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Back to Timeline pt. I

1960s

Scattered back-and-forth action between jingles and the pop charts goes on. Predicting that "muscle cars" would be the next big thing, General Motors PR man John DeLorean commissions a song about the new Pontiac. That song, "Little GTO," (1964) becomes a Top 40 hit. . . . Voice-over deity Ken Nordine records Colors (1967), an album inspired by his series of Fuller Paint commercials. . . A song in a bank commercial catches Richard Carpenter’s ear and the Carpenters decide to release their own version. "We’ve Only Just Begun" (1969) tops the charts. . . . A Coca-Cola commercial becomes a hit single, "I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)," by the New Seekers (1971). Pepsi’s releases its equivalent: Bob Crewe’s "Music to Watch Girls By."

1965

The doctrine of repetition expands from advertising to radio itself as the Drake format, with its tight thirty-record playlist and strict devotion to playing the same crap over and over. Stations said to play Top 40 or Hot 100 actually play a much smaller number of hits. Ironically, the format lends itself to fewer commercials per hour. (Three years later, Drake-Chanault’s American Independent Radio division supplies taped programming to stations and contributes to eliminating local deejays.)

Also this year: the Newport crowd boos Dylan for plugging in, wearing an overpriced motorcycle jacket, and fancy boots. (bad joke stolen from Chuck Eddy)

1966

Over thirty college marching bands add the Hertz-Rent-A-Car "In the Driver’s Seat" jingle to their repertoire. Hertz officials proudly claim that 3.5 million college football fans are exposed to their theme during half-time.

1967

Carbonated beverages are big on music. The Troggs, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes and Ray Charles are among the popular artists who record Coke commercials. Others: Everly Brothers, Otis Redding, Box Tops, and Leslie Gore. Pepsi ("The Pepsi Generation") and 7-Up are more ambitious than Coke, appropriating countercultural imagery and rock and roll.

Major labels get hip to the counterculture: columbia's infamous "The Man Can't Bust Our Music" ad from a 1968 issue of Rolling Stone.

The Who Sells Out intersperses "real" songs with spoofs of spots for Heinz baked beans, Medac pimple cream, Rotosound strings, Premier drums, and Odorono deodorant. Thirty years later, the CD reissue appends some actual commercials the Who recorded.

1976

Malcolm McLaren manufactures a rock group to mock the manufacturing of rock groups: the Sex Pistols.

Sidebars:

Soundtracks

Business Music (Muzak, etc.)

1980

Unknown crooner Slim Whitman goes double platinum without radio airplay or record store sales and a new era in direct-response television marketing is born. While TV and mail order had long been used to sell music to the masses (K-Tel, Time/Life series, etc.) Whitman’s string of "buy now!" commercials upped the ante. Suffolk Marketing, Whitman’s "label," goes on to advertise collections by Boxcar Willie (who made his public debut on The Gong Show), Nana Mouskouri, Zamfir ("Prince of the Pan Flute") and more . . . not available in stores!

1982

Jovan/Musk Oil sponsors the Rolling Stones’ U.S. tour. for a million dollars. Marketers start using more rock and roll tie-ins.

1981

MTV introduces itself in a Billboard ad as "the Biggest Advertising Merger in History." The merger, that is, of stereo and television. Although not so obvious at first, MTV represents a throwback to the days where programming and advertising are one and the same. Its impact on commercial culture is well documented. MTV, basically:

1. Changes the language and look of television and advertising

2. Makes visuals and imagery key to popular music

3. Inspires Footloose

4. Lowers the age of music consumers

5. Makes young rock fans more accepting of commercial tie-ins than fans in their 30s and 40s

Initially hesitant to launch merchandising lines for fear of alienating its audience, MTV begins cashing in on spin-offs in 1992. The network scores in 1993 with Beavis and Butt-head, "the Mickey Mouse of the MTV empire," according to the Wall Street Journal.

1985

Pepsi hits with Michael Jackson; people confuse the commercial with the music video. And misses with Madonna, whose "Like a Prayer" video excites the Christians (boycott threats, etc.) and convinces Pepsi to call the relationship off. An anti-censorship group calling themselves Fundamentalists Anonymous responds to the Madonna cancellation by calling for a Pepsi boycott.

1985

Nike uses the Beatles’ "Revolution" for a commercial and causes a stir, but ultimately counts the move as a victory, claiming only 200 letters of complaint and a surge in sales (Yoko Ono originally supported the ad for helping "demystify" John Lennon but later helped Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr when they decided to sue). Advertisers respond by licensing pop hits with abandon. Jingles are out.

