Unfortunately, there isn’t much research available that proves what works better in advertising – a known hit, or an unknown song. There is, however, research based on music in retail environments, comparing the two.

A study conducted by Washington State University’s Business School, titled, “The Effects of Music in a Retail Setting on Real & Perceived Shopping Times” concluded that individuals who had a choice as to the duration of their shopping experience shopped longer when listening to less familiar music compared to more familiar music. And that individuals reported being more aroused while listening to unfamiliar music compared to familiar music.

The authors added, “These results are counter-intuitive to the expectation that listening to familiar music would encourage longer shopping.” To add a little more weight to the findings, the research cites other studies which more or less end up with, or at least point towards the same conclusion.

Paul Anthony, founder/CEO of Rumblefish, a music branding company based in Portland adds, “We have found that you can increase the length of stay for a customer at a retail store by 28 percent by playing less familiar music rather than more familiar music.”

Although it could be argued that you can’t make a direct correlation between the effects of unfamiliar music in retail environments and unfamiliar music, as opposed to ‘hit’ music used in brand advertising, it’s at least interesting.

What I find most interesting is that if the research is right, unfamiliar music tends to make people stick around longer. For advertising purposes, and given that the song has to have an engaging hook, the use of unfamiliar music may cause people to stick with a commercial longer, rather than zapping it.

Advertising has always relied on music, mostly original music that bragged and boasted about the brand, called the jingle. In fact, David Ogilvy once famously said, “If you can’t write it, sing it.”

Licensing popular songs for campaigns only began taking hold in the late 80’s and today has become common practice. A few years ago, an article in The New York Times, titled, “Forget Jingles. Viewers Prefer Familiar Tunes in Commercials” had this contrary observation, “One difference lately is that many songs being used are not mass-market hits. Indeed, many might not even ring a bell with the general public -- and that is one big reason they are used. Madison Avenue's newest idea is to discover innovative music that reaches a particular audience, usually young people.”

“The move to less widely known music reflects the rise of niche brands, niche media and niche marketing. An advertiser doesn't need an expensive mass hit when a more obscure, semi-pop song might be the track that reaches its niche youth market.”

As well, there are other reasons a brand marketer should consider using original, yet unfamiliar music as opposed to known, ‘hit’ music:

• The most obvious is cost. According to experts cited in the NY Times article, the fee to use a hit song in a commercial starts at about $150,000. To use the actual recording might cost another $150,000. The fees usually cover use for one year and are renegotiated for long-running campaigns. Tracks from unknown artists are considerably less than that. In fact, most are happy just getting the exposure, along with a nominal fee.
• Using new music can give a brand, especially a youth-oriented brand an added cachet as a patron of emerging music. In other words, the “cool” factor.
• A logical problem with using familiar ‘hit’ music from recognized stars is that the advertising often promotes the celebrity’s brand more so than the corporate brand paying the freight. A recent example of this is Blackberry’s pairing with U2, with the commercial's super informing us that "Blackberry loves U2." Something we all, apparently, need to know.

In conclusion, we recently experienced a lot of success in writing an original track for a Credit Canada TV commercial. Immediately after it went on air the client was bombarded with requests as to the details of the song.

Although I’ll post a more detailed case study later, the short version is that from the beginning of the campaign we planned on producing and promoting the full length track, titled ‘Two Scoops.’ In order to do this, we extended the campaign into social media, primarily using the track as the social object.

So far, the results are that ‘Two Scoops’ has been picked up and is being distributed by Universal Music and is now on medium to high rotation on radio across Canada (at the same time the TV commercial is running another flight). In the month of September, according to Trendr, the singer, Michelle Harding, was receiving 125,000 hits a day on her MySpace page. The music video, just launched at the end of August, has had well over 200,000 complete views online. It’s currently at number 20 on the California Music Channel. And apart from many good reviews, the song has been nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award.

Michelle and her band will be going on a 42-city tour starting in November, coinciding with her full length record being released in February.

Credit Canada has had a banner year and is delighted the song has helped bring the brand message to a much larger audience than traditional thinking and media would have allowed.

Regardless of money, I don’t think this would have happened with a hit song by Beyonce, or the Beatles for that matter.

Flatacre is a music branding agency. Its purpose is to help build client brands as well as promote its own music content. Apart from its own writers, producers and existing content, Flatacre also sources original music for cooperative promotion. The music is made available for a fraction of the price of typical original music creation, production and leasing arrangements. The potential is that the music can help make the client’s brand famous and through media exposure, the brand makes the music famous. This partnership creates further opportunities such as branded music videos, entertainment based promotions, virals and live performance. The client’s brand benefits by engaging with the audience through channels which typically have not been available. There are few things more potentially viral, engaging, or voluntarily repetitive than a good song.