Music in advertising is something valued by the insiders. But what is it about music that can "make" a TV spot? How do you choose the right artist? What brands are using music in powerful ways, and what brands aren't?

These are the questions I put to the music experts at North Advertising, Mark Ray and Dave Allen. Both are musicians first and advertising executives second. Which makes their brand of advertising special. I was fortunate to get some time with them both.

Note: the musical breaks are from Dave's band, "Gang of Four." The first is from the song, "Outside The Trains Don't Run On Time"; the second is from "Ether." Both are from Gang of Four's "Entertainment" album. Great stuff. They're on Spotify.

SHOW NOTES:

• We begin by talking about North, the agency, and how music has been at the core of the culture there since the beginning.
• We discuss the parallels between composing music and "composing" advertising.
• Mark talks about the importance of execution (production) in creating both music and advertising.
• We talk at length about one of my favorite campaigns, North's the Deschuttes Brewery "River Recordings" campaign. Music was the centerpiece, of course. Great example of "Channeling the Brand." 
• Mark and Dave talk about how music is the "great uniting language" in our culture, and brands should be taking advantage of that fact.
• We talk about great examples of brands using music: VW "Pink Moon," Coke "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing," Fidelity and Paul McCartney with "This Is Paul."
• The great examples respect the artist and what the artist needs to get out of the partnership, and the artist is used to create a vibe, and not for a convenient lyric in a song.
• But we also talk about the misuse of music in advertising. Like Nike using the Beatles' "Revolution," and John Lennon's "Instant Karma," or even Microsoft's use of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up."
• And we wrap up with some great tips when considering music, not the least of which is that, according to Mark and Dave, every brand should have, along with their visual identity (e.g. logo, color pallette, etc.), a sound identity as well. What is your brand's sound identity?

BIOS:

Mark Ray:

Currently principal owner and executive creative director of NORTH, a boutique creative brand agency in Portland, Oregon, working to bring real and lasting brand value to purpose-driven companies including Clif Bar, Keen, Yakima, Deschutes Brewery and Subaru of America. Formerly Managing Partner and Executive Creative Director Arnold Worldwide, leading global, award-winning creative efforts from the Boston and St. Louis offices for brands including Jack Daniel's and Volkswagen.

In my musical life, he was the founder of the Undertow Music Collective, started in 1996 as an independent record label and artist management firm, dedicated to supporting independent artists with a ground-breaking business model that shared half of all net revenues with artists. One of the first indie labels to be invited in Apple's iTunes launch, Undertow abandoned the physical distribution model in favor of a digital platform in 2006. Undertow has released over forty records, launched careers, managed tours and brokered career-enhancing licensing for artists including Jesse Harris, David Bazan, Will Johnson and Centro-matic, Vic Chestnutt.

Dave Allen:

Professional musician - Gang of Four, Shriekback. Label owner, record producer. Early adopter to the web - first indie label to have a website in 1993, first label to have an artist broadcast live on the Internet with IUMA. Early member of the eMusic.com team, world's first paid download company. Biz dev director, Intel Corp. 12 years in the Portland advertising and tech world as Interactive Strategist Adjunct lecturer at University of Oregon and Pacific Northwest College of Art Serial blogger and Director of Interactive Strategies at North.