Soundtrack Of Your Life or Sell Out?

TV advertisers have often used music to convey a mood or an emotion. To spark a reaction in you.

Over the last decade or two the use of pre-existing classical, pop or rock music has filtered into the advertising industry. Think of United Airlines with their signature use of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” or the foray that Pepsi made years ago in using Michael Jackson and his music to sell soft drinks to young boys, I mean, to the masses.

But over the last five or six years the advertising industry has really changed its tune. It is like the soundtrack of my youth coming from the little speakers on the TV with the use of rock, pop and more obscure alternative music.

It reminds me of when I first saw Grosse Point Blank starring John Cusack. Cusack is my contemporary. And the choices that he made for the music in the film reflect that, from Pete Townshend to The Jam to The Clash to Violent Femmes to The Specials to The English Beat. It was clear that the creative decisions being made for that part of the movie were being made by an almost 30-something who came of age in the 80’s.

Those same creative decisions in the major advertising agencies must also now be being made by my generation. This morning alone, while watching NCAA Basketball on CBS, I saw two commercials that use MY music.

The first was for TIAA-CREF. Now TIAA-CREF is the retirement/investment arm of educators, a segment of the population that probably stretches from 25 years to 65 years in age. They chose Bob Mould’s “See A Little Light” for the advert. Now, this song, depending on the week or month, would be on my short list of favorite songs ever. It is that good.

The second was Taco Bell (which I have not had ANY of in almost four months. Yay for me!) Which used, appropriately enough, Modern English’s “I Melt With You” to sell something extremely cheesy.

In other commercials Nissan has used The Clash’s version of “Pressure Drop” (an awesome song, reggae or punk version both) or several stylings from The Who to sell their various SUVs. The Buzzcocks’ “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” is being used for AARP. That’s an ad for the retirement generation, folks. “Blister In The Sun” by Violent Femmes was featured in a Wendy’s commercial.

More contemporary, and relevant to Portland, is the use by JC Penney and Old Navy of a few songs by The Weepies in their recent Christmas campaigns. The Weepies are the current musical group of former Portlander Deb Talan, who led the awesome and fun group Hummingfish for most of her time in Portland.

It’s easy to label these artists as sell-outs for allowing their music to be used commercially. Especially Pete Townshend who mocked the idea back in the 60’s with The Who Sell Out. But, with a music industry that is struggling to figure out how to deal with download v. CD v. the resurgence of vinyl, home publishing, youtube, myspace, it’s not surprising that artists are less apprehensive to lend their music to the mass advertising. It’s exposure. It’s money. Where’s the harm?

But, it’s clear to me that even if I am not the target audience for some of these products or services that the ones making the decisions grew up as I did; watching John Hughes movies and MTV, listening to college radio and discovering the great, obscure music that the 80’s and beyond had to offer.

I think that’s cool.

B!

Gmail - At Least It's Not As Creepy As MySpace

I really like Gmail. I switched to it just before moving in June when I had to cancel my Verizon online account.

Gmail came highly recommended and overall I’ve been very satisfied. Great spam filters. Versatile archiving. Except for this one thing:

Ad bots.

They run an automated ad generator at the top of the email screen. It’s not a graphic or anything, just a link and a quick blurb. Except their ad bot is reading my email and generating targeted ads for me. It’s just a bit on the creepy side.

In the past week I’ve had the following ads come up, some more than once:

Indianwives – forgo the traditional arranged marriage; join the new century (eww.)

Bourne Identity becomes funny – the guys from MST3K take on Matt Damon (OK, this actually sounds funny)

Albany Apartments – great rentals in the capital region (I’m willing to visit Albany, but I didn’t know I wanted to live there – does the bot know something I don’t? By any chance does it know the Powerball numbers?)

Netflix – Get Netflix (reasonable)

Room Paint Designs – myAuraPaint.com by Benjamin Moore – high quality, eco-friendly paints (too many house/remodeling emails?)

101 cookbooks – Minty Chocolate Christmas Cookies (isn’t the bot smart enough to know I’m on a diet?)

Now some of those make sense, but Indianwives? Where is that coming from? Did this bot actually put together a link between an email I sent to someone about Indian food and another lamenting my status as a single guy at holiday parties with happy, loving couples?

I’m considering writing some really provocative emails just to see what the bots will come up with. Feel free to send me some too. If I can make it a game it won’t be so creepy.

Gmail – Get your creep on. In writing. In a fun way. Oy.

B!

Your Space or MySpace?

I’m not much when it comes to being a geek. I’m certainly a dork and possibly verging on a nerd, but not a geek. Geek’s not only own technology, they understand technology. They fix technology. They build technology. I’m the lowest end user of the technology that they fix and build and I certainly don't understand it.

I really don’t know much about it at all. I couldn’t describe the difference between HTTP and FTP or HTML and other such acronymy things. It’s all pretty much Greek to me (which I actually flunked in college – no joke. It was the third major…). And this leads me to MySpace.

What is up with MySpace?

I joined MySpace in May. Here’s my page. I joined for three reasons:

1. My friend’s band, fuzzball, had a page and it seemed a good way to keep tabs on them.
2. Nathan Fillion, the actor who played Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Joss Whedon’s Firefly, has a page and he writes regularly, but you need to be his friend to read it. I am his friend.
3. Timbers Army had set up a page and I like to be in touch with those yahoos as well.

So immediately after joining I start getting requests to add friends. Curiously I check out these people. Wow. Most of these women are very confident in their bodies. Very strange names. I quickly realize something's up and they’re not really my friends. After a few weeks the emails dwindle and almost stop. Thankfully.

Anyway, so I add a few people and then forget about the site. Then I move to my new house. I change email addys, etc. So yesterday, I decided to jump back on MySpace to see what I might be missing. After 15 minutes of trying to locate my password email from them back in May I get back on the site. I figure they probably don’t have my email (which is reducing the spam) so I decide to update it.

Here’s the rub. They need to email the old email to change to a new email. That would be fine if this was June 28th, but that email addy is dead, Kaput. So, I search to see how to update an email if the old email is dead. Kaput. No other options that I can find. Not the end of the world, really.

I still don’t understand MySpace. Most of the pages are really hard to navigate and even to look at. A high percentage of users listen to really crappy music. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like rap music. I was even part of a short lived rap duo in high school. But this music is awful. Plus everybody thinks they’re a DJ. It’s a very strange place. I still don't quite understand why I'm supposed to be on it.

Anyway. Feel free to send me an add. I just won't get the email.