The Gatekeepers In The Way Of Getting Your Music On Commercials

More and more artists, bands and songwriters are interested in getting their music placed in a commercial, but unfortunately it’s not getting any easier. That’s because a wide array of gatekeepers stand in the way of any placement. A great article from Jordan Passman combined with the following infographic outlines just where the gatekeepers lie.

As you can see from the infographic, there are two ways to get your music placed in advertising – either through an agency or directly to the advertisers. Going through an ad agency means that there’s a wide variety of people within that company that must give approval first before the advertiser even gets to hear the song. These include the agency music producer, spot producer, maybe the art director, the creative directors of the brand team, and the agency account team. They may go through as many as 300 songs before choosing one to send off the client for approval.

The song must then make it’s way through the advertiser’s junior and senior client teams, the brand marketing team and then the chief marketing officer or even the CEO. If the commercial tests well from there, it goes on air. If not, it’s back to the drawing board.

If you can skip the agency, the number of gatekeepers can be decreased by half, but it may just bypass the lowest execs on the totem pole. Regardless of how the song makes it onto a commercial, there’s a lot of many to be made for the songwriter, but the journey to get their is still a long road.