CLASSICAL MUSIC AND ADVERTISING

I. Answer the following questions.

1. What makes a good ad?

2. How important is music in commercials? What is its role?
3. Do you like any commercials just because of the music used in them?
4. What kind of music dominates in advertising (from your observations)?

II. Read the following text about classical music and advertising.

Thanks to advertising classical music was brought to a mass-market audience,

who might otherwise not listen to the genre at all. Some people swear that they
have never listened to any classical music at any point in their lives and that they
wouldn’t recognize a piece of classical music under any circumstances.

Things change when these people are shown a list of pieces of music that are
used in TV advertising. Presuming that they are over 40 or older, you might ask
them if they recognize the music from the Hovis bread ads with the lad walking
up a cobbled street, or the one where an Old Spice-wearing surfer comes
crashing through the waves. Then there is the series of ads for Hamlet cigars
with a familiar music refrain. And who could forget the humorous line coming
from Cadbury that “Everyone’s a Fruit and Nut case”?

“Of course”, always comes the response. “All those pieces of music are well-
known to everybody”. Sometimes, though, there is genuine surprise when it is
revealed exactly where each of the pieces of music is to be found in its original
form. All these commercials use classical music to underpin the visuals. Are you
wondering exactly what is used in each of the examples above? Here are the
answers.

The second movement of Dvorak’s Symphony No.9 has nothing to do with bread-
making. It was in fact written as a response to Dvorak’s move to the USA.
Despite being heavily influenced by African-American spirituals it will, for many
people, always simply be known as “the Hovis music”. The ubiquitous 1970s
aftershave Old Spice used a classical piece written in the mid-1930s by the
German composer Carl Orff. Entitled “O fortuna”, it forms part of his cantata
Carmina Burana and is a setting of 13th-century poem. The second movement of
J.S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No.3 (better known as the “Air on the G string”)
provides the accompaniment to the Hamlet cigar ads, which haven’t been seen
on British TV since the ban on tobacco advertising, although this tune became
synonymous with the line “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet”. Finally, Cadbury
turned to Tchaikovsky and “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from The
Nutcracker to accompany the commercials for their Fruit and Nut chocolate bars.

Sometimes the association between the piece of music and the brand is
extremely strong in the collective public mind. An example of this might be the
Flower Duet from Delibe’s opera Lakme which will probably always be associated
with British Airways. Except for being heard in commercials, this piece has often
been used as background music in messages to flyers on board planes.

Although advertisers have an enormous choice of music styles, they still hold on
to classical music. In commercials created specifically for Super Bowl (which is a
huge TV advertising event) classical pieces prove to be very popular. In 2012, for
example, Toyota’s ad featured Richard’s Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra, while
Coca-Cola featured a group of animated polar bears ice skating to Beethoven’s
Symphony No.5.

Why do advertisers choose classical music so often? Research suggests that this
kind of music affects a consumer’s mood in a very positive way. However, there
might be a more persuasive economic argument. Music composed by the likes
of Beethoven and Bach is no longer subject to performance payments to the
composers, so an advertiser gets a great tune for free. Why not to save on the
music costs, then?
(adapted from ‘50 Moments that Rocked the Classical Music World’ by D.Henley&S.Jackson)

III. Match the words in bold with their definitions/synonyms.

1. ______________ influences
2. ______________ used to talk about people of a particular type
3. ______________ a boy or young man
4. ______________ covered with small round stones set in the ground,
especially in the past
5. ______________ real
6. ______________ support
7. ______________ seeming to be everywhere
8. ______________ made known (about sth that was previously secret or
unknown)
9. ______________ the conditions that affect a situation, action, event, etc.
10.______________ to say very strongly that what you are saying is true

IV. Why does the article mention the following things?

1. Dvorak’s Symphony No.9

2. Super Bowl
3. performance payments
4. Hamlet cigars
5. Coca-Cola
6. Delibe
7. Carmina Burana
8. J.S. Bach
 V. Talk to a partner.

1. How do you feel about using classical music in advertising?

2. Can commercials lower the appreciation of classical music?
3. Do you know any Polish ads which use classical music?

VI. Watch the short film about classical music in ads and film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XESX-D7Goac

additional materials:

http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/classical-commercials/ (a podcast and an article)

Links to the commercials:

Hovis ad (Symphony no.9 known as New World Symphony by Dvorak)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mq59ykPnAE

Old Spice ad (O Fortuna from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbZr7YoqK0

Hamlet cigars ads (Air on the G string by J.S. Bach)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGl6BE2eq4

Cadbury’s ad (The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker by
Tchaikovsky)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMAVfkI0io

British Airways ad (Flower Duet from Lakme by Delibe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVi6GgQBkwE

Toyota ad (Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard’s Strauss)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr0K3mS1eQU

Coke 2012 Commercial (Symphony No.5. by Beethoven)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2nBBMbjS8w