An advertisement created for broadcast via radio or television, sometimes also transmitted on videotapes and in cinemas. As an adjective, the term is applied to all types of music created for the media, including advertising and film music, but is also sometimes used to refer to any music meant for profit.
Commercials are short, normally ranging from 15 seconds to a minute, and fall into three main categories. In rough order of historical appearance, these are the direct sales pitch, including comparison with a rival product; the scenario in which the product solves a dramatic crisis; and the ‘lifestyle spot’, which uses attractive images to build up associations between the product and the comfortable life. Music for commercials likewise falls into three categories – the Jingle, the film-type score, and the music-video style – which correspond roughly to the three types of commercial. The sales pitch and the dramatic scenario may be without music, but both may feature a jingle; the short film score (which may include a jingle) has a natural affinity with the dramatic scenario; and the lifestyle spots, which appeared in the 1970s, proved a training-ground for pioneering music-video directors, like Bob Giraldi. The development of the music Video in the 1980s as an advertisement for the musical product (the record) in turn influenced television advertising.
Commercials in a series, linked by a spokesperson, a jingle or a similarity in scenario, have been common since the days of radio; since the 1980s such series have commonly been of lifestyle spots. In the late 1980s the ‘Night Belongs to Michelob’ series of beer commercials featured popular songs with the word ‘night’ in their titles and brought accusations of ‘selling out’ to the rock stars who participated, among them Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and Phil Collins. On both sides of the Atlantic, the Levi's 501 commercials, have been influential beyond the immediate goal of selling jeans: in the USA, advertisements in a similar surreal visual style were scored by such prominent musicians as Ry Cooder and Bobby McFerrin; in Britain each advertisement was in a distinctive visual style, and the series launched highly successful singles by previously unknown artists, including ‘Spaceman’ by Babylon Zoo (1996), one of the fastest-selling singles ever.
See also Advertising, music in.
ROBYNN J. STILWELL