Paid placement for brands in pop lyrics
In the e-mail, Kluger (who has represented Mariah Carey, New Kids on the Blog, Ne-Yo, Fall Out Boy, Method Man, Lady GaGa and Ludacris) explained via e-mail that for the right price, Double Happiness Jeans could find its way into the lyrics in an upcoming Pussycat Dolls song. Crouse posted the e-mail on his blog at the Anti-Advertising Agency, an art project of sorts that's basically the philosophical mirror image of a traditional ad agency.Products Placed: How Companies Pay Artists to Include Brands in LyricsThe thing is, Double Happiness Jeans is not your everyday brand -- it's a virtual sweatshop organized by EyeBeam for a display at the Sundance Festival, which involves paying Second Life citizens 90 cents an hour to make real, customized jeans designed in the virtual factory. Crouse and Steve Lambert, his partner at the Anti-Advertising Agency, are probably the last people on earth who Kluger would want to receive this e-mail. Both men spend a fair amount of their time questioning, undermining and criticizing the pervasiveness of materialism and advertising in our culture.
"It was hilarious," Lambert told us via telephone, "that he wanted to put Jeff's fake Second Life sweatshop company in a pop song. It's this desperation that advertising has come to because you can't just tell people about your product anymore, because nobody cares. Advertisers have created this situation where they've made themselves obsolete. There's too much advertising out there, so they try to find new ways to cut through the clutter that they've created. And this is one of those ways."
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Would have been great if they had gone along with and let the cat out of the bag after the song was released.
Product placement in songs now. Amazing.
Baudrillard is dead, long live Baudrillard.
Is that real-world money, or Linden dollars? 90 Lindens an hour is a hell of a lot of money. I'd be down for that.
what is the URL for "new kids on the blog"? i am interest.
I wonder if Katie Perry had a deal with the makers of Chapstick?
Chapstick was the one word I didn't recognize at first (that brand isn't sold in The Netherlands as far as I know). You could be onto something Ned613.
This is not fnord news. All the cool kids have heard the fnord fnord fnords in the songs all fnord along fnord fnord.
Actually, Rider, I don't think it's a new thing. Anyone remember Sigue Sigue Sputnik selling ad space on their album Flaunt it (albeit this their own choice)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaunt_It_(album)
I find it doubtful that this sort of stuff is new, but probably has a long history, that is just now coming out. They just picked the wrong company to ask in this case.
If Wesley Willis was still alive today, he'd make a fortune.
so, this opens up the possibility that companies can sue of they don't like their brand being mentioned in a song, right? I mean, if a brand placement deal is made for Trojan, and another artist sings about Trojan without a placement deal and Trojan doesn't like it they can sue, right?
Maybe that free speech rule applies, or is it fair use?
So, if a song like "Low" mentions "Apple Bottom jeans, boots with the fur," does that mean that Apple Bottom paid, but Ugg didn't?
Real Art is knowing how to Talk Like A Commercial:
The Tabloid Art Ready Reference (How to Be Entertaining In New Ways) 2006 by XVALA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emKF_Tb5JTU
i forgot the author and book, but i heard once that MTV books once made an offer to publish a coming of age type novel with the condition that the bands and songs mentioned in the novel be replaced with bands and songs they wanted to push.
i hope i never am faced with a big fat paycheck or my integrity. i'm sure i'd rationalize the money into my bank account.
In a world of brand-name tattoos on foreheads, this shouldn't come as a surprise, really, but I'm still somewhat shocked at the lengths that advertiser will go to promote their crap. This also takes "selling out" to a new low, a very very deep one. Disgusting.
It's actually more complicated than this. Advertisers have funded the creation and distribution of television shows and allowed for the dissemination of music via radio (also of course, they support news, talk, sports and other radio). Removing audience from broadcasting advertising not only makes it hard for companies to gt information to the consumers, but it eliminates the production of big money tv shows. This is partially why the networks produce cheap reality tv shows and HBO produces the Sopranos.
It goes without saying that the playing field has changed. I can say, having read adbusters for years and some of this related stuff, that the very idea that consumerism and consumption can be removed from our culture presumes that this culture that we know will exist in the same way without funding. I once knew bands that got big enough that shoe companies sent them, you know, 6 pairs of shoes and those guys suddenly didn't need to buy shoes for 3 years. I one knew bands that got big enough that amp and guitar companies sent them equipment which meant they could tour because otherwise they'd be broke.
I know people who make their own clothes and these people don't have time to go to graduate school. I know people who grow and can their own food and they don't have time to watch movies. I know people who do all their own home remodeling, except I never see them any more. I work with people who refuse to own cars and it takes them an hour to get home on the bus and subway compared to my 30 minutes where I pick up my wife and kids on the way. With everything there are trade-offs.
