8 September 2023

Music licensing is big business: 2022 was a record year for sync, with revenue from TV, film and advertising up an impressive 29.9% year on year by the midyear mark, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. And research service Music & Copyright point to as much as 17% of all music publishing revenue now coming from sync licensing, so it’s potentially big business for artists and composers.

We take a look at how the right soundtrack can amplify TV ad effectiveness and drive brand success and audience engagement, together with the latest music licensing trends and music licensing industry insights.

The Impact of Music in TV Advertising

Music has the ability to provoke an emotional impact and create a unique connection with audiences, which is why music licensing is an integral part of branding and marketing.

The role of brands in people’s lives has changed dramatically over the past few years. As Brandingmag.com points out, ‘Brands that invented themselves decades ago are not necessarily communicating successfully or coming across in the same way anymore because people have changed and moved on.

Consumers now want a less transactional and more emotional relationship with brands. According to a survey by Motista, customers who have an emotional relationship with a brand have three times higher lifetime value and will likely recommend the company at a rate of 71%, instead of the average 45%. It is this personal approach to building relationships that brands should develop.’

Brand-building through lifestyle, a sense of belonging to a ‘tribe’ or emotional connections are all aspects that can be influenced by successful music licensing in advertising, through both messaging and storytelling.

Brand Storytelling

An international brand such as IKEA expertly uses storytelling in its ‘Wonderful Everyday’ advertising campaigns, highlighting everything from individuality to sustainability in witty ways. Its recent ‘Proudly Second Best’ campaign shows they fully understand their consumers by actively showcasing the fact that yes, you might have bought your baby an IKEA cot, but if they want to sleep on top of you instead, then that’s what you should do:

‘The Troll’, meanwhile, gives a fuller brand story, with a fantastical tale demonstrating how you can ‘make a house a home’, together with an underlying theme of community – and the music enhances the storytelling, giving cinematic emotional cues throughout.

It’s a heartwarming way of making you feel good about buying another Billy bookcase – or a reason to choose IKEA over another homeware retailer: you like them, so you feel good about giving them your money.

Snoop Dogg and Katy Perry’s Just Eat ads, meanwhile, established the delivery service as modern, cool and laid back, playing both on their stars’ personas and marrying the visuals with brilliantly-written original songs.

Emerging Trends in Music Licensing

The right music sets the tone for a campaign and can even become a key brand identity. Recognisable design elements – whether visual or musical - are known as ‘Distinctive Brand Assets’ and are key to having a standout brand.

Think of the whistle-y ‘ba-da-ba-BA-BAAA’ McDonald’s ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ signature. The minute you hear it, you’re immediately associating it with eating a delicious Big Mac, or enjoying a McFlurry. Or Netflix’s ‘Ta-dum’ as the streamer’s logo appears. It’s the perfect shortcut. Effectively, this sonic element, just a few seconds long, is strong enough to stand in place of the brand’s name and helps to literally cut through the noise being made by everyone else.

For example, Intel’s three-second, five-note sound logo, created by Austrian musician Walter Werzowa in the 1980s, is estimated to be played somewhere in the world every five minutes.

In a world where our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, a brief ‘sonic identity’ or ‘sonic logo’ can be very useful. Luc van Stiphout, from sonic branding company MassiveMusic, told Design Week that, ‘the competition for people’s attention is fierce – you need to pull on every string you’ve got. You’re on your phone, your laptop is beside you and your fridge is telling you to stock up on milk – how do I get your attention? How do you cut through? Purely visual stimuli just won’t do it.’

However, Uli Reese from sonic branding agency Amp advises that putting all your eggs in that particular basket is a risk: ‘The anatomy of our brains is not wired to understand sound and noise. It’s wired to recall music – we’re born Mozarts.’

