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Music in Advertising Should NOT Be Icing on the Cake
The problem with icing is that even though it’s yummy and looks great, it’s never fully a part of the cake itself. Icing can be eliminated or swapped at anytime. The baked in elements are the cake itself.
Music in advertising should always be baked into the creative or else it will always be that “extra addition”.
When the initial creative strategy does not include the sound and music in it, it will always just be icing on the cake. Wouldn’t you rather that delicious cream cheese filling with strawberry puree in the middle?
There’s nothing more frustrating than when a marketing campaign or an ad clearly has music that doesn’t match messaging.
You’ve heard it too. Some company is trying to be “cool” or more relevant by choosing the latest and greatest topical song in a kids Spotify playlist. Or even worse, a company uses some obscure song from the 70’s that probably only got placed because it’s the CEO’s favorite band or song.
Sound and Music should be about the brand, not about “coolness” factors or executive choice.
Secondary Creates Second Place
Everyone “expects” a hit. A solid home run when it comes to a marketing campaign. Of course they do. It’s clear to THEM what they are selling so, of course, it’s clear to everyone else.
Because of this, putting together the campaign could quite easily become a “going through the motion” sort of thing. The C-Suite wants to sell X, so they sell X with Y template.
“Oh wait. What music should we use?”
“Shoot. I don’t know. Didn’t you say John is a big music fan? Have him find something cool in there. Something flashy and relevant to the teeny boppers.”
“But John doesn’t even work in this department.”
“Well I don’t know anything about music and he’s got a kid. He’ll do fine.”
How can we possibly expect sound and music to create groundbreaking, show-stopping, award winning pieces of…
