salesnoise: the convergence of music and advertising

from Stay Free! #15, fall 1998
[ by Carrie McLaren and Rick Prelinger ]

Pretty much as soon as there was such a thing as a music industry (and such a thing as an advertising industry), music was employed to sell. The music and advertising industries took shape in the late 1800s and cemented their relationship with commercial radio broadcasting in the ’20s. Accompanied by groups such as the Lucky Strike Orchestra and the Vick’s Vap-o-rub Quartet, radio blurred distinctions between advertising and what we now call "content" from the start.

Working on that VOICE piece got me wondering: Why did I ever think the distinction between ads and pop music was a natural one in the first place? Why did I assume that the relationship between them had continually gotten blurrier, when it actually started blurry, separated (but still dated occasionally), and got blurrier again? What, exactly, are the differences between then and now? None of these questions could be broached in 1,400 or so words. Thus, the timeline.

"If it’s always been like this, what’s the big deal?"

Well, it hasn’t always been like this. To see familiar roots hardly means that music’s relationship to advertising hasn’t radically changed. For instance, the reason sponsors blurred advertising and programming early on was due to fear of offending listeners and inciting government regulation. A direct pitch over the airwaves was presumed taboo. In contrast, advertising and pop music snuggled post-’50s not because the mere fact of advertising reflected poorly on a company. People had more or less come to accept advertising as a fact of life by then. But people–constantly bombarded with advertisements–tuned them out. Advertisers were increasingly competing against each other, rather than some notion of propriety. In fact, blurring itself became socially unacceptable. Blurring was identified as co-opting. This was articulated through rock, which, back in the day, defined itself as an attitude more than anything else–an attitude against institutions, against commercialism. And that idea, if not the reality, has been, for those of us born in the last twenty or thirty years, the water in which we swim.

Early advertising music also had different aims. Music then was primarily used as a mnemonic device. Rhyme and repetition were enlisted to kept a brand name in mind. "Singing commercials" or jingles made up a self-contained genre. Music now is more often employed as "borrowed interest," capturing a feeling, setting a mood, recalling past experiences and playing them back on behalf of the sponsors.

Mass media may have integrated music and advertising from the start, but media played a much smaller role in how people experienced music. Music was played, sung, and created in the home and at local events. Popular music now is practically inseparable from media. With Walkmans, hi-fis, and car radio, music is both portable and ubiquitous, not something that requires seeking out. And with TV and, later, MTV, popular music includes visuals. We’re seeing the movie before reading the book.

We could do a similar timeline for comedy, sports, film, even books. But something about music–so immediate, and intangible and spiritual and abstract–makes its case particularly telling. Music, more than these other parts of culture, is its own language.

We originally intended this to be a couple of pages but got a little carried away. Twelve pages later, it nearly scratches the surface. When did record companies form "special products" departments to market music to nonmusic fans? What’s the history of music as a premium? Of music to sell fashion? Well, dunno. Maybe in the future we’ll expand the info here and publish a one-off–or at least update the web version. So anyone with insight is encouraged to get in touch.

One more thing: as those of us who work in the music industry well know, pop music has seen better days. The kids aren’t listening or buying; rockers can make a lot more money licensing songs for commercials and soundtracks than selling records. At the risk of overgeneralizing and boiling down very complicated issues into a pat conclusion, I don’t think this is a coincidence. -- CM

Entertainment and salesmanship collide: department stores hire circus clowns and acrobats; movie theaters project slides advertising local businesses; vaudeville theater curtains carry painted ads; utility companies sponsor cooking demonstrations with a cast of orchestra, singers and skit players; trolley companies invest in and promote amusement parks; companies sponsor sporting events, barn dances and college proms. Later, Esso Gasoline sponsors Guy Lombardo’s orchestra, with a gas sales receipt required for admission.

Throughout the nineteenth century, advertisers tended to break out into rhyme when writing copy, partly in jest and partly because rhymes made brand names easier to remember. In 1891 the De Long Hook and Eye Co., commissions a series of "jingles" (known then as rhymed verses) and the phrase "See that Hump" becomes a part of everyday language.

