A Music Niche

The Music of TV Adverts

Since moving back to London, I have rejoined the family tradition of sitting around the TV in the evenings.

First thing to note, you turn the TV on and there is nothing good to watch. Repeats of repeats. Endless reality shows. Shows about people looking at houses… and then not buying them. Game shows that you've seen before. No wonder cable TV is on the decline.

The only good thing to watch at the moment is the Bake Off. It’s a show you have to watch with other people and so when I moved to uni, I stopped watching it. In the six years since, it has moved to Channel 4 and gained ad breaks.

I despise TV adverts. Any attempt to sell a product to me via TV backfires since I am so infuriated by their appearance I refuse to buy their products. In an hour of TV watching, you can see the same ad four or five times, sometimes twice within the same ad break!

However, for all of my hate, I have to give them some credit, they are designed well. Each ad has a recognisable soundtrack which, due to the sheer number of times you hear it, means it sticks in your head. Music is incredibly important for their effectiveness.

This got me thinking, how has music in advertising changed throughout the years and with the rise of AI, where will it go in the future?

Humble Beginnings

Until 22nd September 1955, when you sat down to watch TV in Britain you had a choice between BBC 1… and nothing else! To provide competition to the BBC, ITV was introduced as a commercial channel with a big difference, it was funded through advertising!

The first ever advert was for Gibbs SR toothpaste and aired on the same day ITV began. In black and white, the camera pans to a tube of toothpaste, frozen in a block of ice. It features a wistful flute melody with an orchestral accompaniment and a voiceover sounding like a relic from wartime Britain.

This was unusual for the time. Most adverts had no music and featured a very basic skit narrated by a similar wartime British accent. They seem a bit eerie by today’s standards.

Counter Cultural Revolution

Advertising blew up in the 60s. With the cultural revolution that happened, companies changed rapidly to keep up.

Ads became high production value affairs with directors brought in to create a polished, tightly delivered showcase. Music was written for these ads with full orchestras and jingles helping to sell products.

One surprising ad I found was by The Rolling Stones who wrote a song specifically to promote rice krispies and was apparently one of the first songs by the band heard by the public.

With TV advertising still a relatively new phenomenon, cues were taken from radio where artists were often commissioned to produce jingles for products. This led to loads of popular artists of the time writing songs for adverts: Rolling Stones (Rice Krispies), The Who (Coke), Cream (Falstaff Beer) and Jefferson’s Airplane (Levi). So much for their anti-establishment sentiment!

They Found the Formula

Very quickly, a formula was created and music in advertising followed three main avenues.

Jingles

The first was the classic jingle. This was written specifically to promote a product and designed to be memorable. The good ones stick in your head and are reawakened years later filling you with confusion at their powers of staying.

This one was the most annoying but I will forever know the company Go Compare.

Pop Music

The second was using pop music to appeal to people, creating an association between their brand and an artist.

This gain traction in the 90s when artists signed to massive labels allowed their songs to be used in ads. This method allowed companies to appeal directly to an audience associating their brand with the status of pop singers at the time.

This became a contentious topic - had an artist ‘sold-out’ by allowing their music in advertising.

It was a risky business. If the ad went well and was tasteful, it could be mutually beneficial helping to sell albums and products.

On the flipside, a song could be ruined due to an awful ad. This was the case with an M&S advert featuring At The River by Groove Armada.

With Groove Armarda’s Tom Findlay saying

In an age of music label giants, music in advertising is another revenue stream. At the end of the day, they exist to make a profit and so artists wishes are often put to one side.

In the Background

The third uses music in either a theatrical set or none at all. Music is usually composed for an advert and the advent of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) made this process easier and cheaper. What used to take a full orchestra of people to record can now be done by one person making this the cheapest and most common form of music in adverts.

The early 2000s was the best time for this type of advert with some really wacky ads. They are not usually this fun now.

What does the future have in store

From here on out, I am just imagining.

Ads today have become highly polished, none of the strangeness of the early 2000s. Currently the music mostly falls into the camp of produced music. Jingles are far and few between.

The future of music in advertising hinges on who wins out in the creatives vs AI debate. If creative work is not valued more and protected under law, a world of AI advertising is around the corner.

It is already used for short-form ads on social media. AI provides a very cheap way to create an advert and works well slotted between short form content.

We live in a post neo-liberal landscape with AI regulations seeming far away. Everyone is too scared to pop the bubble to regulate it so it seems creatives have little power.

Creating DAWs democratised music making. If you own a computer, you can download a free one and begin to make music. AI tools are furthering this process by enabling the user, through worded prompts, to create highly customised songs. Whilst I haven’t heard of any ads on TV using AI, the speed and low cost means its probably around the corner.

AI music still has a bad rap in the semi-consciousness of society today so brands are probably too afraid of negative press to try it out. If that changes then we will absolutely see AI used to make music for ads, maybe even for the ads themselves.

Some Fun Ads I Found

AOL ad for the internet! The good…

and the bad!

I wonder which it became???

So ridiculously stupid. 2000s was a wild time.

Happy Listening!

On a final note, I say RIP D’Angelo. Check out this great mix on NTS Radio Soup to Nuts w/Shy One - 100% D’Angelo

It took a while for this post to come out…