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Pop will eat itself (and that's a good thing)

This Wall Street Journal article (copied below the fold) about Asian pop music made me realize an obvious solution to the music industry's downloading woes: abandon the assumption that pop music is anything other than advertising and dissolve the music biz into the ad biz. That's essentially what has happened in Asia, where pop hits are commissioned by cell-phone makers and fast food chains. These "ad songs" are sold in stores and on company websites, like other pop songs, but money from those sales is just icing on the cake. The real payload comes from the widespread airplay and distribution of these unambiguous product plugs (e.g. McDonald's "I'm lovin' It," performed by Justin Timberlake for the U.S. market and by Wang Leehorn for China; Motorola's "Hello Moto"). If the tracks wind up getting distributed on illicit P2P networks, that's all the better for advertisers.

Of course, this kind of pap does isn't going to alleviate the woes of music listeners. At least not directly. But it does provide a workable economic model that allows the powers that be to keep making their millions from "audio entertainment." This model could prove so successful that the music industry's obsolescence -- and unsanctioned downloading -- is seen as less of a problem...which, in the long run, would make us all better off.

In Asia, It's Nearly Impossible to Tell A Song From an Ad
Marketers Say, 'I'm Lovin' It' As Entertainers Pitch Cellphones and Taro Pie

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 31, 2005; Page A1

One of the stars in the music video for the South Korean pop song "Anymotion" is bare-bellied teen idol Lee Hyo Lee. The other is a $600 Anycall cellphone sold by Samsung Electronics Co. In the video for the song, Ms. Lee dances with the phone and declares she can "watch anybody, sing any rhythm, show any people, call any number."

Samsung paid all the costs of making the song and the video -- and even hired the music producer and choreographer. "We hope the lyrics will remind people of Anycall when they hear the word 'any' several times," says Jong Hyun Kim, a manager at Samsung's ad agency, Cheil Communications. Samsung's Web site features a computer-generated Ms. Lee teaching teens the hip-jostling Anymotion dance.

In the U.S., fans might look down on the blatant commercialism of Ms. Lee's act. In Korea, "Anymotion" hit the top of the charts in March and April, and the dance has become a club favorite. Since it made its debut, the music video has been downloaded 1.6 million times from Samsung's Web site and fans have paid as much as $2 each to download 3.1 million copies of the song onto their phones. ("Anymotion" isn't sold on CD.)

While entertainment and advertising are getting cozier everywhere, in Asia they have virtually merged. For many global advertisers, it's a chance to do what they would only dream of trying at home. For Asia's artists, hooking up with advertisers offers a more reliable way to profit at a time when fans are increasingly buying illegally pirated CDs and movies.

Clubbers in the Philippines last year danced to the robotic bleats of "Hello Moto," a song commissioned by cellphone maker Motorola Inc. In India, Samsung's ad agency composed a song called "Go Ahead, Win Hearts" as the theme for a historic India-Pakistan cricket match, the Samsung Cup. The ad agency, WPP Group's Grey India, paid Indian and Pakistani musicians to sing the song; music channels played the video during the 45-day match; and Samsung used some of the music in its commercials. Sales of Samsung televisions rose 20% in India over the year-earlier quarter, according to Grey India.

Artists in the West, of course, often make advertising deals with big corporations. The singer Sting, seeking exposure for his "Desert Rose" music video, let Ford Motor Co.'s Jaguar unit use bits of it in a car commercial. The rock group U2 joined with Apple Computer Inc. to make a U2-branded version of the iPod music player. BMW AG hired a handful of famous film directors to make mini-movies starring BMW cars, which the company gave away free.

But American marketers still draw some lines between art and promotion that Asians don't. That became clear in 2003, when McDonald's Corp. paid American singer Justin Timberlake and Taiwanese-American singer Wang Leehom, who is active in China, to record songs using the restaurant chain's "I'm Lovin' It" slogan and jingle. Mr. Timberlake's U.S. version doesn't mention the Golden Arches and the music video doesn't feature any McDonald's restaurants.

In Mr. Wang's version of "I'm Lovin' It" for Asian audiences, he raps in one lyric, "You know what I really, really like? McDonald's!" In the music video, he hangs out behind the counter of a Shanghai McDonald's dressed as a french-fry preparer.

"I feel really thankful," says Mr. Wang in a recent interview after announcing that he has recorded a new version of his "I'm Lovin' It" song for his next album. "Any way for me to get my music out there." In the new version, which he calls "McHip-hop," Mr. Wang raps in Mandarin Chinese, "One taro pie, thank you." (In China, McDonald's sells pies made with Chinese taro root as well as apple.)

Singer Wang Leehom scoops french fries at a Shanghai McDonald's in his 'I'm Lovin' It' video.

Mr. Wang, citing the illegal copying of CDs, says the old-fashioned way for musicians to make it big -- recording an album and selling it in stores -- doesn't work anymore.

"There is so much piracy that it is just not happening with the record sales," he says. But success can be ensured if he has a hit song and McDonald's uses it in commercials on nationwide Chinese television. "When I want to give a concert tour, I am selling out stadiums," he explains.

During an interview, Mr. Wang can't even remember all of the brands he endorses. His assistant from Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Taiwan) recites a list to him, including cellphone maker Nokia Corp. and Chinese beverage maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., which is controlled by France's Groupe Danone SA. Most of the eight music videos from Mr. Wang's current album contain product placements. Parts of the videos are also used in 30-second television commercials.

"That is the way we have been surviving," Mr. Wang says. But he says he has some limits: The music must be his own, not something composed for him by a sponsor.

Viacom Inc.'s MTV Asia, which plays Ms. Lee's Korean "Anymotion" video as well as Mr. Wang's "I'm Lovin' It" video, says it, too, has standards. "We would not take a video that was an obvious extended three-minute commercial," says Mishal Varma, MTV Asia's senior vice president for programming, music and talent.

In China's rapidly developing capitalist economy, consumers seem most willing to accept the blur between art and commerce. A Chinese TV show based on "American Idol" is sponsored by Invista, a Koch Industries Inc. unit that makes Lycra fiber. The Chinese program is called "Lycra My Show" and features contestants belting tunes in stretchy pants. Motorola is pushing its E398 cellphone, which can download music and video files, with a song by Chinese pop star Pu Shu called "Radio in My Head." In the music video, Mr. Pu has a cellphone headset in his ear, and sings: "Anytime I feel the radio, oh it's my radio, in my head."

In the 2001 film "Big Shot's Funeral," Chinese director Feng Xiaogang satirized China's capitalist sell-out culture. Two characters, Yo Yo and Louie, sell ads and product placements at the funeral of an American film director named Tyler, played by Donald Sutherland.

"If Kodak and Microsoft give us money, big money...they can wallpaper the place!" says Yo Yo.

"Isn't this disrespectful of Tyler?" Louie asks later.

"No, it's good business," responds Yo Yo.

Unfortunately for Mr. Feng and an investor in the movie, Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures, "Big Shot's Funeral" couldn't have advertising product placements since it would look like the advertiser was being satirized. The movie flopped in most countries, although it did bring in $4 million in China.

Mr. Feng's next project was a movie called "Cellphone," about the phone's role in modern infidelity. He tried to convince investors in the movie to eschew product placements, but lost. At one point in the film, lovers record a video of themselves using the camera built into the Motorola model 388C handset.

But he insists that the film's core ideas and scenes were all his, not Motorola's, and asks, "Did those ad men have the IQ to create this film?"