1985

After Bruce Springsteen releases smash-selling Born in the U.S.A (1985) and says no to advertisers, patriotic rock floods commercials. Other holdouts: Neil Young, Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Seger, Billy Idol, and John Mellencamp.

Mid-1980s

Boomer nostalgia for rock is in full gear as former hippies take over ad agencies. Before recognizing the impact of licensing the original hits, agencies hand-tailor lyrics. Thus, the Platters’ "Only You" becomes "Only Wendy’s"; the Diamonds’ "Little Darlin’" becomes Kentucky Fried’s "Chicken Little"; Buddy Holly’s "Oh Boy" begats "Oh Buick!"; Jerry Lee Lewis’ "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On" turns into Burger King’s "Whole Lotta Breakfast Goin’ On"; Danny and the Juniors’ "At the Hop" becomes "Let’s Go Take a [Granola] Dip"; "Mack the Knife" becomes "It’s Mac Tonight"; and "Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma" becomes "Look What They’ve Done to My Oatmeal."

1986

More than any popular genre before it, hiphop embraces brand names. LL Cool J mentions Zest, Levi’s, Air Jordons, Devon cologne, Thom McAn, Jaguar, Cracker Jack, and others on his Top 10 album Bigger and Deffer. Run DMC charts with "My Adidas" and becomes the first rap act to lead a national TV campaign (for, yep, Adidas). The Fat Boys turn down six-figure offers from Coke and Burger King for TV commercials (to avoid becoming "overexposed").

There is, however, resistance among advertisers to using rap. Says a music director at one ad agency, "The biggest job we have is convincing the client that it’s not race music and the artists aren’t necessarily angry." Still, he reports, times have changed: "In the ’70s we had to stay away from music that would turn off white folks, so we never, say, went into a James Brown style. Now everyone accepts James Brown."

Rolling Stone founds Marketing Through Music newsletter to promote using rock music to sell consumer goods, particularly to a young adult audience. At the time, it is still fairly uncommon to see a TV commercial that uses rock and roll.

Inspired by MTV, several companies–namely, Yamaha, Max Factor, and Diet Coke–promote contests with the grand prize of appearing in a music video. Max Factor doesn’t announce what group the video will feature. "It doesn’t really matter," says one VP. "The kids just want the chance to be in a rock video."

1987

Teen pop idols have long been passé, but sixteen-year-old Tiffany revives the spirit with the industry’s first shopping mall tour. As part of Shopping Center Network’s ten-city "Beautiful You" tour promoting Clairol products, Le Click cameras, and Toyota Motors, Tiffany goes from receiving zero radio attention to performing for a Salt Lake City mall crowd of 4,000. Young listeners call radio stations requesting her songs and Tiffany, the debut album, goes quadruple platinum.

1987

After a couple of major commercial tie-ins (namely, Ringo Starr’s pitch for Sun Country coolers and the Rolling Stones’ Jovan tour) prove financially disappointing, greater efforts are made to match music artists with targeted markets. Customized research companies such as Soundata/Street Pulse Groups sprout up to help clients such as Anheuser-Busch, Coke, and Seagrams get the right sounds.

1980s

Suffering post-disco burnout, Top 40 goes research crazy and starts targeting smaller and smaller segments of listeners. Record sales are not a good indicator of effective programming, because selling music is not the point. And many listeners are "passives," i.e., not looking for new music to buy. Thus, phone research becomes popular. Subjects are called at random, played excerpts of songs, and asked for their opinion.

1987

Heavy metal joins the ranks of advertiseable genres. Aerosmith’s "Walk This Way" carries a Sun Country Cooler campaign and ZZ Top does Busch beer. . . . Meanwhile, New Age music is discovered as a way to target rich, white Boomers. Lincoln-Mercury, BMW, Acura, and Circuit City use New Age in commercials. Windham Hill, one of the top New Age recording labels, establishes a special licensing division for use by advertisers.

1987

Post-Top Gun, rock music becomes all the rage in military advertising. Rolling Stone’s "Get Off of My Cloud" is used on a poster as part of a McDonnell Douglas campaign to promote its F/A-18 aircraft, as is the Lovin’ Spoonful’s "Do You Believe in Magic?" The purpose of the campaign–which the ad agency dubs "Rockin’ and Rollin’"–is to coax government officials to keep buying $18-million aircrafts.

1988

Claymation California Raisins become celebrities after performing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" in a series of commercials. Their version peaks at #84 on the charts. Much merchandise, including 4 CDs–even a 1-800-number–rides the hype.

1988

Neil Young’s video "This Note’s for You," a pointed swipe at corporate sponsorship, is banned by MTV, then voted "Video of the Year" at the 1988 MTV Music Video Awards.

