Navigating the World of Hit Music Licensing

Licensing music for advertisements can seem like a daunting task, but understanding the basics can be incredibly rewarding for agencies and brands who want to leverage the power of music in their campaigns. MassiveMusic’s head of licensing, Chloe Heatlie, shares her expertise on the subject and provides invaluable tips to ensure music choices in campaigns are legally sound and creatively compelling. 

Why Do Brands Licence Music? 

1. Emotional Connection: Music evokes emotion in us humans, brands can capitalise on this natural human feature through their music choices. 

2. Instant Recognition: Leveraging the popularity of a well-known song can bring immediate attention to your advert whilst adding further credibility. 

3. Brand Association: Aligning with famous artists can enhance a brand's image and tie them to popular culture. 

4. Targeting Specific Demographics: Nowadays we have so much data on commercial music and artists, we can utilise this data to help make smart music choices.

5. Enhancing Storytelling: music can play a crucial role in storytelling, imagine a horror movie without any music! Music has hidden cultural cues which help us translate the images we see on screen. 

What Are Brands Licensing? 

• Publishing Rights: the rights to the composition, including lyrics and melody.
• Master Recording Rights: the rights to the specific recording of the song. Sometimes it helps people to imagine it as the MP3 or Wav Files. 
• Synchronisation Rights: permission to ‘sync’ the audio to your moving image. 

How Are Fees Calculated? 

Licence fees are calculated based on multiple factors, including: 

• Term 
• Territory 
• Media 
• Fame of the Artist/Writers 
• Popularity of the Song 

What is a Music Supervisor's Role? 

Music supervisors are critical when it comes to licensing music for advertisements, TV, Films and games. They are responsible for: 

• Creative Music Searches: Finding the right music for the project. 
• Negotiation & Approvals: Handling all negotiations with writers, publishers, artists and record labels and seeking approval of the final deal.
• Licensing Paperwork: Ensuring all music licences include the agreed terms and that the brand and agency are satisfied with the terms. 

Why Is Music Licensing Complex And Time-Consuming? 

Every song has a unique set of writers and artists involved in its creation. In order to licence a song we must seek permission from each writer and artist, therefore songs with multiple stakeholders may be more time-consuming to licence, but not impossible. It’s not all bad though, often we can search for songs that are 'one-stop' or 'easy-clear', providing amazing song options from real artists that just happen to be super easy to licence. 

There can be added complexities when licensing music with regards to music union fees and licensing in specific territories e.g Japan or Argentina. These details a good music supervisor will be able to guide you through. 

Re-Recording an Existing Track: 

At MassiveMusic we regularly have clients who work with us to re-record an existing song. This involves licensing the publishing rights to a song, and creating a bespoke master recording, which is unique to the advert. Some people often relate this to 'the John Lewis effect' because John Lewis frequently re-recorded famous songs in their Christmas Adverts. The reality is though, re-records don't just have to be slower, more serious covers, you can push the boundaries much further! Speed it up, re-create and remix it, record the song in a completely different style! Why not! The benefit is that no other brand will be using the same recording as you. 

TikTok Trends, Emerging Talent and Budget Considerations: 

• TikTok Trends: Trends on TikTok move quickly, and it's often more effective to create trends rather than follow them due to licensing timescales. 
• Emerging Talent: Music Supervisors have their finger on the pulse of new music. If you want an unreleased track on your next campaign, they know how to get it, if you want to licence music from the next big British pop-star, DJ, punk artist (the list goes on) they know who that is. Lean in! 
• Budget Flexibility: Brands don't need huge budgets to licence commercial music. We often have clients who have £1,000 left in their production pot… or £1M to licence a global hit. Most of the world's music sits in between these budget ranges; so rely on your music supervisor to suggest some amazing music by real artists for the in-between budgets. 

Chloe’s Top 10 Music Licensing Tips 

1. Work with a Reputable Music Supervisor: Music Supervisors are always on, they continually build connections across the music industry, they can provide strategic insights, industry connections and experience on your project. Business affairs managers and editors (no offence) are not music supervisors.

2. Always Have Backup Song Choices: plan for 2-3 backup music choices in case your favourite song isn’t approved in time or is too expensive. 

3. Start Early: make music choices early. Brief a music supervisor before your shoot so that they can provide the directors and editor with viable music options. There’s nothing worse when a client falls in love with a track the editors put on, that won’t clear! 

4. Be Realistic About Budget: Understand that you don’t need a huge budget to find great music. There are affordable options. 

5. Create Trends Don't Follow Them: By the time you licence a viral TikTok track, it's not going to be viral anymore and the cost will be inflated. Instead, think about music first and make trends. 

6. Align Music Choices with your Brand: Us music supervisors have tools of the trade where we can see artist audience data and compare this with your target demographic to help brands make smart music choices. 

7. Organise Licences Before Going Live: Try to avoid going live without signed licences - get email proof of approvals from your supervisor if this isn’t possible. 

8. Push Beyond: Plan beyond the music licence, how else can this artist collaboration enhance the campaign? Live performances? Merch collabs? Social Media mentions?

9. Stay Compliant: Set a date in the diary for the end of the campaign usage. You don’t want to be caught out for forgetting to take down your film! 

10. Track Your Success: At MassiveMusic we have an internal research team who can conduct post-launch tracking of your campaign. We can also run consumer studies to measure brand preference and loyalty pre and post campaign. 

Hopefully these insights will help you navigate the extremely exciting world of music licensing. If you need help licensing music for your next campaign or have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!