[Dixielandjazz] Standards on TV commercials - Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2013

[Robert Ringwald]

We might see/hear an OKOM (Our Kind Of Music) song on a commercial once in a while.

A New Push for Old Chestnuts
An upstart is aggressively licensing American standards to marketers as audible 'comfort
food'
by Stefanie Cohen
Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2013
During the ABC sitcom "Modern Family" last week, an ad for Bank of America featured
a couple swinging on ziplines over a wild-animal preserve, to the tune of the 1957
hit "Come Fly With Me."
The ad is just one of many global commercials in the past 18 months to feature lyrics
written by Sammy Cahn, the American lyricist and songwriter who wrote the words to
"My Kind of Town," "High Hopes" and others sung by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean
Martin and Doris Day. Lately Cahn's songs have been heard in ads for the Royal Bank
of Canada ("Come Fly with Me"), Emirates Airline ("It's Nice to Go Traveling"), Campbell's
Soup ("Let It Snow"), Whiskas Cat Food (also "Let It Snow").
Contemporary artists routinely make healthy profits by licensing their songs to advertisers.
Now, more and more bygone American standards -- as well as more obscure songs from
eras past -- are being dusted off by marketers and pitched to advertisers. Such songs
"give a timeless aspect and a universal message" to a brand, says Grey advertising
music director Josh Rabinowitz. "They're like comfort food in a way."
A little-known independent music publisher based in the Netherlands and owned by
a Dutch pension fund, Imagem Music Group is snapping up the rights to many of the
great American standard catalogs and aggressively placing them in ads, TV shows and
videogames around the world.
When a song is licensed, it earns royalties for the songwriter whenever it is played
or performed in ads, films or TV shows. In the digital age, there are more outlets
than ever for licensing by music publishers.
In addition to Mr. Cahn's catalog, last month Imagem acquired the U.S. publishing
administration rights to a number of George Gershwin songs, including "Summertime,"
"They Can't Take That Away from Me," "Nice Work If You Can Get It" and the songs
from "Porgy and Bess." Last year, it obtained the rights to oversee many songs owned
by Elvis Presley Enterprises -- though Presley wasn't a songwriter, his handlers
wrangled a publishing stake in many of the songs he recorded.
Tita Cahn, whose husband died in 1993 and who owns the majority of Sammy Cahn's song
catalog, granted publishing rights to Imagem in January of last year. Each time an
ad featuring a Cahn song plays, she receives a royalty fee, in addition to up front
payments that can reach seven figures for one-year's use. A TV show that licenses
a song will pay somewhere between $14,000 and $28,000 up front, plus royalties.
Ms. Cahn says Imagem is finding new life in the songs. "They're my babies. I've put
them in someone else's hands to be looked after."
Ms. Cahn's publishing rights had previously resided with Warner/Chappell Music. with
a catalog of more than one million songs, including "Happy Birthday." A unit of Warner
Music Group, it is one of four industry giants, along with divisions of Universal,
BMG and Sony.
While "Let It Snow" and "Come Fly With Me" are perennial advertiser favorites, lesser-known
songs like "It's Nice to Go Traveling" (used by Emirates Airline) rarely surface.
"The majors [music publishers] can't service all the songs in these old catalogs,"
says Peter Raleigh, an Imagem vice president. "They have millions of songs, so we
have a boutique situation where we can give more attention not just to the moneymakers,
the first-tier songs, but the fourth- and fifth-tier songs as well."
Mr. Raleigh recently placed the little-known Cahn song "My Baby Loves to Swing" in
the Showtime television show "Banshee." Mr. Raleigh says, "Tita didn't even know
the song was in the catalog."
Marc George Gershwin, the composers' nephew and a trustee of the catalog, says he
left Warner/Chappell and took the U.S. rights elsewhere because he felt neglected.
"I don't want to be at an enormous company where we will get lost," says Mr. Gershwin.
Warner/Chappell remains the global publisher for the majority of the George and Ira
Gershwin catalog, although Imagem president Rich Stumpf says he's hoping to acquire
U.S. publishing rights to more of George Gershwin's work soon. Warner/Chappell declined
to comment.
"If you don't work the catalog, it withers," says Mr. Stumpf. "I've seen it even
with the Cahn catalog. Songs that used to earn a lot of money are falling into the
second tier."
Imagem's first major acquisition, in 2008, was Boosey and Hawkes, a classical music
publisher, which owned the publishing rights to works by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff
and Bela Bartok. In the same year, in a deal worth about $200 million, the company
bought the catalogs of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein as well as the rights
to Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" and other songs which had been sold to the duo.
Publishing companies also encourage current singers to record, sample and remix the
songs to which they own the copyright. Imagem is working with Ultra Records on a
dance remix of Presley's songs. The company also publishes contemporary music, including
relationships with Daft Punk and Ludacris.
Mr. Stumpf actively courts the ad-agency music supervisors. In October he took a
group of them to Graceland so they could get a better sense of Presley's music. Last
month, a new Trojan ad featuring a version of Elvis's "All Shook Up" began airing.
The song from the ad, by Avila, has climbed the iTunes to No. 10 in the singer/songwriter
category.
-30-



-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

I hate rap music, which to me sounds like a bunch of angry men shouting,
possibly because the person who was supposed to supply them with a
melody never showed up. -Dave Berry.