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Tex-Mex Band Writes, Records Song for Threadless
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
01.05.09
@ 03:12 PM
Composing on command is an extreme test of a songwriter's work ethic. Whereas I avoid the wrath of Ad Age's cruel whipmasters by hastily mashing together subjects and predicates to form "blog posts" day after day, artists are often forced to rely on "inspiration," and they are rarely under the gun -- Axl Rose's 14-year fail journey comes to mind.
So let's all admire Tucson-based Tex-Mex band Calexico and its new song "Absent Afternoon," which it wrote and recorded for Threadless using the t-shirt "Bird Migration" (at left) for inspiration. As part of a recent "Threadless Loves Travel" contest in conjunction with Icelandair, artist and Mexican breakdancer Alex Solis's winning design of a bird carrying its house and possessions on its back became the basis of the track, which is available for free downloading and streaming. For his efforts, Solis won a trip with his wife to Iceland, a travel bag from Dakine and $1,000 to spend on a travel site, as if having Calexico write a song about his creation wasn't enough.
Lil Wayne, Murs Lend Voices to Gatorade Re-branding Effort
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
01.05.09
@ 11:26 AM
By all accounts, 2008 was Lil Wayne's year. He had the best-selling album and was nominated for the most Grammys. He received numerous sloppy, wet kisses from marketers. He even sold condoms. Most important, a wide variety of real people and critics (including myself) thought "The Carter III" was an awesome collection of songs, and it solidified Weezy's place as the most fascinating guy making pop music today.
We could go on, but it shouldn't be a mystery why Gatorade and its agency, Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, have picked him to narrate a new spot re-branding the beverage line. As iconic sports figures such as Dwyane Wade, Serena Williams, Bill Russell, Derek Jeter and Muhammad Ali pan by in black and white, Weezy deadpans lines like "G's the emblem of a warrior, it's the swagger of an athlete, a champion and dynasty," "it's a lower-case god," and even "it's the GOAT." (The last of these is a hilarious acronym for "greatest of all time," a phrase that we will endeavor to work into our vernacular.)
Bellyflopping Economy May Be Hastening Demise of Bling Endorsements
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.30.08
@ 03:27 PM
A few months back, we noticed that country artists had become a refuge for marketers looking for blue-collar authenticity at a time when everyone was beginning to feel a little more blue collar. Now Canada's National Post is suggesting that hip-hop and R&B artists have been getting into the same game, dropping luxury goods as quickly as consumers did this year.
... Where once Jay-Z proudly wooed his conquests with Cristal and serenaded Beyonce with the keys to a Benz, this year, cut-rate hip-poppers Shwayze sang "Baby, will you be my Corona and lime?" and licensed their song Buzzin' to an ad for the "incredibly fuel efficient" Pontiac Vibe. Where Tony Yayo and 50 Cent once boasted about taking "first class flights headed towards Vegas," this year's club phenom Lady Gaga promotes staying at home and gambling away your defaulting mortgage payments with bwin.com, whose logo is prominently displayed in her video for Poker Face.
There's plenty of counter-examples to this; take the rush for everyone from Dr. Dre to Snoop Dogg to unveil their own brands of cognac or Louis Vuitton's continually successful courtship of hip-hop moguls. But we can also add to the signs of "downscaling" LL Cool J's clothing line at Sears and the proliferation of artist-branded shoes, status items within the grasp of most consumers.
The Bling Era has been on a steady decline for some time now, but it seems likely that the economy has been hastening its demise. That, coupled with the fact that marketers in every industry seem more comfortable than ever with hip-hop icons (and they themselves seem loathe to resist), would explain why we're seeing more Souljaboys at Walmart these days. Whether that's a shift in hip-hop culture or a cunning adaption to the times at hand, perhaps we'll find out by next Christmas.
[National Post]
Are We Struggling With Third-Wheel Marketers or a Third-Person Effect?
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.29.08
@ 12:47 PM
As if this were not already the gloomiest December of my quarter century, Jon Pareles, The New York Times' chief music critic, was kind enough to spill the last dregs of egg nog from my moose mug on Christmas Eve. His piece, "Songs From the Heart of a Marketing Plan," should give everyone pause, particularly marketers who use music for brand campaigns.