There is nothing here in this article that I didn't know existed 25 years ago- ahem- Kangol.
I remember reading an interview with Paul Verhoeven, talking about a gasping-for-breath moment he had during production of The Truman Show when he was approached by some folks—studio execs? marketing suits? I can't remember the specifics—with a straight-faced request to replace the intentionally fake products in the film with, you know, actual products.
Kluger's mail to Crouse just brought that crashing back.
Product placement in songs now. Amazing.
Well, between corporate jingles and (presumably organic, unpaid) bling-dropping in pop music, it's not all that amazing.
Consider this just the collapse of the jingle waveform.
Is it just the present incarnation of patronage? Circumvent labels and any sort of charge-per-copy/play/use, and go with an ad-supported "free" option?
Reminds me of the track by Toronto Hip Hop MC Abdominal entitled "Big Track"
Big Track is a hilarious rap aimed at taking advantage of a dubious promotion that paid rappers to insert Big Mac references into their lyrics. A recurring theme in Abdominal's lyrics is his penchant for food... fast food, in particular, so he was more than up for the challenge. I thought Abs made up this bizarre corporate scheme, but as it turns out he didn't. Not sure what the ad execs were expecting, but I'm sure they would have been thrilled by lyrics like: "Beef from a hundred different cows in that? Of course, you must be talking about... the Big Mac."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9mgs605Yzw
...Actually the tip-off of the scam was the words "Pussycat Dolls Song". Those skanks don't sing, they just breath heavily into a vocoder and it's twisted and mutated into something that's supposed to sound like something erotic. To be honest, someone mumbling incoherent lyrics through their nose never sounded erotic to my ears.
Hey! I read AAA's blog every day - where's the link love?
Wow, this stunt garnered some great publicity for the AAA. Brilliant marketing. Hmm, wait.
(Everything is advertising.)
#3:
"which involves paying Second Life citizens 90 cents an hour to make real, customized jeans designed in the virtual factory."
90 cents, not dollars. Even in SL, 90 cents isn't much. You can get more for standing around the advertising areas. :)
I wonder of Chik Filet paid Ben Folds.
and here I was thinking you were simply bereft of imagination when for the Nth time you rhymed party with Bacardi ...
New Kids On The block,had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick.
And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer,for the summer
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,
I'd take her if I had one wish,
But she's been gone since that summer..
Since that summer
>> What's next... A band called "Exxon/Mobil
>> Greatly Benefits All Aspects of The Glorious Environment"?
that reminds me of the steelband names in trinidad. they've all been prefixed by some major corp of some sort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steelbands#Trinidad_and_Tobago
BP, Amoco, Esso, West Indian Tobacco Comp (WITCO), BWIA, Eastern Credit Union....
#19: ...Actually the tip-off of the scam was the words "Pussycat Dolls Song". Those skanks don't sing, they just breath heavily into a vocoder...
Well, 'Auto-Tune', more precisely, but a similar result. Seems to be heavily abused by about 90% of 'pop artists' these days (See Lil' Wayne on SNL recently, who over-uses it unapologetically - don't even get me started).
Any group like this should not be called musicians or artists. Performers is probably slightly applicable, but still a stretch. Everybody is basically Milli Vanilli these days. I guess they may as well try and sell some jeans while they are at it. It's all just commercial drivel to begin with.
Gross, but not entirely surprising.
You know what I want? I want a list of groups that have taken money for product placement in a song. Call it a starter set for the list of music that's banned in my house.
nelly - air force ones
You know what I want? I want a list of groups that have taken money for product placement in a song. Call it a starter set for the list of music that's banned in my house.
Billboard Top 100?
I'm actually fine with this. Product placement in a song doesn't automatically make it suck - it can be done to make an awesome piece of music (see #30). Am I the only one who thinks it adds an interesting dimension to an already incestuous set of industries?
Actually it would make me love Boris' "My Neighbor Satan" even more if, by some bizarre but brilliant Japanese marketing logic, Studio Ghibli had paid them for it.
#29: You know that pretty much every classic 1960s band recorded a jingle, from the Rolling Stones' "Rice Krispies" commercial, which is a complete R+B MONSTER to Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret to Jefferson Airplane for Levi's, etc. So many bands did Coke jingles that the Who mocked this...
I feel a little used, now that I think of it- I did start taking my limo to Taco-Bell far more often after that Fergie song came out.
There's an Amy Winehouse line that's been bugging me for exactly this reason:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sniffed+me+out+like+i+was+tanqueray
Now I can rest easy knowing that line was, in fact, bought and paid for. Possibly in gin, which Winehouse no doubt consumed immediately.
I just visited the factory (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eyebeam%20Island/173/41/200) , it's deserted, like most art projects in Second Life.
