyone and anything can be plugged using a pop song, and probably has. Credit cards to coffee, pop (soft drink variety that is) to cider, you think of it, chances are, the advertising gurus have thought of it first.

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Is one product more popular than any other

Cars seem to have the edge. A bewildering variety of musical styles are used to underline even more bewildering advertising campaigns designed to sell cars. A mini-soap opera hinting at a lady having an affair is resolved in about thirty seconds, with Andy Williams warbling You're Just Too Good To Be True just to fix the message in the consciousness of the viewer.

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Do they just use oldies or middle-of-the-road songs

Not at all. If you're looking to snare the interest of the younger consumer, hip pop songs are a great way to go about it. New Order, Blondie, even veteran, and newly hip Santana have been used to increase sales of credit cards, alcohol and fried chicken

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Something like Gary Numan's Cars must be made for a TV advert

Indeed it is, but it isn't used to advertise a car, it's used to sell lager! No one said advertising has to be logical, it just has to be effective.

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Do pop stars mind their music being used in this way

Sometimes they don't have a choice in the matter. Verve fans were incensed when a section of Bitter Sweet Symphony was used in a TV advert. The band could do nothing about it, the section in question was sampled from an old Rolling Stones song, owned by former manager Alan Klein who didn't mind if The Verve fans, or The Stones fans, or the bands themselves objected. He owns the copyright, and can sell or licence its use to whom ever he chooses.

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Is the trend for pop and advertising likely to die out

It shows no sings of doing so, if anything the trend is increasing, proof that the concept of linking visual and audio images to make a memorable advert is as simple and effective as ever.