Making Music for Adverts

Virtually all TV adverts feature music to help evoke emotion, emphasise the most important bits and bring the viewer along on a short journey. For musicians, the songs that are used in commercials as well as film score can be a great way to discover ways to grab people’s attention. Composer Jurriaan Balhuizen is a creative virtuoso who already knows what it takes and is willing to reveal the secrets behind ear-catching ad music.

Jurriaan is one of the co-founders of Amsterdam-based recording/sound design studio, Good Sounds. His company has been carving out a name for itself for over a decade, and has already been involved with various big film productions and numerous commercials. Time for a little Q&A!

Is It Possible to Produce a Successful Ad Without Music?

“I’d love to say it’s not, but sadly, the truth is that it is. I can think of plenty of good commercials that don’t have any music. That being said, most successful commercials do owe their success to music. You usually only have a strictly limited amount of time to evoke emotion, and while music may not be absolutely essential, it’s certainly incredibly important.”

But Every Brand Needs a Sound Logo, Right?

Sound logos definitely serve a purpose but their significance is also sometimes overestimated. I actually prefer recognisable melodies. But every corporate business has a brand logo — something they can use on paper and stick on the packaging of their product. Not every product has its own sound logo. I’m frequently asked to create something like Intel’s sound logo, which pretty much everyone knows but that’s really only because it’s endlessly repeated. The Intel logo has even been used in commercials that aren’t even promoting Intel. It’s so annoying that it’s stuck in the back of our collective minds.”

So There’s Almost No Point in Using Sound Logos?

“I think that a two-to-three-second snippet isn’t enough to really stick. If you ask me, that instant-recognisability applies more to songs. A song has a melody and can tap into the power of rhyme. Centuries ago when most people couldn’t read or write, troubadours used rhyme to tell long stories. Rhyme made it easier to memorise those stories, and I believe that the same thing is true for commercials. Also, most sound logos are played at the end of the commercial, while what you actually want is to have that moment of instant-recognition right at the start. When the commercial break comes around, people just pull out their phone and stop looking at the telly. If they only hear the recognisable bit at the end of a commercial, the message behind the ad has already been delivered, and the next commercial is either about to begin or has already begun.”

Are Images Always More Important Than Sound?

“In a word, yes, but to add further nuance, I would say that image and sound are important in their own right. Some people are visually-oriented while others are auditively-oriented. I’m the latter. When I was still in school, I made sure I paid close attention to whatever the teacher tried to explain so I wouldn’t have to go over it again at home. Missing a class would force me to learn from a book, which was much harder for me. Most of the people who work in advertising and marketing are visually-oriented and don’t start to think about the sound-side of things until the later stages of a project. It’s also true that creating the visuals is a much bigger undertaking than writing the music, not to mention a more expensive part of the process. Think about it. A film shoot requires paid actors and a large crew, and depending on how big the project is, may even require international travel, while I can stay at home and simply work on a jingle in my home studio.”

…But Music Does Add a Lot.

“Absolutely. In fact, there are two types of music that you can use in advertising: music that plays a prominent role and music that plays a more supporting role. Music is perfect for filling in gaps and giving cues about things you don’t see. Take a short clip of a house in the countryside. If you add the ominous theme song from Jaws to it, the viewer is going to feel like something terrible is about to happen, but if you add Edvard Grieg’s ‘Morgenstimmung’ to it, they get this happy-go-lucky vibe.”

Music Is Obviously Highly Subjective.

“Taste doesn’t matter. It all comes down to a story that’s being told along with a message that you’re trying to get across. For a lot of my clients, going with a specific font for the words that appear on-screen that isn’t necessarily their style is easier to accept than a song from a style they don’t like listening to. In my line of work, it’s function over form instead of form over function. I’m not a huge fan of panpipes, but I’ll happily use one when I need to create a vibe that works for, say, an image of a mountain range in Peru. One of the most important purposes that music serves in commercials is immediately making it clear what it’s about. When they’re barely two seconds in, you already want the viewer to know if they’re looking at a humorous ad for a beer brand or a campaign with a heartfelt message for a charity.”

…That Makes 30 Seconds of Music Quite a Lot.

“Correct. When I started out, I was writing three-minute songs with the same structure that you want for a commercial, so an intro, a verse and a chorus basically. That makes it rather complicated. You don’t want it to feel rushed, but at the same time, your client wants the viewing experience to feel longer than those thirty seconds.”

Do Musicians Even Understand Commercials?

“Most do. The exceptions are probably those who’ve never worked on a commercial before. I’ve personally only had good experiences. I often bring in professional musicians, who’re used to sheet music and short sessions. It’s kind of a puzzle, and when you’re the creative type, it’s a lot of fun trying to solve it. Even Mozart would take on jobs for clients. Like many composers, he spent most of his life in service of the church or the royal court, writing music for special occasions and celebrations. Working for clients isn’t looked down upon, it’s just a different branch.”

Don’t Singers Leave Their Own Mark on Productions?

“It all depends on how the vocalist is used. In some cases, you actually want to link their personality to the brand or the film. Sometimes, like when you’re recreating an existing song, you want to stay as close as possible to the original. That personal mark can be useful sometimes. It’s just like the panpipes I mentioned earlier.”

The More Mid-Session Discussion, The Better?

“Definitely not. While I encourage everyone to put in their two cents, it’s important to have a definitive plan of action before the recording session begins. I do my research too, where I’ll play the clip and add different bits of music to it. Sometimes it’s three different songs, sometimes it’s twenty. I’ll have my client listen to it all and ask for their opinion. There’s a fine line between certain things. What feels contemporary to one person might feel old-fashioned to the next, for instance.”

Do Deadlines Help?

Oh yes, I love deadlines! It took some time to get used to, but I much prefer hearing that something needs to be finished in four days instead of next month. When there’s too much time between the start of the project and the deadline, everyone who’s involved with it will literally take a long, hard look at it and have everyone and their brother check it out. In the end, you’re buried in opinions and you’ll struggle to see the wood for the trees. I’ll take a tight deadline any day of the week!”

Are You Only As Good As Your Last Successful Project?

“That might be true for potential clients and people you work with, but it doesn’t feel that way for me as a human being, musician, producer and sound engineer. Sure, not everything I create is a banger — just like not every song that a big-name artist writes is a chart topper, but that doesn’t mean my less successful productions are less valuable.”

Are Adverts Only a Success When They’ve Been Proven to Boost Sales?

“Generally speaking, sure. I see it a bit differently, though. If I do the music for a chocolate bar ad and the commercial doesn’t end up boosting sales, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I failed. There’s a host of possible explanations — it doesn’t have to be the music. I once spent a ton of time on the launch of a soy milk-based beverage. The drink was extremely popular in South America and the big multinational that owned the brand wanted to roll it out in Europe. They came up with a huge pan-European marketing campaign that I was involved with from the get-go, working on the music. We must’ve produced something like thirty different samples over the course of twelve months. After the commercial was finished, it ran for exactly one week. As it turned out, no one in Europe fancied the drink. I actually tried it and thought it was pretty nasty too. They love that stuff in South America though, so yeah, how well a commercial does isn’t necessarily dependent on the sound.”