• by Russell Scott Smith , January 24, 2006

Josh Rabinowitz has an outrageous idea. "It won't be long," says the Grey Worldwide senior vice president, "before an original song, recorded specifically for an ad campaign, will be the No. 1 single in America.

Imagine it: teenagers across the country humming a pop song that was recorded and released by a Madison Avenue agency expressly for its client. Kids will hear the tune on a TV commercial, fall in love with it, then click on the marketer's Web site to download it. And every time, they'll think of the brand associated with the song.

Such a scenario would have seemed impossible until recently, but it's probably just around the corner. Rabinowitz and others have already taken steps in that direction. Three years ago, Rabinowitz recorded the acoustic popster Alana Davis singing a cover of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash classic "Carry On" for a Sony commercial that aired during the 2003 Super Bowl. It drew so many raves that Davis issued it as a CD single. Who's to say a song like that won't hit No. 1 some day? "If someone comes up with a great piece of material, it'll happen," Rabinowitz says.

The times, they sure are a-changin'. Forty years ago, the Rolling Stones mocked advertising in their classic single "Satisfaction." Now Mick Jagger and his pals star in TV ads for Sheraton Hotels and T-Mobile. In the old days, rockers worried about "selling out." But now they're embracing Madison Avenue. You can't turn on a TV without seeing ads that use classic rock songs, such as Fidelity Investments' tribute to Paul McCartney or Hummer's popular "Big Race" spot, which is set to "Happy Jack" by The Who -- a band that once released an entire album spoofing the ad industry, 1967's The Who Sell Out.

TV commercials are resuscitating careers and jump-starting new ones. Sting's 1999 album, Brand New Day, was a sales dud until he licensed a song called "Desert Rose" to Jaguar and his album leapt to the top of the charts. In 1999, Pink Moon, an album by the obscure British folk-rocker Nick Drake, who died of a drug overdose in 1974, sold 6,000 copies. Then Volkswagen made a commercial featuring the title track, Drake's fame skyrocketed, and Pink Moon sold 74,000 copies in 2000. Countless young indie musicians have also ridden ads to glory, including Dirty Vegas, whose mellow dance track "Days Go By" was launched in a 2002 Mitsubishi campaign, and the British folkie Aqualung, who was playing London open mics before his song "Strange and Beautiful" appeared in a VW commercial and became a major U.K. hit.

"The paradigm is really changing," says Gregory Grene, a vice president and music producer at Foote, Cone and Belding. "Record companies and musicians used to be disdainful toward ad agencies. Not anymore." The labels are changing their tune largely because of radio's decline. In the 1960s and '70s, talented young musicians could start a career with a boost from FM disc jockeys who liked their music. But these days, most mainstream stations have rigid playlists, and new acts can't break through except by licensing their songs to TV commercials.

"It used to be that I couldn't even get calls returned from record executives," Rabinowitz recalls. "But now they're calling me, saying, 'What do you want?'" Madison Avenue has the upper hand, so agencies are demanding more from record companies. Licensing fees are declining, while some music directors, like Rabinowitz, are entertaining fantasies of working directly with artists to produce their own hit songs. "I can get the song and the artist," he says. "All I need is a client willing to do the crazy big media buy so we can get the song out there."

It could be a win-win situation. The musicians would get exposure while the agency and client get a perfect vehicle for viral marketing. When people hear a great song on a TV commercial, they go on the Internet to look for it. Already there are several Web sites, such as Songtitle.info and Adtunes.com, dedicated to identifying songs from commercials. That generates organic word-of-mouth buzz. It also makes an advertiser look cool. Just look at Volkswagen or The Gap, both of which have produced dozens of pop-music commercials that add to their brand mystique.

Many on Madison Avenue are also taking a close look at hip-hop music, in which rappers constantly drop product names. In 2002, after Sean "Diddy" Combs and Busta Rhymes hit the charts with their infectious single "Pass the Courvoisier Part II," sales of that particular cognac shot up 18.9 percent. The reference was voluntary, but soon advertisers started offering rappers money for product placement. In 2004, McDonald's famously promised rappers cash in return for rhyming about Big Macs, but as of last fall, nobody had taken the fast-feeder up on the offer.

Of course, advertisers have to be smart about how they use pop songs. Nothing annoys pop-savvy hipsters more than a music/advertiser match that feels forced. Several years ago, Subaru made a fool of itself with an ad that showed a kid gushing over a vehicle he said was "like punk rock, but a car!" It was laughable, just as it was a few years ago when Royal Caribbean cruise lines chose Iggy Pop's ode to shooting heroin, "Lust for Life," as its theme song. It's the same in rap music. "I can always tell when I hear product placement in a song," Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West said recently. "I'm like, 'Why are you mentioning that product here?' It's just obvious."

But when it's done right, pop music and advertising can be compatible partners. Some-times all it takes is some refreshing honesty about the nature of the relationship. During the summer of 2004, Southern rapper Petey Pablo had a huge hit with a sexy party tune called "Freek-a-Leek," which included this funny line: "Now I got to give a shout out to Seagram's Gin / 'Cause I'm drinkin' it and they payin' me for it."