Free Music And The Media Term Paper Example

Academic literature supports the concept that if an influential soundtrack or song is played in the ad it tends to increase the audience attention, and it will be understood and noticed readily. The music in the ads has significant role in enhancing the emotional response and level of enjoyment for the audience. It infuses positive influence on the mood, will help in memorizing and recalling the brand and will also be very helpful in developing a strong association between the well-recognized brands and most loved sound tunes. This association will fortify the intention to buy and greatly increases the impact of main message delivery by the ad. Studies have established an important fact about brain that it has the capacity to encode emotional remembrance or memory in a more firmed and deeper manner. It has been observed that memories that are formed with the help of a resonant and relevant musical beat is perceived to be stored as emotional memory.
The idea to use or play music in ads was first articulated in 1920-1930by the FMCG manufactures and one of the leading pioneers is P&G in linking big brands name to most loved musical or dramatic themes, this is what gave birth to the concept and phenomenon of term “Soap Opera”. A number of television advertisements have been made through inclusion of music in them in order to make themselves recognizable and memorable. The aim is to develop the interest of the viewer while highlighting the product features. The three advertisements chosen for this paper include IKEA METOD kitchen range advertisement, Marks & Spencer Food – Adventures in Imagination, and Mercedes-Benz – The New C-Class. Finchy was featured from The Office TV series (acted as Ralph Ineson) and song track This Head I Hold by Electric Guest was made by an LA based band who has released album named Mondo in 2012 including this sound track. This sound track perfectly fit the concept of advertisement through enhancing the effects of the environment. Mark & Spencer chose a good music track for the second advertisement in which a number of advertisements have been made on the same concept after this ones. The sound track remained number one in UK which was included in the advertisement in instrumental version.
Music has now increasingly become an integral part of advertisement in order to emphasize on the message being portrayed and perhaps the most stimulating element in commercials. It is largely considered as the most impending and external cue to positively invoke emotions in customers. The idea of peripheral and central processing proposes that peripheral clues like musical components can play an important role in developing promising opinions about the ad in general public and will also transfer positive outlook of the brand and to the brand. It is commonly believed that commercials are usually having a possibly non responsive, uninvolved and non-decision making audience. The stimulating impact of music can be very persuasive and can induce motivation in audience. Music can have powerful influence on the attitude of brand in an ad which is not capable of acquiring audience attention. A research study has confirmed that a profound association exists between emotional responses and the musical tunes. Sensational soundtracks have reportedly deeper influence and have major role in invoking emotional arousal in the audience. The level of impact can be easily measured by the subject’s skin response and the heartbeat rate. These two characteristics are considered as the major physiological demonstrations of any emotional retort. Music can also have indirect impact on the audience emotional responses and feelings.
The third ad is the most popular ad of TV which is made for Mercedes Benz in which Pnau’s track named Baby has been modified and included. Music in some advertisements are not only simple but also breath-taking at times as can be seen in this advertisement. This ad brings attention towards licensing issues for using popular music in advertisements. Proper licensing is mandatory and the type and number of licenses required for using copyrighted music in advertisements largely depends on the envisioned use of soundtrack by the advertiser or broadcaster. If the advertiser has planned to dub original soundtrack in the advertisement then he must seek permission from the owners of music recording and the musical work. However if the advertiser has planned to re-record the soundtrack, it may involve changing the lyrics then he only needs to take permission from the musical work owner. The recording companies and music publishers have no obligation to grant licensing to advertisers for commercial reproduction. Even if the owners of copyright agree to give grant, the fee of licensing may vary from free to thousands of US dollars. Though it has been observed that sometimes the owners show hesitation or reluctance in licensing any popular song for commercial purpose because of an inherent fear that the affiliation of song with any product tend to unfavourably affect the song popularity.
There are few important ingredients to make an impressive ad such as the right music selection or composition and its technical fabrication with camerawork, together make a great advertisement that will have a catchy impact on its viewers. It will have tremendous power to set the mood and audience will be keenly interested in the offering made by the companies in ad. Based on research studies and their statistical analysis music has been universally now considered as the secondary standout factor in making an appealing advertisement. In few cases, the broadcast station may be held responsible for copyright transgression in an advertisement spot, even if the spot is actually not produced by them. In such cases it is very imperative for the advertiser to obtain proper clearance and copyrights.
(a) Music businesses/workers

