A commercial placement can be a huge break for an independent artist, not only is it a paycheck that can pay for the album’s recording cost at one fell swoop but it’s also free national (even international) advertising for your music. Many bands have seen instant success after getting placed with prominent brands. The list of successful indie bands hitting the mainstream through advertising to includes acts like The Dandy Warhols with their Bohemian Like You soundtrack for Vodafone, Leftfield’s Phat Planet with those seminal Guinness horses and more recently Yael Naim’s New Soul accompanying the new MacBook Air from Apple. That’s not including of course the many one hit wonders who made it big for about a second like Flat Eric and Babylon Zoo (how can you forget them on Top Of The Pops?)

There is of course a huge debate about when signing up to advertise with large multinational companies effectively becomes selling out. Certainly The Dandy Warhols received a bunch of criticism from some of their hardcore indie fan base when they temporarily abandoned indie obscurity for widespread mainstream commercial success. In reply singer Taylor-Taylor was quoted as saying “grumpy little indie Nazis are good people to piss off” ☺

With the support of the Vodafone campaign The Dandy Warhol’s track hit number 5, it opened doors and provided finance for them to continue experimenting and making music for years to come and there is a definite possibility that without that advert we would never of heard of them again.

For the up and coming artist getting a placement in an ad or TV show can be the break that you’ve been waiting for. A friend of ours in New York managed to get a song placed in the hit US TV series “Bones”. Not only was there a generous paycheck involved but the night the show went out the hits on her myspace page went through the roof. There is now a real buzz and anticipation about the forthcoming album release as well as the added bonus of the show being sold to other international territories, opening new markets for her.

So how do you get these opportunities? Well the short answer is that there is no short answer. People come by these deals in a whole different number of ways, our friend’s management company was quite well known and included her song on a compilation they sent out to most of the major TV networks and production houses. The music editor of the show liked the track, asked if they could use it and the deal was kicked off from there. The problem for most artists is that the networks get hundreds such submissions a week and it’s hard to break through the noise of everyone else and get heard. As always it helps if you can in some way build a relationship with the people your sending your music to (via phone, email or IM) or you can get someone with some credibility to recommend you. As we’ve said before, a good management or publishing company should have these contacts and be able to open doors for you that would otherwise have stayed closed, if they can’t then the huge question is what is the point of signing with them and giving them a percentage of your earnings?

Even with the contacts though it is just a matter of hard work and perseverance, keep digging out the contact details of production companies and music editors and sending them your work. Find the good music publishing companies and try and get them interested in a deal and maybe most importantly – make sure the music is a cut above everything else that they’ll hear. Seriously this is key, if you start with an amazing track that gets everyone excited the first time they hear it then the rest will start fall into place.

Related Articles:
How to get ahead in Music – Make an Ad! – Independent.co.uk