Music and Advertising (20506)
Degree/study: Bachelor's Degree in Advertising and Public Relations
Year: Third and fourth
Term: First
Number of ECTS credits: 4 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 100 hours
Teaching language or languages: Catalan
Teaching Staff: Manuel Palencia Lefler
1. Presentation of the subject
When asked "what would advertising be without music?", both academics and professionals agree: not much. In despite of it, they all give music very little importance in their academic researches or production budgets. The relevance of the musical element throughout the advertising history is out of the question: we just have to pay attention to the first radio or TV jingles. Then, the process of "visualization" took place in people's minds through melodies and not through images, as it happened with advertisements of products such as "Cola-Cao", "La Española" olives, "El Almendro" turrones or "Famosa" dolls, just to mention some examples. The same phenomenon happened outside our borders. It is obvious that times have changed and that music has evolved a lot since jingles, but the tendency remains.
Thus, the interdependence between advertising images and music is so strong that the experts have not been able to draw the line. And why would they, anyway? It is doubtlessly true that music and advertising must go hand in hand in order to understand the advertising professional practice. On one side, advertising without music loses a big part of its persuasive impact; hence the advertising evolution cannot be understood without the music evolution. On the other side, the music industry is not currently going through a good moment, so it needs new promotional spaces to present new songs to consumers and encourage them to buy. And advertisement is one of the best showcases to do so. For this reason, there is no doubt that the future of both professional practices is complementary. Whether these synergies can be useful for the consumers and for the society, and not only for the music industry and the advertiser brands, is a different question.
This course aims at studying music in advertising by analyzing examples of TV and radio advertisements soundtracks with the purpose of highlighting its features and functions. The basis of study is mainly supported on academic theories, but also on practical, real, everyday cases from modern advertising, through awareness of creators and other agents' persuasion intentions in the process. The course also aims at approaching students to the creative process, from the client brief, the composition or adaptation work, the production and the postproduction process to the media.
Students will be provided with the suitable conceptual tools to deal with this basis of study.
2. Competences to be attained
2.1. General skills
· Putting knowledge into practice.
· Team working skills, in order to be able to clearly expose one's ideas and to establish synergies with the rest of the working group members.
· Critical assessment/ self-assessment skills.
· Communication skills.
· Knowing the basic vocabulary and applications.
· Punctuality and respect towards the other's work (teacher and students).
· Carefully listening to the presentations and interventions done by other students.
2.2. Specific skills
Minimum Degree Skills
1. Capacity for building up, planning and assessing actions and speeches from advertising and public relations communication, in order to carry out communication campaigns and successfully implementing them through different technologies.
2. Training in communication strategies design and creation and in communication policies development, with the purpose of achieving the capacity required to target, manage and meet companies' needs, either from a communications department's perspective or from a communications company's perspective.
3. Analysis and observation skills aimed at the different esthetical criteria prevailing in the music industry. Capacity for applying them to the advertising phenomenon.
4. Critical and analytical skills aimed at interpreting data from a creative briefing.
5. Training in the expressive capacities and peculiarities of every media, support and advertising format, aimed at creating messages and communication campaigns. Training in analyzing skills aimed at choosing the suitable means of spreading information according to communication strategies, either in conventional media or in non conventional media.
6. Training in communication technologies applied to the different multimedia and hypermedia environments, aimed at their implementation in the advertising and public relations field and the development of new supports.
7. Targeting the different creative typologies of music in radio and TV advertising.
8. Capacity for creating advertising messages through music.
9. Capacity for promoting creativity into the team work and into one's work.
Excellence Degree Skills
10. Applying, in a creative and lively way, the theories and concepts from the course to the analysis of the creative process in advertising through musical language.
3. Contents
Unit 1. Music and persuasion. Basic concepts about musical language. Genres and musical forms. The power of music. The impact of music and persuasion. Music and audiovisual communication. Music as part of the message.
Unit 2. Music and advertising. Parts of the soundtrack in advertising. Music, voice, effects and silence in advertising. Music applied to advertising language: original music and pre-existing music. Music and brand image. Music and memorization.
Unit 3. Music applied to advertising: original music. Typology and functions. Jingle, music logo, incidental music. Composer's point of view. Technical and esthetical criteria and their application to the advertising phenomenon. Audiovisual examples.
Unit 4. Music applied to advertising: pre-existent music. Typology and functions. Remakes, original versions, library music. Points of view from the composer, the producer and the creative executive. Technical and esthetical criteria and their application to the advertising phenomenon. Audiovisual examples.
Unit 5. Music and advertising in Spain. Music in brands and products advertising. Music in brands and services advertising. Music in organizations institutional advertising. Spanish legislation of intellectual property of music in advertising. Copyright, editorial rights, phonographic rights. Future trends. Advertising music as consumption good.
4. Assessment
•4.1. General assessment criteria
This course's purpose is to make students successfully achieve the skills 1 to 9, which will allow them to approach the theory and techniques supporting the professional practice of musical language in advertising. Skill number 10 establishes the difference between a satisfactory degree and an excellent degree of achievement of the course's global goals.
There will be no final exam. The course's assessment consists of several written test to be done throughout the class sessions, aimed at checking the students' understanding of the subject. Students also must work in teams to do a project they will present on the last sessions of term. As well, assessment will include two debates in a triple format:
• Out of class previous preparation using a recommended reading.
• On-line debate amongst students on the Aula Global forum during the previous week.