He rose, she took the seat and said,
"I thank you," and the man fell dead.
But ere he turned a lifeless lump.
He murmered: "See that Hump."

Thus is born a jingle craze, which peaks around 1900—1903. Memorizing jingles becomes a fad. One campaign chronicles the travails of old man Jim Dumps, who was rehabilitated into "Sunny Jim" when treated to Force cereal. Over 5,000 unsolicited jingles are mailed in from readers, many unprintable. Another jingle hero: Phoebe Snow becomes a national pin-up girl and a household word in a series describing her sanitary railroad trips.

The song "In My Merry Oldsmobile" by Johnny Marks becomes a popular anthem of the emerging car culture. Recognizing its sales potential, the Oldsmobile Motor Company uses the song in its advertising and promotion.

ASCAP is founded to issue licenses and collect royalties

Amateur radio operator Arthur B. Church advertises radio parts–the first use of radio for advertising.

Variety organizes an effort to curb payola, then known as paying sheet music performers to plug songs. Money that was formerly used to advertise songs in trade magazines (such as Variety) was increasingly spent on song pluggers.

Frank Conrad, a Westinghouse employee, airs recorded music from a transmitter in his Pittsburgh garage. His employer notices that these broadcasts increase radio equipment sales, moves Conrad’s transmitter to its factory roof, applies for a government license, and starts pioneer station KDKA.

"[It would be] inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service to be drowned in advertiser chatter."

– Herbert Hoover

Meanwhile, the main financial motive for making programs is selling receivers. Stations don’t concern themselves with creating an audience for advertising. And advertisers don’t set out to capture radio, either. In fact, the overwhelming majority of advertisers view radio as culturally uplifting, a veritable public service. The wealthier classes are the first to own radios and early broadcasts feature classical music and other "civilizing" programming.

Between 1922 to 1925, Printer’s Ink, a leading trade magazine, rails against radio as an "objectionable advertising medium" (perhaps in part because the editors focused on publishing). The journal emphasizes the dangers of creating public ill-will: "The family circle is not a public place, and advertising has no business intruding there unless it is invited." To sponsor a program as a public service is deemed commendable but advertisers fear a direct sales pitch would turn people off.

Advertisers thus find they can best gain brand recognition by naming shows and bands after products: the Royal Typewriter Salon Orchestra, A&P Gypsies, Lucky Strike Orchestra, Vick’s Vap-o-rub Quartet, and the Cliquot Club Eskimos. Palmolive Soap goes whole hog by renaming its soloists (Frank Munn and Virginia Rea) Paul Oliver and Olive Palmer. Unknown artists are preferred over vaudeville performers so they don’t compete for name recognition.

In the 1920s, companies organize in-house musical groups to facilitate company loyalty, keep employees happy, increase efficiency, establish good will with the public, and advertise the company name. According to one source, railroad companies and department stores have the most groups. Macy’s, for instance, begins sales rallies with a group sing and ends them with a rousing stanza of "America." The store also holds an annual musical to "assemble a Macy audience interested in seeing Macy performers." The Girls’ Drum Corps (above) was but one of the music projects the Larkin Co., Inc. organized for its employees. Larkin also had community singing on Mondays, an orchestra, ukulele club, and daily recitals on a 4-pipe manual organ.

1920

Singer Vaugn De Leath originates "crooning," a method of singing that is adapted to match the limited range of early radio equipment. Until now, high soprano notes have often broken delicate transmitter tubes.

The first commercially sponsored radio program is broadcast on WEAF. Mr. Blackwell of the Queensboro Corporation discusses the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the possible influence of communities such as Queensboro’s "Hawthorne Court" apartments on his writing.

John R. Brinkley opens KFKB in Milford, Kansas, and finds fame and fortune by plugging his goat-gland medicine on air. KFKB also gives Brinkley a vehicle to promote himself for state office. Using a hillbilly band in his campaigns, Brinkley becomes one of the most powerful forces in the state.