Music-driven branding has a greater recall – just think of how you learned pop hits when you were a teenager and can sing most of them even if you hear a couple of seconds, decades later. Plus, there’s research that claims audio input is processed more quickly in the brain than visual input, and affects us faster emotionally, too. So enhancing brand identity with licensed music could well be a valuable part of your strategy.

Amp created a ‘sonic DNA’ for BBVA bank, which had to cover all 35 countries the bank operates in, and platforms including the bank’s mobile app, ad campaigns and YouTube channels. ‘How We Dream’ is a light, upbeat track that’s had over two million plays on Spotify.

Plus, having this kind of ‘sonic infrastructure’ means you don’t have to spend money creating new branding every time you have a different campaign for a launch or new product.

MassiveMusic created a more ‘human’ element to counteract the corporate image of the football association when they worked with the Premier League – see how in this case study:

The Latest Trends in Music Selection

Industry experts point to the pandemic as one element that’s defined trends in music selection over the last few years, with ad agencies harnessing the power of music in TV ads to deliver emotionally charged, meaningful messages.

B&Q’s ‘Build a Life’ ad from 2020 emphasised family and home, which everyone had come to appreciate more during lockdown:

The follow-up, ‘We Will Grow Again’ emphasised hope after the winter lockdowns.

Many brands at the time were opting for soothing piano melodies, and lyrics also took on deeper meanings, with messages of solidarity and collective support.

As the perception of the pandemic’s threat retreated, there’s been a return to more upbeat, power-pop music, signifying a sense of lightness and freedom – think the 70s and 80s, including disco; eras with an ‘anything goes’ vibe.

The Rise of TikTok

What else is influencing brands? TikTok and other social media platforms. Unlike Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, TikTok is a firmly ‘sound-on’ platform. Sound and music are central to its enjoyment, but what defines a TikTok hit? Music that’s new. Although that’s all relative – think of how a song like Kate Bush’s ‘Running up that Hill’ suddenly ‘broke through’ and hit No. 1, 37 years after it was first released. It’s not new, but it’s new to the TikTok audience.

TikTok-esque songs that make people dance are hugely influential – Belvedere Vodka clearly knew their audience with their destined-to-go-viral combination of Daniel Craig shimmying his way through a hotel to the sounds of Rita Ora and Giggs.

TikTok has also initiated a trend for sped-up music, prompting artists to re-issue their material at a higher tempo. Will we soon see that reflected in ad soundtracks featuring hyper versions of hits?

Classic Title, New Artist

An enduring trend is a classic title, covered by a more recent artist – the John Lewis Christmas ads were the ones who primarily kickstarted this, with their ambient covers of everything from The Beatles to Blink182. These kinds of tracks combine nostalgia with a more youthful allure. It can be an iconic, comforting title that pulls at everyone’s heartstrings, but revisited by a different artist, it gives the ad a unique tone, and often makes you listen more closely to the lyrics, giving an extra opportunity to push a message home.

Old hits remain a surefire bet, with the 70s, 80s and increasingly the 90s tapping into our desire for comfort and nostalgia.

Go Back to the Future

One sub-genre has been killing it recently: . Synthwave, also called outrun, retrowave or futuresynth, is electronic music predominantly based on music associated with action, SF and horror film soundtracks of the 1980s – think John Carpenter’s Halloween, Vangelis’s Blade Runner and, of course, Stranger Things.

Targeting Your Audience

Ad agencies, being attuned to trends by nature, are also looking to reflect social concerns – they’re looking for more female and socially conscious artists. It’s vital to keep on top of what’s trending, in order to engage your target audience – and their particular demographic - effectively.

Strategies for Choosing the Right Music

Choosing the right music for TV ads is definitely an art. When it comes to practical tips and strategies for selecting the perfect music for television commercials, you need to think about:

• Aligning your chosen track, sound or artist with your brand messaging
• Your target demographics
• The desired emotional response to your ad

Who Are You, and What Do You Represent?