$US0.90 would be $250 Lindens, not a bad pay rate as in-world jobs go. Hardly a sweatshop.
Kind of a nice build....good use of Arcadia Asyulum freebies. Don't see how they could make real jeans there though.
Neener@33: Recording a jingle is a very different thing from doing product placement in a song.
Keef and Charlie's band Do rice Krispies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZBmhEMFdl0
I can tell you for sure that Schick approached Jewel and asked her to write her "Intuition" song to coincide with their razor product launch, which they then "conveniently" licensed to use in the TV spot.
I have to say that the sucky suckiness of Eureka's partnership with Degree™ is really sucky. They seem to think they're allowed to make ridiculous claims in the commercials, and the show's plots are dramatically stupider as a direct result of it.
Works for me. Drink Coca-Cola and walk on the wild side with "Lola".
An company?
I stopped reading immediately
Even back in the sixties there were plenty of these: songs like "Little GTO", "Pina Colada", "7 Up and Ice Cream Soda"; songs that had lines like "she had fun, fun, fun until daddy took the T-bird away" and on and on. I am sure it goes further back than that.
Also of interest were the songs (and movies) with political product placement relating to the cold war and Vietnam - "West of the Wall", ones about writing to the soldiers, Elvis did GI Blues etc etc. Back further, there was Vera Lynn for the British in WWII and so on.
I am sure the oldsters here can recall lots more of both these genres.
Really people must be naive to think that the movers and shakers of this world don't move and shake whatever they can to serve their purpose.
Anyway, I am glad this has been outed in such a hilarious way. My conspiracy theories are now proven true.
I would be for it if all the product placements had the political impact of
"...Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola it's rice.
Straight to hell..."
Recollecting some more, from the tourism industry: "Down in Bermuda", "Hawaii", "Blue Bayou", and one about Kokomo.
At our city airport, pre 9/11 when you could see your relatives and friends off in the departure lounge, it was common to hear "I Will Follow Him" just after the planes went. I don't know if that one was purpose-written, but it was certainly used to promote travel.
In "The Langoliers" Stephen king spent a page describing how much the heroes of the story enjoyed a certain brand of soft drink. I always wondered if he was paid to name that brand specifically.
many people dont realize that Snoop Dogg's "gin n' juice" was made into a hit because interscope is owned by Seagrams, i.e. the Brofman family, who would love to make an entire generation think drinking gin is hip again.
What about the trend for companies to actually release music on their own label? Starbucks, of course, and I think there's a single out from Santogold, Pharell and someone from the Strokes on Converse's label... So painfully and commercially hipster-cool.
misheard lyrics are the rule, not exception for pop music. If these advertisers wish to prosecute their foul little agendas, they best understand the tune not the words is what is remembered.
Dylan did wonders for leopard-skin pillbox hat sales, right?
Nice incidental publicity for the creativity of Double Happiness Jeans.
@Maggie Leber: +1 for the Arcadia Asylum reference!
I'm totally cool if someone vocalizes their desire and craving for a product/service if they really liked it to begin with — yes, money can change motivation and mood, but there's everything right with being paid for declaring what you love, if you were going to say it anyway.
#36 - yup, I had to go and have a peek around too and the place is deserted. According to their website, the pay is 200l an hour... and that isn't a bad rate of pay for glorified camping in SL. But that aside...
Product placement is not new. Yes, this may be the first time that many have heard of it happening in songs, but the reality is that it has been around even in music for quite a while. 'My Adidas' (1986, I think) by Run DMC is probably the first great one that springs to mind for me... the song came before the sponsorship contract (I believe), but it still led to an agreement between the group and Adidas which saw the group paid for their endorsement of the product. Some would call this entrepreneurship on the part of the group, some would call it opportunism, others again probably selling out. I suppose it depends on what side of the fence you sit.
I think the major problem for some is that it isn't that there is advertising in music and so on, but that it isn't revealed to be paid advertising. Getting paid to promote a brand is just considered different from a personal endorsement without bias, therefore people feel betrayed when this apparent 'trust' is broken. Does Rhianna really use and believe in Cover Girl lipgloss? I'm not sure. But I have a hard time believing that she didn't get significant renumeration for her video-clip for 'Umbrella' and Cover Girl advertisement (also heavily featuring the song) almost being one and the same.
The fact of the matter is that the face of advertising, marketing, and reaching those unreachable consumers is changing. We play a game online and get a plug for ice-cream, watch a video about dropping mentos into coke and decide 'you know what? I need mentos... and I wouldn't mind a coke, either'. Advertising is tapping into entertainment in a much more intimate way these days. One would just hope that we can be aware enough as consumers to realize what can be advertising, what isn't, notice when they cross over and choose our product choices accordingly.
Ok... that was just way too long...