PART 1
If you remember the 80s, you undoubtedly remember Pat Benatar and her hit song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”. And, undoubtedly, it makes you think of..….FAJITAS!
Because, according to their latest TV spot, Applebee’s is going to hit me with their best shot of……queso! On their loaded chicken fajitas!….I guess.
Did that choice of music really enhance the messaging or the emotion of the spot or did they just randomly pick an 80s song because they’re targeting boomers?
Music is an essential part of motion pictures of any kind
Our friends in the film and TV world spend a great deal of time and money on this. Who can forget the iconic music from our favorite films and TV shows like Star Wars, ET, Jaws, Footloose, Rocky, Mission Impossible, Mad Men or House of Cards?
Has today’s culture without top 40 radio and with thousands of free or cheap stock music choices diluted the importance of music in marketing?
HELL NO.
The perfect music in a video or film can bring you to tears. It can make you want to stand up and dance, cheer for the hero or make you want to call your mother.
Filmmakers will tell you that audio (spoken words, sound effects and music) is at least as important as, if not more than, the visuals. A video with a well-crafted script, the perfect music and sound but sub-par visuals will be more acceptable to the audience than beautiful images with crappy sound.
Why is this so hard?
For us marketers, gone are the days of jingles like Coca Cola’s “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” or “I Wish I Were An Oscar Meyer Wiener” which were instantly recognizable and forever linked to their brand. Much has changed in the past 20 years and we’ve shifted our focus toward longer-format video as a story telling device. However, music is no less important and often overlooked or misused by marketers.
Take the latest Toyota Camry spot featuring Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”.
I get it. You don’t want to stop when you’re driving a Camry. Don’t stop me now!
Great! But…seriously?
Is the idea to just find a song with a handful of words in the chorus that are remotely connected to our product? Is this the most creative and effective use of music to enhance your video?
Not only do some song choices not help the video, they distract from the message. How many times have you noticed one of your favorite songs in a spot and focused on it rather than paying attention to what the spot is trying to communicate? This happens when there’s a complete disconnect between the mood of the visuals and the popular song choice.
On the flip side, you can watch thousands of corporate videos with the all too generic stock music playing in the background. You know the one that sounds like someone put “uplifting” in the search box and selected the first one on that popped up. It’s a quick and easy fix to slap a piece of stock music on it and call it a day.
In Part 2 we’ll look at some examples of brilliant marketers who have found the perfect piece of music to accompany their video and why music is important to your brand.
Que blog post jingle…