Marketers, responding to a burgeoning Hispanic population, jump on Latin (or, uh, "Latin") music: Pepsi sponsors Miami Sound Machine’s tour, Coke and Tecate beer tie in with Linda Ronstadt’s Canciones de Mi Padre road show, and Michelob underwrites Emmanuel’s fifteen-city Latin review.

A Levi’s 501 campaign in Europe featuring original ’60 hits inspires a classic rock resurgence on the European pop charts. Sam Cooke’s "Wonderful World" is reissued and rockets to No. 1 –eleven spots higher than the single hit in the U.S. twenty-five years earlier.

To counter its racist, far-right image, Coors sponsors reggae and World Beat events. Similarly, Reebok counters rumors of South African involvement by sponsoring Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! tour.

1991

Chuck D–a vocal critic of malt liquor marketing and the leader of Public Enemy–successfully sues St. Ides malt liquor for using his voice in a radio commercial . . . Ice Cube and other hiphop artists gladly accept St. Ides’ money.

1992

Pillsbury Doughboy raps in a commercial.

Early 1990s

Kool cigarettes founds the Kool Jazz Fest to reinforce African Americans’ interest in the brand. Kool execs are chagrined when whites outnumber blacks at the concerts, lessening their value as a target-marketing tool, and decides to cancel the fest.

1995

The Village Voice and Warsteiner beer team up to run a full-page beer ad/combo club listing/phone sampling system. Some of the listed bands help promote the beer, displaying a Warsteiner banner while on stage. The "Clubland" concept is soon emulated in alt.weeklies across the country.

Microsoft pays $3 to $12 million (depending on who’s doing the reporting) to use the Rolling Stones’ "Start Me Up" in a television commercial.

1996

Using computer software to automatically synethsize "Hot 100" song fragments, GT Technotracks Inc. in Saginaw, Michigan, churns out $8,000 jingles for car dealers. With this "statistically proven material," Technotracks promises clients the best of both worlds–a familiar sound with low-cost, royalty-free "original" songs.

1997

Trio’s "Da Da Da" is unearthed for a Volkswagen commercial and hits the charts. Mercury reissues the band’s mercifully forgotten self-titled LP and sells more than 300,000.

Payola resurfaces as record companies sponsor radio play for everything from individual songs to hour-long specials.

Techno appears in commercials before breaking the Top 10.

1998

Tired of trying to blur lines between content and advertising, MTV makes its programming policy explicit, promising companies more promotion with more ad spending. MTV’s top ad exec John Popkowski dismisses what he calls arbitrary distinctions between paid advertising and what most viewers think of as programming. "Any and all exposure on MTV is a valuable commodity," he told the Wall Street Journal. Advertising, in other words, is programming. Same thing goes for MTV’s new challenger, Access Entertainment. In fact, all the programming on the new music-themed cable channel is co-produced by advertisers at record labels, retailers, and magazine publishers. Sample programming: Spin Television (from Spin magazine); Inside Tracks (from Best Buy); and Cafe Sound (from A&M Records).

SFX Entertainment takes over the pop concert market, controlling 22 of the nation’s top 50 markets with plans to operate stages in all 50. Envisioning live concert audiences as neatly segmented, target markets, the company plans to make its money by pursuing more corporate sponsorships or tours, introducing luxury boxes at amphitheaters, and creating more spaces for advertising at events.

Read the papers for the rest. We’re out of room!

SELECTED SOURCES

For readability’s sake, we took out the footnotes. If you're curious about a reference, feel free to ask. Much thanks to Douglas Wolk for reading this over. Below is a partial list of sources. Of these books, Barnouw’s comes the closest to dealing with music’s relationship to advertising head-on (although none of them do, really). More than half the timeline came from newspaper and magazine articles and I’m too tired to type them all.

Erik Barnouw, The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern Potentate, Oxford University Press, 1978.

Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofolo, Rock ’n’ Roll is Here to Pay, Nelson-Hall, 1977.

Marc Eliot, Rockonomics: The Money Behind the Music. Franklin Watts, 1989.

Alfred N. Goldsmith and Austin C. Lescarboura, This Thing Called Broadcasting, Henry Holt, 1930.

Robert J. Landry, This Fascinating Radio Business, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1946.

Bill C. Malone, Country Music U.S.A., University of Texas Press, 1985.

J. Fred MacDonald, Don’t Touch That Dial!: Radio Programming in American Life from 1920 to 1960, Nelson-Hall, 1979.

Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, University of California Press, 1986.

Russell Sanjek and David Sanjek, American Popular Music Business in the 20th Century, Oxford University Press, 1991.

Susan Smulyan, Selling Radio: The Commercialization of Radio Broadcasting, 1920—1934. Smithsonian Institution, 1994.