Record Labels:

The record label department named A&R is considered as record company’s caretaker. It is an important department and is responsible for the hunting, nurturing and publically presenting the best talent in music field. This concept can be understood by imaging the importance of those who launched big music stars such as Britney spear, Aerosmith or Madonna. Basically A&R refers to “artists and repertoire” and is widely known but there is another abbreviation attached to this term for fun which is “attitude and rejection”. It is important to articulate the fact the without being spotted and appreciated by A&R people it is almost impossible for any artist to get any huge project by a big record label. Previously, artists used to send over “unsolicited” recording or demos to A&R people, these recording were not even asked by the company .The management panel of A&R would listen to those recordings and anticipate to get the next better big thing .People started to practice this more and more over the past few years and it became impossible to keep up for A&R people, therefore a comprehensive database is now used for keeping track record of these demos.

Publishers:

Music publishers play the important role of marketing the songs through working with the songwriters through various promotion techniques. Such activities improve the public awareness of the song and increases the income of the songwriters as well as music publishers.

Sync licensing managers:

A license is required to sync the music with the output media. Such a license is arranged by the sync licensing managers in the music companies. The sync licensing managers acquire the license to use the music of a popular song in a TV advertisement through contacting with the copy rights holder of that song. In most cases the copy rights are held by a music company which understand the needs as presented by the sync licensing manager resulting in a contract between the two and issuance of license to the managers.

Production Music Libraries:

Production music libraries play an important role in the music industry which includes signing of a contract with the music composer which may be exclusive or non-exclusive. In case of an exclusive agreement, the composer is not allowed to share the same music with others through getting into similar contract. In case of non-exclusive contract, the composer may get into contract with other music libraries and sell the music to them as well.

Composers:

Composer directs and writes music that is used by different types of electronic and media entertainment projects. The written scores should be technically handled in a perfect order so as to develop impeccable performance by musicians, choruses and instrumental ensembles. Score may produce different types of sound recording and this difference has created different categories in music such as classical, jazz, country, pop, folk or techno genres. Composer basically ensures that a complete story is projected to viewers without any form of distraction in films, plays, television stories or even in video games. The soundtrack produced by composer should be suitable and should complement well with the project. The professionally successful composers have few attributes such versatility, comfortable in working with different musicians and producers with different backgrounds on various projects and have effective collaboration expertise. They have in-depth knowledge of the music industry and have dauntless passion for composing music. Composers mostly have the capability to play multiple instruments and have good listening power for music.
(b) Brands
Music and branding has a long term relationship through advertisements in which music is used. A number of brands are identified easily by the consumers through listening to a jingle that is associated with that brand. The ice cream cart of Walls is one of the popular example of association of music with the brand. Children around street run towards the cart when they listen to the funky music played by the ice cream cart. The theme music has been perfectly chosen by Walls and is easily recognized by anyone from far away. This is perhaps the best example of association of brands with music. There are several other brands that are associated with a special theme music or theme song. Such a way of advertising creates strong impact of brands on the consumers that last almost through their lives.
It is a common observation that when a person is listening to his favourite music tune he feels a sense of attachment and identification. If this concept becomes widely known and understood by ad makers only then they are able to comprehend the importance of music in creating awareness, attachment and identification for generating brand recognition. Model example is Disney, a brand that has successfully established its individuality for a long time and its uniqueness lies in the signature style of musical components. It has crafted a distinct image of Disneyworld on the mind of people and this is acknowledged and loved throughout the world, and each person has his association and memories attached to it. It is a powerful support to the brand if its own music in this manner, the association through design, pictures and logos can also be very effective.
For instance, McDonald’s own the whistle I’m lovin’ it’ originally derived from a song by Justin Timberlake and now it has been used as the main feature of Mc Donald’s identity. However the leading brands on the list provided by Forbes such as Microsoft, IBM, Apple, General Electric, Google, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Toyota and other, it is very astounding to find out that most of these leading brands have no song or musical composition as a theme song which can have recognizable association for public. The domestic life is very busy these days and it has become very difficult for the ad makers to make catchy and influential ads in order to capture the attention of multi-tasking audience. However, music has been successful in becoming a popular component of ad and in getting people dancing and singing along the ad, provided the ad is done perfectly right. For instance everyone remembers ‘I see you baby’ played in Renault Meganne advertisements in the year 2003.

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