Wow, What the F*ck Is That? Music & Sound That'll Make Advertisers Shout Loud

When I'm watching a film or a documentary, be it cinema, TV, a commercial or an independent film, every now and again I will feel an intense connection with what I’m seeing and hearing.  For me, more often than not it’s the music that helps me make ‘that’ connection, the feeling where one is totally absorbed in the pictures, making you want to share it, talk about it, or simply just watch it over and over again. 

As a music supervisor, it’s unsurprising that I have always seemed to pay more attention to the way the music helps enhance the visual experience but I believe that the role music plays in accompanying motion is equally as important as any other creative component when developing a dynamic scene.

Music has the ability to make or break visuals, changing the way a film, a commercial or any combination of sound and visual stimuli feels entirely. It can play the lead part, a supporting role, help make a scene hilariously funny, or even draw a salty tear from your very own eye.  What’s more, when music with this power is combined with something equally impactful visually, we don’t forget the emotion it afforded as a pair. This emotional memory can be harnessed in advertising to tremendous effect.

When it comes to directors, composers and music supervisors, the cream of the crop have undoubtedly made their mark in the world of Hollywood movies, and it would be naive to say this has not rubbed off on the commercial advertising business. I have lost count of the amount of times ‘Something Tarantino-esque’ has been part of a music brief, it’s almost language for saying -‘Find something cool that’s unusual!’

His films have the power to bring unusual, niche genre songs firmly back into the charts. From the club remixes of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘Bang Bang’, to Carling’s ‘Love Football’ Ad with the iconic Woo Hoo by The 5.6.7.8’s; we were transported back to the scenes they had featured in, making everything feel intrinsically cool. 

There is also an increasing demand to license film-composers movie scores for domestic commercial campaigns. Again it’s a great way of borrowing music that comes packaged with a powerful emotional catalyst as well as a highly finished cinematic feel. As a result the likes of Alexandre Desplat & Danny Elfman are making waves in the commercial world as well as the Hollywood one.

This year Elfman’s twinkling ‘Ice Dance’, composed for the cult Tim Burton film Edward Scissorhands, added winter mystery and intrigue to British Gas’s ‘No Place Like Home’ campaign.

Desplat, a favourite of quirky, indie film director Wes Anderson, has had a number of his compositions used in campaigns. Lurpak’s ‘Kitchen Odyssey’ which uses the composition ‘Canus Lupus’ to brilliant effect.

With a similar sentiment, contemporary classical composers such as Olafur Arnolds, Max Richter, Dustin O’Halloran and Jóhann Jóhannsson are making waves in movie and TV business, providing breathtaking pieces of composition. (Jóhannsson’s composition  ‘A Model of the Universe’ for the Oscar winning ‘Theory Of Everything’ was a striking example of how music can capture the perfect sentiment for a deeply emotional scene, a real hairs on the back of your neck moment.)

But it’s not just movies that are unearthing these intrinsically cool musical partnerships. In recent years TV series, trailers and documentaries have been hot on the heels of cinema in terms of powerful music and sound combinations and appear to take more risks when it comes to music placements. From a sales perspective there are returns to be made on the production of course, but essentially they are showcasing their art and ultimately aiming for bums on seats.

I remember in 2006, discovering for the first time an international big-budget TV series that was showcasing virtually unheard-of artists to a mainstream audience. It was the very cool Entourage and I was surprised by their use of young, unknown bands. I remember when they used 'Tame impala - Half Glass Full Of Wine’ to close one of the shows. It made me say out loud, ‘Wow! What the f*ck is that!?’ and I immediately googled it. Suddenly a small act (at the time) was my new favorite band, and I wasn’t the only one. You have to hand it to the show’s producers and music supervisor Scott Venor for being one of the first to demonstrate that it was possible to cherry pick small artists with no record deal and give them such a huge launching platform.

This strategy has of course been employed when sourcing bands for TV commercials, and these days it’s a level playing field. Nowadays it’s easy for me or any other supervisor to get in contact with an artist with the intention of placing his or her music, and as a result it’s possible for anyone (big or small) to be launched onto a potential international stage. If you can create the perfect pairing there’s no limit to the success of the artist and the TV series / Commercial.

Of course advertising is paid media and therefore requires a more calculated risk, and in many cases I feel as though this is reflected in the choices of music. Budget and artist approval are of course two major contributing factors that cannot be ignored, they are not always given the green light, and this will ultimately dilute the creative impact, and in some cases restrict the final films impact. But taking risks can sometimes be the difference between a good piece of work, and something extraordinary.

The BBC are using bold and dramatic music choices for their drama promo films or sports montages, creating a much bigger impact that seems to cut through the noise of the commercial break. They set the bar with their use of ‘Sigur Rós - Hoppipolla’ for their 2006 advertisement of the groundbreaking programme ‘Planet Earth’. This was one of the band’s first large exposures to a mainstream audience, and went on to shape thousands of music briefs in the advertising industry. It was unexpected, coupling euphoric post-rock with nature and the dulcet tones of David Attenborough, and it created a sweet-spot no one could have predicted.

As this musical exploration and risk-taking has spread from movies to our beloved BBC, it has heightened our musical senses. We are now looking for the spine-tingling, goosebump enducing combinations that make us scramble to find the artist and hear more.

Advertisers need to adopt this bold approach to create these lasting connections. Trust the experts to find ‘the next big thing’ before it exists, and watch brand success fly with the artist’s meteoric rise to fame. Or you can wait until they are already huge and pay the price. It’s your budget.

Chris Phelps is Music Supervisor at Finger Music