While resigning himself to the undeniable reality that marketers have filled some of the vacuum left by retreating album sales, Pareles wonders aloud how this is affecting our consumption of the art in its most basic form. Have ads turned our attention away from 45-minute albums to TV-friendly, 30-second bites? Have songs become simply a means to unrelated ends? And, if so, do the economics of the industry leave us without an alternative?
Five for Fighting Speaks Plus Sponsor Pitch Gets Ready to Launch
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.18.08
@ 05:22 PM
Couple items from the Ad Age wires that readers should be aware of:
- Colleague and resident Ad Age music nerd Andrew Hampp spoke with Five for Fighting's John Ondrasik about the permutations of his song "World," including the recent inclusion in a Sears spot that we -- ahem -- weren't too kind about. With Ad Age, Mr. Ondrasik was friendlier yet just as candid. He told Andrew his songs gravitate toward what he calls "bumper-sticker lines" suitable for advertising: "I don't fish for these, and they have to be perfect for me to go along with it in terms of the concept, timing and use of the song."
- Yours truly dug into a new open platform for creating sponsorship deals called Sponsor Pitch. (Sort of a fun writing exercise to avoid using the word "sponsor" in the same sentence as the name of the site for 800 words). It's free and promises to be very accessible for anyone looking to spend or receive money on sponsorships; finding and making these deals can be very chaotic, and, unless you're a big company, finding appropriate partners can be a messy business. If nothing else, with a little more buzz and plenty of nurturing on the social features, it could succeed as a networking venue for small-to-medium-sized music-brand partnerships, and may even encourage bands to arrange their own financing.
Runners-Up From Our Book of Tens List
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.15.08
@ 04:57 PM
For the second year in a row, we had the privilege of compiling our favorite ad songs of the year in the Ad Age Book of Tens, which hit newsstands -- or, more likely, your mailbox/inbox -- today. All in all, it was a pretty good year, and, for us, sports spots really hit the mark for some reason.
We have a pretty loose criteria for these things, but taste and creativity rank pretty highly, and we give bonus points when brands help to break artists we like. Yet there were still plenty that didn't make the cut for various reasons, most of which are unarguably idiosyncratic, so we've put together the runners-up who just barely lost out and some of the things we've said about them in the past. In no particular order:
- Menomena - "Weird"
"For the spot, Mountain Dew eschewed art-pop band Menomena's unsettling original version of "Weird" from their last (awesome) album for a recent Dekoder remix that draws out the sinister vibes into something even more menacing."
- Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence" -
"For Sony Ericsson's W890 Walkman phone, Saatchi & Saatchi, Stockholm, hired out Plan8, Stockholm, to reinterpret the song and maybe provide some elasticity for the unabashedly amateur karaoke performances by the kids in the ad."
- Brendan Benson - "What I'm Looking For"
Mike Tunnicliffe: "The latest iPod commercial hit the screens last week, and it features the music of Brendan Benson, who is a member of The Raconteurs, a collaboration with Jack White of The White Stripes. The song 'What I'm Looking For' from his last solo album was also used in a Sears commercial last year."
- Sufjan Stevens - "Lift Up Your Head"
This ad for the EPA has "clever little animations but an unfortunately amateur-sounding voiceover. We like it anyway. Course, not as much as we like federally mandated higher fuel efficiency standards (hint hint)!"
- Simple Kid - "Lil King Kong"
"This is a trippy psych-pop tune -- about what, we're not sure -- which sports a Beck-inspired kitchen sink approach that borrows banjo and classic hip-hop beats in equal proportion."
- Spank Rock - "Bump"
"Now that Wishbone is using "Bump" by Spank Rock, the Best Week Ever blog wonders whether salad dressing makers have found their perfect audience: hipsters ... It's a cute idea, but chances are it's a case of the nuts taking over the insane asylum -- in a good way, of course."
- Marc Bianchi - "Sleepy Tigers"
"The charming 'Sleepy Tigers,' from Bianchi's forthcoming 'The New Kid Revival' LP, is featured in this new stop-motion Sun-Rype spot created by DDB that appears to be composed entirely of actual fruit."
- Karen Ann - "Lay Your Head Down"
"We're sorry to point out the obvious, but Ann was born in Israel and raised in Paris just like -- yes, we'll say it -- Yael Naim, and if Apple hasn't had enough of the folksy females, maybe we'll hear her in the iPhone G3 ads sure to come out soon."
