Is it a song or a sales pitch?

It’s time companies stop using pop songs to conjure a connection with consumers in their commercials and bring back the good ole jingle. Or use lesser known songs. For example, using the Etta James classic “At Last” in an Oreck vacuum commercial is just plain wrong! The marketers for Oreck probably weren’t thinking about the couples out there that danced to this song as their first dance at their wedding. That wasn’t our first dance, but I’ve been to at least 2 weddings where it was used. Heck, the song was used by the Obamas as their first dance at all the balls they attended after the inauguration. If I danced to that song in my wedding the next time I hear it I want to think about that moment and not have an image of a vacuum in my head. I wouldn’t want to buy the vacuum that ruined my memory of that song.

I also saw a recent Hallmark commercial that uses John Mayer’s “Say” as its theme. The song is actually fitting for this purpose but it irks me that pop songs are used more and more in commercials these days. You can’t just enjoy an artist and his/her music anymore because everyone is now associated with a brand. Wrigley had Chris Brown, Neyo and Julianne Hough redo the jingles for Double Mint gum, Big Red and Juicy Fruit respectively. Chris Brown used the famous “double your pleasure, double your fun” tag line in his song “Forever.”  The first time I heard the song and the lyric I had to check with the people around me that they heard the same thing. The song was ok but having the line in there bothered me…why would he want to sample a jingle? I didn’t find out until later that it was the new jingle disguised in a full song.

Maybe artists don’t mind as much because they get paid when their songs are used. For those artists that have one hit song, it may be a much needed check. But music is one of those things that are associated with memories. When I hear the song “OPP” by Naughty by Nature, I remember being a 5^th grader, walking home from school and being past by this older Caucasian kid on his bike screaming “Are you down with OPP!?”  This image comes to mind as a reminder of how easily people are influenced and how big a part music plays in our lives. 

Marketers, please stop having these songs do double duty. If that's not possible, at the very least stop using classic songs to sell your goods.