Commentary

Fast Forward

When we re-launched MEDIA nearly a year ago, we made a secret promise to our readers that we would strive to define the concept of media in a broader and more liberal way than industry publications historically have. Yes, we write about the Big 6 -- TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, the Internet, and out-of-home -- but hopefully not in the conventional sense.

At least not too often. There are plenty of places for that, and more and more by the online minute. You don't need another magazine for that. And certainly not a monthly.

When we write about conventional media, we hope it is in a new and more revealing way -- not least because conventional media are no longer conventional. They are undergoing a transformation that makes them something else. They are no longer static, one-dimensional, or, I would argue, definable.

No, this is not my "radio is becoming television," and "print is becoming electronic" rant, or Publicis innovator Rishad Tobaccowala's "the Internet is becoming TV" mantra. But I'm getting way ahead of myself. It's far more than that. It's the end of the "classical" period of media thinking. Media is entering a new era. It's like we've just gotten a glimpse of impressionism or heard jazz for the first time. Traditional reference points no longer apply. Media is whatever we want it to be. And anything we want is media. Even music. Okay, especially music.

Yeah, music was one of the first forms of human media. Actually, anthropologists say it predates human beings. Animals use it as language to convey messages -- sometimes over incredibly long distances. In fact, as the Advertising Research Foundation's Joe Plummer notes in this month's cover story, it is the primal nature of music that makes it powerful and truly universal. We relate to it in ways that graphic symbols and written and spoken language cannot.

Exactly how universal is music? No one really knows, but both scientists and science fiction writers have used it as a means of communicating, to quote John Lennon, across the universe. Think about it. When NASA launched the Voyager deep space probe with the hope of encountering some extraterrestrial civilization, what form of media did it include? Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Good." When director Steven Spielberg wanted to depict how humans and intelligent aliens might first communicate to each other, what did he use? Dum, dee dum, dum -- DUM! While they haven't yet conquered the cosmos, savvy global marketers like Intel, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and HSBC have figured out that a few well-phrased musical notes can speak louder, more indelibly, and far more broadly than even the best advertising copy or images. And absolutely nothing gets lost in the translation.

None of this is new, of course. We all understand the power of music to enhance media content, including brand messages. What is new is the way marketers and agencies are using music as a medium for distributing their messages. Embedding brands into rap songs. Creating pop music based on brands. Composing kitschy carols to tap the viral undercurrent. And the beat goes on.

Like primitive tribes, modern man is using music to spread his messages to unforeseen parts of the global village, and the kicker is that we still connect to it at a very primitive level. So when we hear Intel's trademark four-note branding score, we recognize it audibly, but we also hear it somewhere deep inside our soul. And at a time when the concept of engagement appears to have become so important for marketers and agencies, music may be the most engaging form of media around.

Music may also be the bellwether for the rest of the media industry. It was the first to work its way through the minefields of peer-to-peer file-sharing. It's also been the first to emerge with a new business model and perhaps the most elegant means of on-demand media distribution to date. It's also one that has been quickly embraced by other media, namely television.

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