- El Perro Del Mar - "Coming Down the Hill"
"Kudos to MacLaren McCann, Toronto, for picking such a dreamy, wafting tune like "Coming Down the Hill," but it's still a little perplexing."
- Radiohead - "House of Cards"
"Keep in mind that Radiohead isn't indie, but we always feel a little tickled to see hip, stridently un-macho bands with their songs in sports commercials."
Palm Reconstructs Classic Run D.M.C. Holiday Tune for Integrated Campaign
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.15.08
@ 01:40 PM
Advertising Age Embedded Player
I had a revelatory moment last year when, while riding a bus through Queens, I passed Hollis Hills and realized that it was a real place, not just the setting for my favorite Christmas song since I was a kid. (I immediately texted everyone I knew). For anyone who's had the TV turned on lately, Run D.M.C.'s immortal "Christmas in Hollis" has been recontextualized once again.
For an integrated campaign for the Palm Centro, Seattle-based agency Creature recruited Rondo Brothers, a Bay-area duo with as many remix credits as they have ad soundtrack credits, who provided a remixed Santa Claus with a suitably remixed soundtrack. Said track, "Claus Anthem," features rapper Motion Man, who stays pretty close to the original lyrics while ad-libbing some of this own ambient memories into the mix. He doesn't have the same joie de vivre, but who ever did?
Profit Warnings and a Slowdown Without Much Signs of Letting Up
Posted
by Mke Tunnicliffe
on
12.13.08
@ 05:20 PM
Note: The lede for this post has been altered slightly to provide better context for the story.
While the rest of the video game industry seems to be prospering despite the tough economy, two rock-branded game franchises that once promised to broaden the market have unexpectedly fallen behind their competition. Is the tour winding down for "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" ?
Electronic Arts, the video game publisher behind the "Rock Band" franchise, has issued its second profit warning within as many months, and, according to numerous reports over the last few days, including one from the BBC, a number of holiday season titles -- including the second installment of the "Rock Band" series -- have seen disappointing sales figures since their releases. The company also said it had been hit by the growing market share of Nintendo's Wii console, which experienced unexpected growth in November and features a bevy of successful first-party software titles. That said, even Nintendo's music game offering, "Wii Music," has thus far been an unexpected failure.
Over at Activision, the company behind "Guitar Hero," analysts are starting to predict a slowdown in revenues, with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter telling Wired that we can expect to see an overall Activision revenue drop of 14 percent. Jesse Divnich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research issued a research note on Monday that stated "Guitar Hero" should expect unit sales to decline by at least half, series-over-series for November. In October, this figure was at 60 percent.
However, the same report also acknowledged that, although sales are going to be down, games like "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" will not be disappearing "anytime soon." Thanks goodness for that as I'd hate to see those Hedi Klum commercials disappearing off our screens!
~ ~ ~
Mike Tunnicliffe owns Tuna Music LLC, a New York- and London-based management company. Find out more at miketunnicliffe.com.
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.10.08
@ 07:38 PM
Last week, we mentioned that mobile brands topped the list of most-musically inclined companies in the UK, according to kids surveyed there. We have a feeling that the situation may not be the same here -- we're thinking footwear could come on top -- but brands like Verizon Wireless, RIM (Blackberry), Apple, and nearly everyone in between all compete vigorously for the ears of American youngsters. With a recent push for digital radio prominence, Verizon may now have the most skin in the game.
According to MediaWeek, the telecom co. has created Verizon New Music, an HD2 channel that will exist alongside 21 Clear Channels nationwide. Since less than a million people own HD radio hardware, you're probably in our boat with a "what the heck is that?" type of response to this news, but SFS has done the legwork for you: some, if not all, HD radio stations have what are known as "side channels," which become available after you tune to a station's main frequency. Think of it like switching to the director commentary track of a DVD, an alternate stream of content on top of the primary one.
Beloved Jesus and Mary Chain Song Licensed for Femme Ad
Posted
by Charlie Moran
on
12.08.08
Here it is guys: "Just Like Honey" by Jesus and Mary Chain, in an ad for Hugo Boss's Femme perfume. How did you think they were paying for that new album, with decades of goodwill?
[Via Splendad]
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