When the FCC fails to renew his license, Brinkley moves to Del Rio, Texas, and launches the first Mexican border radio station, XER, in 1931. Operating outside U.S. jurisdiction, XER and the "X" stations that followed broadcast a steady stream of pitches for Resurrection Plants, autographed portraits of Jesus, prayer cloths, baby chicks, "genuine simulated" diamonds, and hillbilly and gospel songbooks.

The first radio jingle: Wheaties.

As indirect advertising thrives, advertisers experiment with "direct advertising." The NAB then declares that no commercials may be broadcast between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. ("family hour"). The rule doesn’t last long. Once the stock market crashes in 1929, the need to sell takes over and buying becomes a patriotic duty. By 1929, insistence on sponsorship only dies. Guardians of radio’s sanctity ask only for moderation.

Cliquot Club Ginger Ale sponsors "Cliquot Club Eskimos" over the fledgling NBC network. According to NBC, "[Since] ginger, pep, sparkle and snap were qualities that form the very essence of the product . . . manifestly, peppy musical numbers of lively tempo were in order."

To pay for transmitting programs between stations, national radio networks begin a campaign to promote broadcast advertising. "In the process, [the campaign] developed the concept that time, as well as space, could be bought and sold for commercial purposes."

Country music becomes identified as the primary medium through which advertisers can reach rural audiences. It’s especially important for medical treatments: Alka-Seltzer, Black Draught (laxative), Wine of Cardui (for "women’s complaints"). The biggest advertiser: Crazy Water Company, which sponsors fourteen stations in the South, several bands (Crazy Hickory Nutes, Crazy Mountaineers, etc.), and the "Crazy Barn Dance." Around this time, some stations–particularly small, rural ones–start relying on "Per Inquiry" accounts. These stations receive royalties based on the number of inquires they get for an advertised product.

The Light Crust Doughboys are born when the soon-to-be-king of western swing Bob Wills and his fiddle trio are hired to advertise Light Crust Flour on KFJZ in Fort Worth, Texas. When not performing, Wills et al. work for the flour company as dock loaders, truck drivers, and salesmen. Five years later, after several lineup changes (Wills was gone), the man who hired them quits Light Crust and starts his own flour company, Hillbilly Flour. His new sales team: the Hillbilly Boys.

Kellogg’s conducts a hugely popular Singing Lady promotion where people send in box tops for the Singing Lady song book. According to a Kellogg’s memo: "This entire program is pointed to increase consumption–by suggesting Kellogg cereals, not only for breakfast but for lunch, after school and the evening meal."

Muzak, the leader in "business music" services, is founded.

FCC issues list of program taboos, including astrology; obscenity; solicitation for funds; and false, misleading, or too much advertising. The government frowns upon playing music over the air as a waste and for being deceptive. (Stations often pretended they were broadcasting live with major stars in the studio.) FCC rules require stations to identify recorded broadcasts.

BMI forms and welcomes everyone ASCAP turns down: Appalachian musicians, fiddlers, blues singers, etc. Professional recognition goes to the vast body of American music outside the commercial mainstream. In 1940, ASCAP withdraws all its music from the air so radio stations turn to BMI records. The public is eager for this music!

"Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot" is the first jingle played on network radio. Pepsi releases more than one million copies for jukeboxes. Still, it’s no match for the Chiquita Banana jingle, which Time magazine declares "The undisputed No. 1 on the jingle-jangle hit parade." The Chiquita jingle is played 376 times a day on the radio. Versions by the King Sisters, the Five DeMarcos, and Patti Clayton (almost 1 million records sold) are jukebox hits. In 1945, in cooperation with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the lyrics are revised to urge Americans to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables.

J. Harold Ryan, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, commemorates the 25th anniversary of broadcasting with these words: "American radio is the product of American business! It is just as much that kind of product as the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, the automobile, and the airplane. . . . If the legend still persists that a radio station is some kind of art center, a technical museum, or a little piece of Hollywood transplanted strangely to your home town, then the first official act of the second quarter century should be to list it along with the local dairies, laundries, banks, restaurants, and filling stations."

