September 01, 2004 News & Views » Cover

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You Say You Want A. . .Car? 

Sting pioneers revolutionary trail to TV commercials

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click to enlarge Sting, sans Jaguar
  • Sting, sans Jaguar

Page 2 of 3

"This gives them a way to get the word out," said Jon Fine, a reporter for Ad Age and former guitarist for Bitch Magnet who still plays music. "Radio's not going to help, MTV isn't going to help, and the press that reaches a lot of people isn't going to help -- the 300-word record review in Rolling Stone just isn't going to do that much. It's one of the ironies of being in a really commerce-oriented culture like this -- this works. Commercials actually serve as a medium for these guys to get some fans."

Writer Will Bryant of Pitchfork.com, a template for all things indie rock, recently summed up the on-line magazine's viewpoint about finding their heroes unofficial mascots for McDonalds, Nissan and Bud Light.

"We're living in a world, after all, where innovators like Beck, the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and, yes, Modest Mouse, record for the biggest corporate media conglomerates on the face of the planet," Bryant wrote. "Hearing your heroes' music in a beer commercial may even be preferable to hearing them on commercial radio, which is awash in so-called "legal payola' and big-money partnerships with major labels."

What's at stake here, after all, can be fairly significant, especially for the unknown artist. Perhaps the mother of all success stories -- or the first sign of the apocalypse, depending on your aesthetic point of view -- was Volkswagen's use of Nick Drake's song, "Pink Moon." In 2000, the same year Sting was whooshing through the desert in his Jaguar, the considerably less expensive VW model Cabrio was introduced simultaneously with a subtle ad depicting a group of 20-somethings opting to skip a party in favor of a nice moonlit drive in their convertible. Playing over the wordless script throughout the 30-second spot was only Drake's ethereal voice and open-tuned guitar. This quiet little song written by a painfully shy performer who died from an overdose of anti-depressives in 1972, caused a revolution in the advertising and music worlds. US sales of Pink Moon rose from 6,000 copies in 1999, prior to the song's use in the Cabrio commercial, to 74,000 copies in 2000, according to Palm, which distributes Drake's music through Hannibal Records (during his short lifetime Drake sold only 5,000 copies of the critically acclaimed record).

"What VW is doing is a savvy kind of marketing aimed at a certain kind of consumer," said Fine.

The more subtle (and cheaper) approach is a staple of the VW vision, Weist said, and compared to most other car sellers, it continues to be a pioneer in this field. The most recent example is the carmaker's use of a song from the little-known singer-songwriter Richard Buckner during the Olympics.

"I went home and thought about the state of my soul before I signed on," Buckner said recently, "but given who it was I said I'd go ahead and do it."

The response so far suggests that Buckner's wallet, if not his soul, may have made the right decision. VWvortex.com has already received numerous queries requesting to know whose song that is that accompanies their latest subtle advertisement.

Buckner's decision was probably made easier, said Fine, by the fact that he -- and other lesser-known musicians -- might not have much choice in the matter if they want to continue making music for a living.

"Let's face it, the margin of being an independent recording musician is really small," Fine said. "Record sales are small, touring is hand-to-mouth, with luck you do pretty well on (merchandise) sales and that keeps you going, and if you can sell a chunk of a song to a car company or a technology company and have it show up in a video game or TV commercial, and maybe you get a check for $35,000 dollars at the end of that year, well, congratulations, you can do music full-time for another year. That's how these guys have to think about it."

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