7/7/09 Daylight, or The Use of Music In Advertising

One of the latest advertising trends that I actually appreciate is the use of emerging artists in commercials. It's win-win, both for new artists (or some not so new in the cast of BEP and Target) and for me, because I get exposed to new songs that I wouldn't normally find by myself.

Case in point: I found Shiny Toy Guns from a Lincoln car commercial, Sleepy Rebels from the JC Penny spots, and most recently, Daylight by Matt and Kim on that Bacardi commercial.

(If anybody else regularly reads Slate, you'll know that Seth Stevenson totally disagrees with me. He thinks that well-known artists, such as the Black Eyed Peas, are selling out artistic integrity for corporate advertising greed by allowing their songs to be associated with products in commercials. I say well-known or not, TV advertising works for every artist who wants to get a song out there. I don't club-hop, and my radio listening is almost non-existent, so if you want me and my i-tune downloading ability, you better get me either on the TV or the Internet. Besides, as Rob Levine said at this year's Clio Awards, selling out is pretty much a dead concept).

(Plus, I really get a kick out of how well they blend in to the background on those Target commercials.)

But back to my point. Because of an evil money-grubbing ad exec for Bacardi, I am totally hooked on Daylight now. Totally. and completely. Hooked. I know it actually came out last September and I'm late to the party, but I luvvvvv it anyway. (My favorite part is the very first two lines- "We cut the legs off of our pants, Threw our shoes into the oceans". I'm seriously considering that phrase as my new outlook on life. All I need now is an ocean.) And I suppose that it's possible that I would have eventually found them without the Bacardi commercial, but if I'm going to sit through commercials at all, it might as well be to a song that catches my attention.



By the way, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the song and tell me if you don't automatically feel like dancing around the room. Even better, Matt and Kim are sponsored by Mountain Dew's Green Label (more selling out, or just taking advantage of an opportunity?), and they are giving the song (plus two remix versions) away for free download on their website.

Who says you can't get anything good from commercials?