Musical Meaning in TV-Commercials:

A Case of Cheesy Music

Nicolai Jørgensgaard Graakjær

Assistant Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark

This article addresses the role of music in TV-commercials and the ways in which music generates meanings. Music in TV-commercials seems to be a somewhat neglected topic of research, even though the importance of the topic cannot easily be overstated, as the mere prevalence of music in TV-commercials indicates. With the purpose of identifying ways in which to understand and analyze musical meanings in TV-commercials, the article presents some general features and categories of music with a discussion that centres around theoretical issues of musical meaning, These perspectives are exemplified through an analysis of a specific commercial. The presentation of general features and categories is inspired by a categorization of 480 commercials, representing all new Danish produced commercials shown for the first time in April 2004 on the Danish national TV-channel TV2. The analysis will focus on a commercial for a Danish dairy product Riberhus, which is part of the sample material. This commercial represents the use of pre-existing music; i.e. music that has had and has a 'life of its own' outside the commercial, and thereby music which was not originally composed for the commercial viewers as 'model listeners' (to paraphrase Eco's conception of 'model reader'). By way of introduction I will now identify both the need for analyzing musical meanings in TV-commercials and the relevant research that can inspire such an endeavor.

Why study music in TV-commercials?

It seems relevant to commence by highlighting the need for an ongoing investigation of musical meaning in TV-commercials. In general, it can be stated that the TV-commercial is an important genre for the production of musical meaning, and, in the context of TV-commercials, music is 'portrayed' alongside different para- and extra-musical phenomena — pictures, speak, text, products — which have important implications for the establishment and refinement of musical codes. But still there seems to be a disproportional relationship between a) the prevalence and importance of music in TV-commercials, and, b) the research interest, which has been rather poor and rudimentary.

The first point can be further substantiated by at least the following statements: Most TV-commercials have music, and, in the sample, 92.5% of all commercials have music. Few specifications on the prevalence of music in TV-commercials have been made, but see Bode (Bode 2004) for comparison. In the specifications referred to by Bode — involving German and American commercials — prevalence ranges from 60% to 90%, and the present 92.5% is therefore to be regarded as relatively high. TV-commercials are seen and heard by most people on a regular basis. Having a TV which is regularly switched on implies almost inevitable exposure to commercials. Even though TV-commercials are often neglected by audiences by either switching channel or doing something else while the commercials run in the background (e.g. Lund 2000), the music is not easily avoided: when switching channels, chances are high that you bump into another commercial break at some point and, even when doing something else, the sound of the commercials is still to be heard. And this last statement leads to the idea that music can hardly be rejected. As human beings, we of course have no 'ear lids', and music is therefore always heard even though we might not listen. Music therefore has a profound impact on human life. This broad statement is supported in various studies involving for example physiology, human behavior and human experience, and it seems fair — without having to go into further details — to conclude that music has a potential for influencing human life even when attention might be low. In addition to what has just been said about the human subject, this also highlights certain special features of the musical object, namely it being a physical object (sound waves) that has bodily impact, and it being an object evolving in time, thus having a somewhat privileged — when compared to for example picture, text and sculpture - correspondence with human experience, which will be discussed further below.

Reasons for the rather small and rudimentary research interest in music in TV-commercials might be understood from various perspectives. For instance, the subject represents an interdisciplinary phenomenon. Music is there together with something else, and this can easily lead to an analytical emphasis on the often more traditionally studied something else (pictures and texts). And closely related to this is the fact that music represents an ephemeral phenomenon that cannot easily be scrutinized. Of course, we cannot freeze music as e.g. the moving picture. Also, it is not easy to transcribe musical gestalts in a way that respects the qualities of great importance, as for instance in the cases of sound and rhythm. Indeed, music in television represents a low valued artifact. Often, music in commercials has been positioned as inferior to the dominant orientation toward 'Western music in the high-art tradition' (to quote Kerman 1985, 11), which has developed with reference to the 'autonomous musical work' in certain fields of the 18^th century aesthetics, and this still seems to be a widely held view. The following recent definition of the jingle: "... (a) name now given to those insidious but fortunately brief musical interludes..." (Gammond 1991, 297) underlines this very well.

Overview of relevant research

When identifying research on music in TV-commercials as rather poor and rudimentary, it does not imply that there has been no research at all or that studies on related subjects are irrelevant. As the following short overview will show, works within three branches of scholarship has contributed and they have all more or less inspired the theoretical perspective of the present paper.

