Today we discuss Bruce’s favourite TVC – Salt n Pepa belting out “Push It” with a suburban mum in the SUV. Wonderful imagery and great messaging. From a few years back, but a timeless bit of advertising.
You’ll find the full transcript below:
Bruce:
Today we’re going to have a look at an older TVC. But my all-time favorite, I think Salt n Pepa, belting it out for Kia Sportage. Just a wonderful ad.
Clare:
Oh, that’s such fun, the ad. Really is. It makes you want to bop with him.
Bruce:
So before we get into Salt n Pepa, you weren’t here then. So in the time that you’ve been here, what’s the favorite TVC you’ve worked on?
Clare:
That has to be T20.
Bruce:
Hearts.
Clare:
Hearts. That’s right. Rerecord of um….
Bruce:
‘Get Up and Dance’.
Clare:
‘Get Up and Dance’. Of course, yes.
Bruce:
Wonderful song. We’ll probably talk about that another day. Back to Salt n Pepa, I just love the ad. It’s brilliant. And in this case, we’ve got Salt n Pepa as talent appearing in the ad. And of course, we negotiated the music license to ‘Push it’. The song, first of all, the messaging is just superb. This is a SUV. It’s meant for couples with young kids, in their thirties was the target demographic. So we had to find songs that would make them nostalgic for when they were younger. But they can still have fun even though they’re old.
Clare:
What is it …
Bruce:
And the tagline at the end is, “Grow up, not old.” Well it’s all constructed around this idea that you might be getting older, you’ve got all these responsibilities. But you can still have fun.
Clare:
Yeah, you can still access the child inside or maybe in this case, the rebellious teenager.
Bruce:
That’s right. And boy do they have some fun in the car.
Clare:
They do.
Bruce:
They’re just obviously having fun.
Clare:
Yes.
Bruce:
What’s your favorite thing about the ad?
Clare:
I think it’s the little girl in the end that gets into it as well.
Bruce:
She is great.
Clare:
So she grows up and mom takes off a few years.
Bruce:
And I think the other thing that makes it a superb ad is this juxtaposition of these suburban scenes and it’s almost like a nightclub in the car.
Clare:
Party in the car.
Bruce:
Like our first date.
Clare:
Yeah.
Bruce:
Fundamentally, it’s a pretty simple concept. But the production values are superb and I reckon it’s advertising at its very best. We had to find a song and an artist. And in some ways, that’s a similar process. We get a brief, we’re looking for a music artist who will appeal to the demographic. But there’s this whole other thing with finding music artists to appear, which is they have to be available, which is not easy, because they’re touring or they’re recording or they’re on holiday or they’re just not available.
Clare:
Would be easier now.
Bruce:
Would be easier in COVID times. Yes. Although they can’t travel, so they couldn’t-
Clare:
And they can’t shoot.
Bruce:
Get here and they can’t shoot. But I have to tell you this story about what went wrong, the producer’s nightmare.
Clare:
Yeah?
Bruce:
So it was actually going really well. Salt n Pepa were touring Australia. They were right here. We had a day set down for them to shoot the TVC, but then they couldn’t get the cars. I think it was some problem where the new version of the SUV was held up on the docks or something like that, I’m not quite sure. So Salt n Pepa had to go back to the states to fulfill concert commitments. And then three weeks later, fly back to Australia to do the one-day shoot. That would’ve been fun.
Clare:
Was worth it.
Bruce:
Before we finish up, I want to ask them, you: What’s your favourite use of a song in a TVC or perhaps your favourite appearance by an artist in a TVC? We’d really love to hear from you and we’d like you to make a case as to why yours is better than ours. That’d be great. Okay, stick around. We’re going to show the ad now. But before we go, I just want to emphasize again that we can do this music licensing stuff from anywhere. We can find you artists, we can find you songs, we can negotiate the deal. Even though we’re in Australia, it doesn’t matter where you are. We can do that. Okay. See you later.
Clare:
See you later. If you like it, share it.
Bruce:
Bye.
Clare:
Bye.
Please contact us if you need help with music searches or licensing songs for advertising campaigns, or just want to chat about music and advertising. We would love to hear from you! About anything really.
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bruce at musicmill.com.au
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-tweedie-musicmill
Website: www.musicmill.com.au
Credit: the opening and closing sequences feature “Strong Hands” from Ben Catley:
The song: https://soundcloud.com/bencatley/stro…
About Ben: open.spotify.com/artist/66OGdUyXn2WSipn6ZYq7id
Disclaimer re copyright and fair use: https://www.musicmill.com.au/fair-use/
