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Products Placed:
How Companies Pay Artists to Include Brands in Lyrics
Wired
Eliot Van Buskirk
September 19, 2008
Songs that refer to products and brands have been with
us for years, from Simon and Garfunkel singing "Mama
don't take my Kodachrome away" to Janis Joplin's plea
for a new car in "Mercedes Benz" and beyond. Conscious
of the branding value such mentions can bring, some
artists have gone so far as to approach companies with
offers to include brand and product names in their song
lyrics.
A e-mail from the Kluger Agency, which performs such
product placements, mistakenly sent to Jeff Crouse of
the Anti-Advertising Agency and Double Happiness Jeans,
provides a rare glimpse into the secretive market for
song lyric product placement.
"I'm writing because we feel you may be a good company
to participate in a brand integration campaign within
the actual lyrics of one of the worlds most famous
recording artists upcoming song/album," begins the
opening e-mail in the eventual salvo between the two.
Yes, you read that right: things have gotten so weird in
the music business that high-profile acts are inserting
ads into their song lyrics. The next time you hear a
brand mentioned in a song, it could be due to a paid
product placement. And unlike magazines, songs are not
required to point out which words are part of an
advertisement.
In the e-mail, Kluger (who has represented Mariah Carey,
New Kids on the Blog, Ne-Yo, Fall Out Boy, Method Man,
Lady GaGa and Ludacris) explained via e-mail that for
the right price, Double Happiness Jeans could find its
way into the lyrics in an upcoming Pussycat Dolls song.
Crouse posted the e-mail on his blog at the
Anti-Advertising Agency, an art project of sorts that's
basically the philosophical mirror image of a
traditional ad agency.
The thing is, Double Happiness Jeans is not your
everyday brand -- it's a virtual sweatshop organized by
EyeBeam for a display at the Sundance Festival, which
involves paying Second Life citizens 90 cents an hour to
make real, customized jeans designed in the virtual
factory. Crouse and Steve Lambert, his partner at the
Anti-Advertising Agency, are probably the last people on
earth who Kluger would want to receive this e-mail. Both
men spend a fair amount of their time questioning,
undermining and criticizing the pervasiveness of
materialism and advertising in our culture.
"It was hilarious," Lambert told us via telephone, "that
he wanted to put Jeff's fake Second Life sweatshop
company in a pop song. It's this desperation that
advertising has come to because you can't just tell
people about your product anymore, because nobody cares.
Advertisers have created this situation where they've
made themselves obsolete. There's too much advertising
out there, so they try to find new ways to cut through
the clutter that they've created. And this is one of
those ways."
Soon after Crouse posted Kluger's e-mail and his own
response on the blog, a commenter wrote, "Either a
spammer/con-artist is using the name... or (they are)
really bad at marketing themselves." Kluger asked
Lambert and Crouse via e-mail and telephone a number of
times to remove the post and comment. "Will you please
remove the post on your blog? Now a new comment was made
basically calling us 'morons,'" he wrote in one of the
requests. "When I google the blog or my name, the tag
line is 'spammer/con-artist' using the name Adam Kluger
PR. Obviously, this is not good for business, and more
importantly, I'm quite embarrassed."
UPDATE: (A representative from Adam Kluger Public
Relations in New York City (http://www.adamklugerpr.com/)
contacted wired.com to say that there should also be no
confusion over the fact that their New York City based
PR Firm, founded by a former television producer (CNN,
FOX), also coincidentally named Adam Kluger, is not
involved in this issue in any way and should not be
confused with the Adam Kluger quoted above in this
article.)
Never mind that it was he who first approached them via
unsolicited e-mail by using a scraper program that
identified them as potential clients for his product
placement service. Or that the words he objected to were
in readers' comments, not in the original post. Kluger
doesn't like the comments and wants them removed from
the internet.
The Anti-Advertising Agency declined and has already
drawn some attention to the practice of selling space in
lyrics to advertisers through its blog. "Maybe Ludacris
wants to rap about a luxury SUV, and is just looking for
the right one," said Lambert. "We'll never know
(everything about) how it works, because that takes the
mystique out of it, and the mystique is one of the
things that they can sell." But thanks to this e-mail,
we at least have proof that the phenomenon is real.
For his part, Kluger claims that product placement can
be done in such a way that artistic integrity is not
affected. "We are just financially taking care of the
people that should be taken care of," he told us via
e-mail. "If an artist like Sheryl Crow has the same
target audience as XZY brand, we feel it's nothing but a
strong and strategic way to pinpoint a market.
"Now, we don't want an artist to write a song
specifically to promote a brand, we just feel that if
it's a product that's admired by the artist and fits
his/her image, we now have the capability of leveling
out the playing field and making things financially
beneficial for all parties involved. 'Brand-Dropping' is
the term that the Kluger Agency coined to describe
discreetly advertising by product mentioning in song,
and we feel we can make this the way of the future
without jeopardizing any artists creative outlet or
typical style."
Whether because the Anti-Advertising Agency exposed the
practice of product placement in lyrics, because Kluger
doesn't like being called a moron on the blog's comments
section, or both, he says he's going to sue.
In an e-mail sent to Lambert, he wrote, "$5500 is what
it's going to cost me to have an attorney stick you with
a $150,000 judgment for the next 20 years. We've
consulted with two different firms. This was written
with the intent to hurt our business and we will win,
period... We will go after Steve Lambert,
AntiAdvertisingAgency.com, and Budget Gallery (where
Lambert sells his art). Since you are intentionally
damaging our California-based agency, you will have the
opportunity to defend yourself in the state of
California. If you think I'm bluffing, that's fine with
me."
Lambert remains unconvinced. "I really don't think
there's any way he can win," he told us."I have every
right to have that there... Jeff's commentary doesn't
say anything about this guy's company, it's just funny.
And bloggers aren't responsible for people who write
comments -- it would be like holding the New York Times
accountable for every letter to the editor ever sent
them."
Kluger's angry, litigious reaction to his offer being
posted indicates that he knows he's doing something a
bit shady. Bands like The Pussycat Dolls don't have much
integrity to lose, but we were still sort of surprised
to find that they sell elements of their songs to the
highest bidder.
What's next, a song called "My Family And I Enjoy
McDonalds-Brand Food Products"? A band called
"Exxon/Mobil Greatly Benefits All Aspects of The
Glorious Environment"?
I appreciate that artists need to embrace a variety of
revenue opportunities to make it today, but selling song
lyrics seems to go over the line -- assuming there's
still such a thing as selling out.
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