14/05/2020
Brands Seeking
‘Comfort Food’
Songs for Ad
Synchs During
Pandemic
BY MELINDA NEWMAN
As the severity of the coronavirus became apparent, Madison
Avenue reacted swiftly. Commercials with hard sells were out,
while soft sells with uplifting messages were
in. Song publishers quickly pivoted to meet
the musical needs of their clients’ changing
messages.
“The shift happened pretty quickly,” says
Brian Monaco, Sony/ATV Music Publishing’s president/global chief marketing
officer. Brands began looking for “songs of
hope, unity, togetherness.”
They also began looking for deals. With
some brands asking for free usages, publishers are having to exercise extra scrutiny.
“We have been overwhelmed by brands
looking for gratis uses of songs from our catalog, so we do a lot of research to make sure
the use is related to COVID-19 and hopefully
raising money for people on the front lines
of the pandemic rather than their trying to
sell their product or use COVID-19 to sell
their services,” Monaco says. “We’ve been
reviewing all of them on a case-by-case basis
and when we — the publisher and writer/
artist — agree to gratis, we often try to agree
to no more than a three-month term.”
Regardless of the price point, the briefs
“tended to lean more heavily on what I
think of as [musical] comfort food,” agrees
BMG senior vp of creative synch Jonathan
Palmer, who placed Andra Day’s “Rise Up”
in an Amazon spot, as well as Black Eyed
Peas’ “One Tribe” for Facebook’s new Messenger Desk Top. “Themes of warmth and
togetherness and confidence and making it
through” the pandemic are popular, he says.
Within days of people sheltering in place,
Walmart rolled out ads featuring essential
workers singing Bill Withers’ “Lean on
Me,” as well as the company’s CEO heralding the employees as David Bowie’s
“Heroes” played in the background. Both
songs are part of Universal Music Publishing Group’s catalog. (UMPG represents
“Heroes” co-writer Brian Eno, while Sony/
ATV represents Bowie’s share of the song).
While much of the landscape is dominated with commercials featuring seemingly interchangeable, solemn piano-based
instrumentals with soothing narration — so
much so that there’s a YouTube supercut
highlighting the similar ads — many advertisers want songs that stand out instead of
blend in. “Brands want to pass on messages
of hope and optimism,” says Tom Eaton,
UMPG’s senior vp of advertising and TV
music. “Recognizable songs can immediately create that emotion in the viewers. Music
can be used as a shorthand and brands are
looking for that right now.”
Few songs are as recognizable as those by
The Beatles and Sony/ATV saw multiple requests for Fab Four tunes, including “All You
Need Is Love,” an acoustic cover of which
began airing on a Facebook Portal ad in late
April. The deal was closed on a Wednesday
and the spot started airing the following
Monday. “We’re seeing the ads completed
in a faster fashion,” Monaco says. “There’s
an urgency, plus there are no shoots,” which
means ad agencies are building spots around
existing stock, news footage or newly computer generated images.
Even with songs with lyrics, advertisers are often looking for a softer tone. For
a Samsung ad using Marc Scibilia’s “How
Bad We Need Each Other,” the brand opted
for the stripped-down demo for the 2016
tune instead of the much poppier, slicker
finished version, Monaco says. T-Mobile
used an acoustic instrumental bed of Muse’s
“Something Human,” according to Warner
Chappell’s senior vp, synch and creative
services Keith D’Arcy.
Pricing has also become a major talking
point, including many companies asking publishers to reduce or totally waive
licensing fees given the extraordinary times.
“Brands and agencies are having to find a
budget to put together a brand-new and
unexpected message due to our current
circumstances. However, musically speaking
they tend to want or need songs that appeal
to the widest audience and those tend to be
well-known songs that command high fees,”
says Julie Hurwitz, Kobalt Music’s co-head
of synch and brand partnerships. “As a
publisher, I want to do deals on behalf of my
writers but also don’t want to undervalue
their copyrights, so that’s been an interesting negotiation.” She adds that to get around
the lack of ability to shoot, agencies and
brands have asked to renew licenses from
previously run commercials, “in order to rerun these campaigns.”
Certain brands, mainly those involving
tourism, entertainment and sports events,
are shelving ads for now, while brands that
connect people, such as telecommunications
companies and Facebook, are strong, Eaton
says.
Business is holding relatively steady
despite the pullback by some companies because “a lot of the big brands understand the
worth of long-term brand building and how
to engage their customers, so they’re not going away,” Monaco says. “It really just feels
like business as usual, but with this shift in
types of songs that people are asking for,”
agrees Tom Foster, UMPG’s London-based
European head of film and TV.
Publishers are already anticipating the
needs for brands when the country turns
the corner on the pandemic. “Hopefully, at
some point down the road when we get into
the next phase where people can start to go
outside more and there’s a light at the end
of the tunnel, I predict there will be a new
round of messaging, about cautiously celebrating,” Hurwitz says. “The team and I are
in the process now of anticipating the need
for those types of songs. Who knows when
that will be. At some point, people are going
to be able to share a beer together or go on
vacation on an airplane or visit relatives at
Thanksgiving again, so brands are going to
be re-messaging again.”
Assistance preparing this story provided
by Steve Knopper and Chris Eggertsen.