• In-class teacher-monitored debate with reduced groups. Active participation is required.
Even though they don't have a specific weight on the course's global assessment, formal elements will also take part of the final mark. Elements such as: good paper presentation, exposition skills, oral and written argumentation skills and active participation during master classes and debate sessions. In other words: despite they are not considered specific skills of the subject, a minimum command is taken for granted.
4.2. Weight of every assessment method in the final mark
This is the weight every assessment method has in the final mark:
· On-line forum/ In-class debate (20%)
Two debates with reduced group of students will take place during the term. Students will be provided with different study documents aimed at preparing the debates. The assessment will be based on the active participation in the debate and the previous participation on the online forum.
· Research paper and public presentation (30%)
Students work in groups to search as much information as possible about the music used by a brand/ product or a brand/ service, or about the music created for institutions. Students hand it in to the teacher in CD- DVD format, and they also do a 15 minutes presentation in class.
· Exam (50%)
There will be an audiovisual written test at the end of term.
5. Bibliography and teaching resources
5.1. Basic bibliography
· Fernández Gómez, J.D. (2005): "Aproximación tipológica a la música en publicidad: de la identidad sonora corporativa a la comercialización de la canción publicitaria". En Questiones Publicitarias, vol. I, n.10, pp.53-76.
· Gómez Rodríguez, J.A. (2005) "Lo que no venda, cántelo. Algunas reflexiones sobre el papel de la música en la publicidad". En La Música en los medios audiovisuales. Salamanca: Plaza Universitaria Ediciones, pp. 225-266.
· Guijarro, T. & Muela, C. (2003): "La música, la voz, los efectos y el silencio en publicidad". Madrid: Dossat 2000.
· Montañés, Nebrija y Barsa (2006) "Historia iconográfica de la música en la publicidad". Madrid: Iberautor Promociones Culturales, S.L.
· Radigales, J. (2002): "Sobre la música. Reflexions a l'entorn de la música i l'audiovisual", Barcelona: Trípodos. Papers d'Estudi.
· Santacreu, O. (2002): "La música en la publicidad". Tesis Doctoral. Universidad de Alicante.
5.2. Complementary bibliography
· Bassat, L. (1993): "El libro rojo de la publicidad". Barcelona: Folio.
· Beltrán Moner, R. (1991): "Ambientación musical: selección, montaje y sonorización". Madrid: Instituto Oficial de Radio y Televisión (IORTV). Colección Manuales Profesionales. 1984/1991.
· Blankopf, K. (1988): "Sociología de la música". Madrid: Real Musical.
· Chion, M. (2004): "La música en el cine". Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación.
· Cebrian, M. (1978): "Introducción al lenguaje de la televisión". Madrid: Pirámide.
· Cook, N. (2004): "Analisyng Musical Multimedia". Oxford: Oxford University Press.
· De Marcos, I. (2001): "Estrategias musicales". En Anuncios, n.941, pp.48-50. Publicaciones Profesionales S.A.U.
· García Uceda, M. (2000): "Las claves de la publicidad". Madrid: ESIC.
· Gertudrix, M. (2003): "Música y narración en los medios audiovisuales". Madrid: Laberinto Comunicación.
· Hung, K.(2000): "Narrative music in congruent and incongruent TV advertising". En The Journal of Advertising, vol. XXIX, n.1, pp.25-34. American Academy of Advertising.
· Hurón, D. (1989): "Music in Advertising: An Analytic Paradigm". En Musical Quarterly, vol. 73, n.4, pp. 557-574. Oxford University Press.
· León, J.L. (1996): "Los efectos de la publicidad". Barcelona: Ariel.
· Lorente, J. (1986): "Casi todo lo que sé de publicidad". Barcelona: Folio.
· Nieto, José (1996): "Música para la imagen. La influencia secreta". Madrid: S.G.A.E.
· Pedrero, L. M. (2000): "La radio musical en España. Historia y análisis" Madrid: Instituto Oficial de Radio y Televisión (IORTV).
· Rodríguez, A. (1998): "La dimensión sonora del lenguaje audiovisual". Barcelona: Paidós.
· Sedeño, A.M. (2006): "La función de la música en los comerciales publicitarios". En UNIrevista, vol. 1, n.3, pp.1-7. Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil.
6. Metodology
The subject is taught through master classes combined with online and offline debate sessions and participative classes where students present the results of their researches and papers to the class.
7. Planning of activities
|
WEEK |
PROGRAM / ACTIVITY |
|
1
|
General presentation of the subject: skills, program, methodology and continuous assessment. Creation of groups and teams. UNIT 1 Music and persuasion |
|
2 |
UNIT 1 Music and persuasion / UNIT 2 Music and advertising |
|
3 |
UNIT 2 Music and advertising / UNIT 3 Typology- Original music |
|
4 |
UNIT 3 Typology- Original music / T.4 Typology -Pre-existent music |
|
5 |
DEBATE 1. Discussed article. Online debate starting 7 days before on Aula Global-Moodle. |
|
6 |
UNIT 3 / UNIT 4 Creative process: The creative executive's point of view. |
|
7 |
DEBAT E 2. Discussed article. Online debate starting 7 days before on Aula Global-Moodle. |
|
8 |
UNIT 3 Creative processes: The composer's point of view. Master class. |
|
9
|
UNIT 5 Music in brands-products/ brands-services advertising in Spain. |
|
10 |
UNIT 5 Music in institutional advertising in Spain. In class presentation of results and handing CD-DVD in. |