The Importance of Music in Advertising

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Advertising seems effortless to the audience, particularly when they spot an advert that makes them laugh, cry, think or brings debate. Television, online and radio advertising has the ability to stir emotions and memories, and this can be largely due to the music choice. Music is just as an important part of the branding process as the visuals and words of an advertising campaign. Where the personality you chose is imperative to a brand, particularly for creating a strong identity and engaging with your consumers.

Music and images can connect with a wider audience than words, as there are no language barriers with music, and this is why music should never be overlooked when it comes to advertising. Alexomanolaki, Loveday, and Kennett (2007) wrote in their paper ‘Music and Memory in Advertising’:

“Music may play several roles and have many effects in advertising; it may attract attention, carry the product message, act as a mnemonic device, and create excitement or a state of relaxation. Music is effective in facilitating both implicit learning and recall of the advertised product.”

Brands and Music Identity

Gillette’s branding ‘Best a man can get’ sonic trigger has stayed with the brand over all of their marketing campaigns. The memorable sonic just turns up in different guises in every TV advert – whether it’s played on a guitar or sung. Take a look at Gillette’s ‘Best a man can get’ advert from 1989 and compare it with their latest ‘Shave Face’ commercial. The 1989 bespoke, power ballad advert boosted Gillette’s brand awareness, where they went on to rank 20th on the Fortune 500.

Gillette ‘Best a Man Can Get’ – 1989. 

Gillette Fusion ProGlide with FlexBall Technology | Shave Face

Agencies and brands come to us to create custom music for their TV adverts, where we spend sleepless nights and sometimes weeks creating and tweaking music that fits and synchronises with their adverts seamlessly. Another example of a brands identity growing with the business, as the years roll by, is Webuyanycar.com. Their fully sung sonic trigger has now been replaced with a short instrumental sonic.

When we had to work alongside an advertising agency for Webuyanycar.com’s online advertising campaign, the brand wanted the music that we composed to fit stylistically and even be in the same musical key as the existing sonic.

We’ve even had a well-known brand come to us to produce a bespoke piece of music and lyrics for an existing TV advert, just because the original piece of music that they had already licensed wasn’t working for them. By changing the music, the brand wanted to try another approach to connecting with its audience, conjuring different emotions and perceptions about the product.

Memorable Music

Sometimes music has so much impact on a market, the music itself becomes popular in it’s own right. Who can forget Monty the Penguin from John Lewis’ Christmas 2014 campaign. The little penguin became synonymous with Tom Odell’s ‘Higher Love’, and even featured on the singles charity front cover. The single even reached number 7 in the UK’s Top 40 chart.

To go one better, John Lewis chose pop star Lily Allen’s version of ‘Somewhere only we know’ to front their Christmas Bear and the Hare 2013 campaign. The single had already peaked at number 1, one month before it featured on the TV advert. Before Lily Allen had time to put down her microphone, the song went back to the number 1 spot around a month later. John Lewis saw sales reportedly rise by 6.9%; they were constantly trending on Twitter and have reached over 4,796,086 views on YouTube.

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