We offer them bags of money and sometimes they say No. It can be bewildering and really frustrating when the client has fallen in love with that song. So why do they refuse to do business with you?
You’ll find the full transcript below:
Bruce:
Sometimes we offer artists money, and they say no. They won’t let us use the song. Why would you do that? Why would you turn down a whole pile of money for no work? Doesn’t make sense to me. Hi, there. Friday night.
Clare:
Hello.
Bruce:
We’re going out.
Clare:
Yes, it’s our first evening of freedom, I guess, free to go to a restaurant.
Bruce:
A restaurant, what an absolute luxury. We can go out and go to a restaurant, have a night out.
Clare:
Yes.
Bruce:
Wonderful. Imagine going to a baker and saying, “Can I buy that loaf of bread?” and they say, “No, I don’t think I want to sell it today.” Or, maybe you go to the car yard and say, “Can I buy that car? I want that BMW,” and the guy says, “Oh, I really don’t feel like selling today.” It’s crazy, isn’t it?
Clare:
Yeah, it does sound a bit weird.
Bruce:
So, why are music artists different? Why do they say no?
Clare:
It’s not just a car. It’s a piece of art, and art has a whole different valuation system.
Bruce:
Well, it does, and it’s a piece of art, and they’re actually artists. I mean, probably the people watching this and us we’re capitalists. We’re commercial people. If we’ve got something to sell, we sell it, and that’s just business. But music artists don’t necessarily think like that. Sometimes I think they don’t sell it because they don’t feel like it today. But there’s this other reason as well. It’s not just that they don’t feel like selling you a car. When you go to buy the car or the bread, you’re not asking the car dealer or the baker to endorse another product. You’re not saying, “Can I buy this bread, and will you endorse this gambling product, or some washing powder, or something,” which is what you’re asking an artist to do. Of course, sometimes they say no to that.
Let’s get into some specifics. First of all, some music artists always say no. They just don’t want to have anything to do with advertising. Apparently, people like Springsteen, U2, Adele, they say no to licensing songs for advertising. They’re just not interested, but actually, it’s not that simple because, supposedly, they say no, but sometimes they say yes. More and more, when we go and ask, the publishers and the record labels are saying to us, “Nobody says no all the time. You should always ask the question,” so we ask the question, and then they say no. Having said that, we have a pretty good idea of who’s going to say yes, and who’s going to say no. So, if you’re thinking about licensing a song, it’s always a good idea to talk to us before you present it to the client.
Clare:
Yes.
Bruce:
Then, there are the artists who say no to a product category. Like…
Clare:
Oh, the most important one is vegans and vegetarians for meat products or dairy.
Bruce:
That’s right. I mean, we do a lot of work for KFC, and quite a number of people say no to KFC, mostly because they’re vegans. Sometimes we find that out really early. Sometimes we don’t find out until the end. We do our best to find out as quickly as we can, but I can understand a vegan not wanting to endorse KFC. That makes sense.
Clare:
Yes, it does.
Bruce:
Dairy products, we’ve had that, too.
Clare:
Yeah.
Bruce:
What else?
Clare:
Gambling.
Bruce:
Sure, like Disney for example, the whole Disney catalog, my understanding is they won’t agree to license to any kind of gambling usage.
Clare:
Recently, we had someone who didn’t want to license to fossil fuels.
Bruce:
Petrol stations or gas stations.
Clare:
Yeah.
Bruce:
I think we’re going to get a lot more of that, obviously, with climate change.
Clare:
Yeah.
Bruce:
We have to respect their position. That’s fine.
Clare:
Oh, we do. We do.
Bruce:
Of course. Then, we’ve got situations occasionally where artists just say no, and we have no idea why. We offered someone, a famous artist, a $600,000 music license for a car ad once, and they just came back and said, “No, not interested.” Who knows why? Maybe they didn’t like that car brand. Maybe they got too much money already. I don’t know.
Clare:
Maybe they were just busy.
Bruce:
Who knows?
Clare:
Who knows? Who knows?
Bruce:
Then, there’s an awful lot of artists who aren’t precious who just say, “Show me the money.” We can’t name any of them, but a lot of them, probably most of them these days, it’s just about the money, really. What I want to ask you is whether you have any examples. Can you tell us any time when you’ve been knocked back on a sync license and why? It would be really interesting to gather a few case studies, and we can maybe talk about them another day. Please get in touch if you’ve got anything to tell us about that. Part of our sales pitch to agencies, of course, is that sometimes it’s difficult, but because we’re licensing music for advertising all the time, we kind of know how to approach it, and we give you the best chance of getting a license over the line. Anyway, see you later.
Clare:
See you later.
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.
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/
