With a professional history in the record industry, publishing and artist management Markus Linde has been running a music consulting agency for some 19 years, building a track record of music placement in national and international advertising campaigns. His services include researching and clearing music rights, working on film and TV productions and supervising major TV shows. Before the Europe in Synch Academy at Tallinn Music Week, focussing on music & advertising, we sat together to discuss some future trends in the field.

Why is music so useful in growing a brand/product (in comparison to celebrities, sports, or something else)?

Music can strongly trigger us emotionally, it’s a top passion point regardless of the demographic. When music and sound has a huge part in the brand’s audience’s lives then it is a must to find a good song or a sound that would work well, capture attention and help to tell the story of that brand. It’s about finding the right language to talk to your audience, the right identity. We form social connections over music, with music, there’s something for everyone.

How do you find a good fit between music and brands? 

There are very many different aspects coming into play in the process towards the music decision for a commercial. A music search starts with a good briefing from the ad creative, an understanding of the product, the brand, and the idea of the specific commercial. It is super important to know the music budget. The search for THE song is a synergy between looking systematically at your sources and listening to your very personal playlists on your laptop and in your mind. Also comes very much down to good intuition! Collecting and listening and skipping over and over again, hundreds and hundreds of songs. 

At the same time always having an eye on the rights situation – who owns the rights to the recording and the composition, is a song “safe” to license – and does it fit to the budget. And this is all BEFORE the decision process on the agency and the client side!.

In which cases you prefer library music to already made songs. What are the pros and cons in using library music vs original music? 

It cannot be seen as one versus the other, it is a pragmatic professional decision based on what is music supposed to do for my commercial? If the aim of the music is to simply illustrate, be on the background, effectively push the right buttons, have a good production quality, be easy to find and clear the rights – go for the library. 

If the aim is to maximize the advantages that an iconic song, and often its artist, can offer, such as its allure, historical significance, immediate association with the music and lyrics, emotional impact, and widespread appreciation through millions of likes from countless people. By investing in the best for my product and allocating resources, I can tap into the powerful potential that comes with such a distinguished musical selection. Of course, you go that way. 

And then there’s the supreme discipline: The originality and freshness of a new song, a new artist, carefully searched and selected to fit perfectly to an original creative concept. 

What are the latest music trends, technology, or something that you see coming up this year that will change the relationship between brands and music? Is it a specific genre or vibe, rather than one song, how would you comment?

We will hear about trends first-hand from our specialists in the workshop, but, hopefully, also from the participating advertising people. From my observation, when it comes to music, there may be regional trends or fashions, but when it comes to original music, the “right” song can come from anywhere.

Personally, I would love if music and brands, music and advertising would get into a serious relationship, not one-night stands or affairs. Knowing and understanding each other and creating great work together.

Is there one project or campaign in particular that combined a brand or a product with music that you cite as a great example? 

I am sure in the workshop we will hear from one of our advertising experts Julian Krohn 

(Director Music & Audio at Scholz & Friends agency) about the impressively long and successful run of music-driven Vodafone campaigns in Germany. In a careful and elaborate process music and advertising professionals worked together to find the right – mostly unknown – song for each new Vodafone commercial. Every one of them reached the charts. Google it!

In the framework of Europe in Synch you’ll be joining Tallin Music Week on May 11th where you’ll be running a workshop for music and advertising people. Tell us a little bit about Europe in Synch and the workshop and its key topics. 

Europe in Synch was founded some 5 years ago, based on the realisation, that the music and the audio-visual side (i.e. advertising, film/tv and games) in need and would love to work together without inhibition and understand each others distinctive features. We set out – on an European level – to find ways to bring the parties together, to properly introduce them, and give room and time and expertise to get to know and understand each other. We created a 4-year project supported by Cultural Europe in Brussels consisting of 8 partners from 8 European countries. Partners are all synch experts from the music side, supervisors and agents, publishers, labels, artist managers, experts from the world of games, data analysts and established institutions specialised in creating partnerships for music – the internationally highly renowned Music Estonia being one of them. 

The unique workshop as well as panels and round tables are the core of our work, supplemented by missions and outreach to different gaming, film and music conferences all over Europe. The goal is to bring together music with the audio-visual, bridging knowledge gaps with a long-term perspective of change for the better towards an optimized European synch-landscape. We reach out, we initiate, we are catalysts, and we follow up. You could call us “highly professional idealists”. 

The workshop in Tallinn features experts such as above mentioned Julian Krohn and Francesca Barone (content rights manager at Dolce & Gabbana) and me. Together we will give an overview based on great examples on how music gets to commercials, what are the decisions, what are the roles of agencies, clients and production companies and how to clear the rights.

Having the future in mind give us one last takeaway for the creatives and the producers at ad agencies, who are “bringing the music into the picture”. 

Music is your friend. Work with local experts and music entrepreneurs trust them and benefit from the infinitely wide range of musical goods. 

Author: Martina Tramberg, Music Estonia