The Lucky Strike radio show–a music staple since the ’30s–is reincarnated as a successful NBC-TV show. The regular cast of singers, the Lucky Strike Gang, entertains viewers with "the songs most heard on the air and most played on the automatic coin machines," which the TV audience was assured represented "an accurate, authentic tabulation of America’s taste in popular music." The decisions were actually made by Lucky Strike’s ad agency, BBDO.

Actress Tallulah Bankhead wins $5,000 from Proctor & Gamble after charging that a jingle about "Tallulah, the tube of Prell shampoo" damaged her career.

The Weavers hit #1, setting up folk music as a lucrative commercial genre. Groups with names like the Cumberland Three, the Chad Mitchell Trio, the Wayfarers, the Travelers, etc., follow, cashing in by copywriting public domain material. The Kingston Trio tops the charts a decade later with their album Sold Out.

Morris Levy and Alan Freed try to trademark the term "rock and roll."

Sidebar: Why did advertising and programming separate?

1. Competition from television. Since TV's visuals make it better for comedy and drama, radio starts relying more on music. To maximize effienciency, radio starts dividing its audience up into targetable chunks. TV, afterall, is the ideal medium for reaching the mass audience. If any advertiser wants to reach both the rural Southern mom and the wealthy urban sophisticate, TV is the way. So, recognizing its strengths, radio goes "niche" rather than mass. For the first time, stations adopt formats. (Top 40 is developed in 1953.) Sponsored programs and bands fade because maintaining a coherent format is nearly impossible when advertisers create the programming. Radio from here on out uses music for target marketing. Like race, gender, and education level, musical taste helps type a buyer. The radio formats such as Modern Rock, AOR, and AA that eventually result cater to single genres of music-despite surveys showing that most people like different styles of music-because its the best way to segment "demos."

2. In the late '50s, TV quiz show scandals rock broadcasting. All three TV networks re-organize. The president of CBS decries that everything on CBS be "what it purports to be," even ordering that canned laughter and applause be identified as such. Although most of the outrage is directed at TV, radio plays defense as well (but don't ask us for proof).

3. Rock and roll ideology.

The third time it is released, Bill Haley’s "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1, the only legit rock song in the Top Ten that year. Initially, the song bombed. It was only after appearing in the movie The Blackboard Jungle that it struck gold, establishing rock and roll as a commercial genre

Stan Freberg begins career as a radio adman singing jingles that make fun of singing jingles. An early example of anti-ad ads.

Ralston-Purina company commissions an "original" rock song to sell cereal: Who-ho-ho-ho / rock that roll / And roll that roll / Get that Ralston in the bowl.

American Bandstand joins ABC Television and becomes the single most powerful record promotion since the advent of Top 40 radio. Bandstand sells more records than any previous avenue of exposure.

Rock and roll dies.

Corporations embrace albums as a tool for motivating sales staffs. These albums, or "industrial musicals," unlike jingles, are for company in-house use rather than for consumers. Selections from The Wide New World with Ford (1960) from the Ford Motor Company; Tunes for Toppies (1972) from Mary Kay Cosmetics; The Spirit of Achievements (1976) from Exxon, and others have been compiled on a bootleg CD, Product Music.

Corporations also churn out LPs as promotional items to give to customers: Colonel Sanders’ Tijuana Picnic (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Introducing the Sugar Bears (Sugar Crisps), Rodney Allen Rippy’s Take Life a Little Easier (Jack in the Box), and Music to Light Your Pilot Light By (Heil-Quaker Corporation), to name but a few.

Payola declared illegal. Alan Freed crucified.

Ad copywriter Richard Blake joins Epic Records and Lester Lanin’s orchestra in releasing Lester Lanin and His Orchestra Play the Madison Avenue Beat. The album cover encourages buyers to "have fun listening and dancing to 58 radio and TV commercials."

The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night presages MTV with its quick-cutting action loosely based around songs.

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."

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pillsbury Doughboy raps in a commercial.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Sidebars that couldn't fit here on the text version:

Soundtracks (click here)
Foreground Music / Muzak, etc. (click here)

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.

Stay Free! issue #15