What’s your brand identity? Is it youthful and rebellious, or a brand that’s stood the test of time and is supremely trustworthy? Fashion brands are always chasing the new; a pensions company probably wants to position itself more towards the low-risk, tried-and-tested end of things.

Standard Life takes its customers on a whistle-stop tour through the decades to show how many potential pensions you might have accrued through job changes. Visual styling (a Rubik’s cube; a floppy disk and a colleague drily saying, ‘No’, as she whips a piece of cake off our hero – even our attitudes to health have changed) are accompanied by Dr Alban’s ‘It’s My Life’.

Yes, the title of the song chimes with the ad’s message, but the fact it’s a 90s tune means it’ll resonate with a target demographic who are in their 50s and thinking about pension planning.

What’s My Age Again?

What’s the age range of your target customer? Tailor your music choices accordingly, from chart and streaming hits for Gen Z, who are turning 21 this year (their oldest members are hitting 26), to the songs that were popular when they were in their teens or twenties for Gen X (born from 1965-1980) or Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), if you’re looking to tap into nostalgia.

More Than a Feeling

When it comes to an emotional response, do you want your audience to feel upbeat and positive, frightened and unnerved, comforted, inspired or amused?

Bianco’s ‘The Lift’ tells its romantic story without any spoken dialogue; its sparse, slightly off-kilter plucked music kicks off the ad with a comedic feel, then gradually brings in more strings to increase the emotion as our hero and heroine try to build up the courage to speak to each other in the lift they keep ending up in together.

‘This Girl Can’ chose Little Simz to soundtrack women facing challenges and powering through with defiance – it’s a track that makes you feel like you can take on anything.

Financial services often use classical and orchestral music – its heritage and familiarity can inspire feelings of trust. This RBS spot starts off that way – assuring you they’re a company you can feel safe with when it comes to handling your money – and your lost credit cards.

But hang on, RBS’s target customer, the kind of person like Sophie in the ad, isn’t someone who thinks about what her bank does much. How to appeal to her, then? Show you understand how she sees herself, in order to elicit a feeling of being in synch with RBS. Hence the second half of the ad sees Sophie shaking a tailfeather in a fabulous outfit, to the sounds of Christina Aguilera’s version of ‘Lady Marmalade’.

Alternatively, you can just hit on the perfect marriage of creative and track, and come up with an ad that’s totally off the wall, but which no-one can forget, like the multi-award-winning Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ ad.

What’s it got to do with chocolate? Nothing. But in terms of brand identity, demographics and creating an emotion, you could say it repositioned Cadbury’s from a heritage, pretty dull brand to a fun one, thus hitting a younger demographic. However, it also appeals to an older consumer who’s nostalgic for Phil Collins and 80s pop-rock. And it makes you laugh at its surreal boldness, so you automatically feel a rush of positive emotions every time you see it – and by extension, a bar of Cadbury’s when you’re out shopping.

Overcoming Music Licensing Challenges

Licensing music for advertising involves obtaining legal permission to use the piece for commercial purposes. Whether you’re using a track in advertising, film, TV, video games or other content, you’ll need to license it.

Sync licences allow brands to use a piece of music in a specific media format, such as a commercial. Licensing fees vary, depending on the artist, the music’s length and the licence type.

Legally, it can be a minefield. And securing rights for popular tracks can be both time-consuming and incredibly expensive. Plus, there’s always the risk that you’re going to pick the same track as a rival brand, and your ad won’t be unique and stand out in the way that you want it to.

When you’re looking at maximizing ad effectiveness through music, another option is to work with a dedicated company – such as Audio Network – with an extensive catalogue of pre-cleared music for commercial use. You can license an individual track, or have an annual subscription – or work with a dedicated in-house expert, who can hand-pick a selection of tracks based on your brief – think of us as your very own music supervision team.

Audio Network’s high quality original music covers every genre and mood, with hundreds of dedicated playlists to help you with your music selection process.