In this episode, Bruce discusses the magical microsecond when a song pops into the head of a creative working on an advertising campaign. In this case, the head belongs to Sean Cummins, ECD of Cummins & Partner in Melbourne, and the campaign is for the T20 Cricket World Cup. (It doesn’t always work magically like that of course, which is why we have a unique systematic methodology for finding songs to fit a music search brief.)
You’ll find the full transcript below:
Bruce:
Hi there. Welcome back to the Music Licensing Vlog. I thought I might do something new and do a four-part mini-series focused on one particular case study of finding a song for an advertising campaign. Hey, maybe they’ll pick it up on Netflix. Maybe I’ll be the next Ricky Gervais, who knows?
This first one is about creativity. How does a Creative actually come up with the idea for a song? Indeed, how do they come up with any idea? So the World Cup of T20 Cricket was to be held in Australia this year. That’s really hyped up sport. Lots of razzmatazz, lots of fun. How are we going to sell a whole lot of tickets?
The creative team sat around with the T20 Project Organizing Committee and they would’ve talked about that. They would’ve come up with the idea that they’d have a big song, an anthem. But what song? That’s the question. Easy to come up with the anthem idea, not so easy to come up with the right song. Many months later, I had a conversation with Sean Cummins, the genius ECD from Cummins & Partners, and he told me that in the taxi on the way back from the meeting, the song just popped into his head just like that. And of course, his younger colleagues had never heard of it, but he knew it would be perfect, and I certainly knew it as well.
Rewind to 1977, imagine me the long-haired hippie. Yes, I know that’s a bit difficult these days, but that’s what I was. Lying on the floor, probably watching Sounds, which was the big music show in those days, a three-hour show on a Saturday, a bit like MTV, but before we had MTV. And there’s Supercharge led by the amazing bald-headed Albie Donnelly pumping it out on the sacks, ‘Gotta Get up and Dance’. I’d sing it for you if I could. Maybe Sean was watching it too at that exact same moment. Who knows? And it’s effing perfect. It’s just the right song for the campaign, an absolute master stroke. And this is what creativity is about sometimes, just matching two ideas, the campaign requirement and the song. A classic light bulb moment. But the track has actually got a bit of a weird history. It’s a great song. I just love it, but it was only popular in Australia, a bit like the Rodriguez songs that were only popular here and in South Africa.
If you’ve seen the doco on Finding Rodriguez, you’d know all about that. Anyway, it’s another one like that. The fickle music industry. That’s nearly it for today. There’ll be three more episodes in this series, so stay tuned. But right now, let’s actually listen to the song, have a look at Albie in all his glory.
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/
