How Advertising Works
by Sean Carolan

Let's pretend, for a moment, that I watch a lot of TV. (I don't, honestly, but not because of any high-falutin' disdain for the Glass Teat...I'm just kinda busy, and don't even watch half the stuff I want to watch.) Every once in a while, I'm enthralled by a commercial that transports me to place I didn't expect to ever go, conceptually speaking. For thirty seconds I'm transfixed, and for that period of time, there is no other option left to me...

...I have to find out what music they used on that commercial.

Lately, the coolest music programming on television has been done by ad agencies, who have only the purest of motives - they purely want you to buy their product. Among the many tricks their trade turns, they'll often exercise their ability to find the niftiest piece of music they can, and play it while hawking their wares. The unintended fringe benefit is that the music itself, which would have languished on some esoteric retailer's shelf, receives the benefit of a full-scale nationwide marketing push.

Of course, there's such a benefit to this that the music industry will inevitably try to influence ad agencies into using their music. Thankfully, unlike radio stations that have to play the Most Popular Music Or They Will Die, advertising only needs to sell its product, and the use of a popular song will likely detract from that goal, distracting the viewer by confusing them about what they're being asked to buy.

If you haven't seen it before, there's a site that can help you unravel the identity of that gem you heard while looking at this year's model, and that's AdCritic.com. Though their cataloguing may make the business of commercial-making seem like an art form (which, I suppose, it is) they also research and provide links for the music used with each of the commercials they feature.

There's only one problem...you have to remember what the commercial was advertising.

©2001 Sean Carolan