Within musicology, there has been an overall increasing interest in analyzing and understanding music 'in context' as it is highlighted in relation to the so called 'New musicology' and/or 'Critical musicology' — expressed concisely in the following extract: "...by removing the bare score from its context in order to examine it as an autonomous organism, the analyst removes that organism from the ecology that sustains it" (Kerman 1985, 72). This interest in 'music in context' — as an alternative approach to the aforementioned aesthetics of the 'autonomous work' — can for example be seen in studies involved in analysing music in audiovisual contexts (Tagg 1979, Cook 1998, Tagg and Clarida 2004). On the more specific subject on music in TV-commercials, only a few monographs have been published (Helms 1981, Steiner-Hall 1987, Bjurström and Lilliestam 1993, Leo 1999); these monographs are useful and inspiring but a common problematic feature is that some of the conclusions seem rather outdated when compared to the present uses of music, at least in Danish commercials, and this points to the need of keeping music in TV-commercials under continuous analytical surveillance.

Within consumer-, advertising- and marketing research there has been a general and somewhat persistent interest in the use of music. This can be seen in the meta-analysis of Bruner (Bruner 1990) and in more recent work (Crozier 1999, North & Hargreaves 2006). Within this field, the dominant approach has been experimental and neo-behaviouristic and the aim has, broadly stated, been to discover fundamental, universal laws of the way in which certain musical stimuli are eliciting certain behavioural responses; this aim shall not be followed here, and a critique of the perspective cannot be unfolded in any detail. Suffice to say, the present study is more inspired by the few research initiatives within this branch of scholarship that have tried to form a hermeneutical and semiotic orientation. In this respect, Scott's seminal article (Scott 1990) is noteworthy as is Bode's (Bode 2004) recent and more fully developed perspective.

Within the broadly defined field of media and film studies, a series of relevant studies and discussions have been put forward concerning music in films, such as the early contribution by Adorno and Eisler, and the rapidly growing number of studies from the late eighties and early nineties (Gorbman 1987, Kalinak 1992, Prendergast 1992), and, not least, the following more explicit orientations toward contemporary films, and the uses of pre-existing popular music (Smith 1998, Langkjær 2000, Kassabian 2001, Lannin and Caley 2005, Powrie and Stillwell 2006). Also Chion's suggestions for the understanding of sounds on screen are theoretically very informative when studying audiovisual expressions of all kind, see Chion (1994). So even though all these initiatives do not focus specifically on the use of music in TV-commercials, it is obvious that a range of analytical questions are similar to both films and commercials — but it is also obvious that certain musical formats, functions and implications are specifically associated with certain genres (e.g. jingles in commercials, and full-length songs in films). In media studies, the TV-commercial has been subject of interest from a number of perspectives, e.g. the cultural implications of the commercial (e.g. Dickason 2000), and the form of the commercials and ways of communication (e.g. Stigel 2001). However, it is characteristic that in these last mentioned studies, the music has been either neglected or analyzed circumferentially with no intention from the authors of being thorough or systematic on the issue of music.

As this short overview of relevant and inspiring research has shown, there is still a need for further investigation on the uses and functions of music in TV-commercials. The following categorizations and analysis can only represent be a small contribution to this endeavour but, as it will turn out, some distinctive features can be identified in the present, Danish commercials.

Categories of music in commercials

In this section a framework for the analysis of music in TV-commercials shall be presented. A framework can be constructed on different grounds, and for the present purpose a rather intuitive and listener-oriented approach is taken inspired an the initial impression, that some music seems to attract attention and some do not. A concept of distinctiveness shall be introduced to qualify this impression in more analytical terms. A similar distinction can be made on grounds of a distinction between so called background music and foreground music, but the idea of distinctiveness is favoured for the present study (cf. discussion below). Distinctiveness can be qualified as being relatively low or high, and the following three aspects are important for the impression and qualification of degree of distinctiveness:

Structure: sound, rhythm, melody, harmony, etc.
Interaction: where and with what relations to picture and other sounds.
Spreading and history: former and other appearances

Whereas structure and interaction are perspectives relating to the music in the particular TV-commercial, the aspects of spreading and history involves perspectives on the music's possible appearances outside the particular TV-commercial, identified via synchronous and diachronic analysis, respectively. A seemingly important and also elsewhere noted distinction concerns the origin of the music used in the TV-commercial, and two categories are relevant for highlighting: pre-existing music and the original commercial music. Pre-existing music is music that has (had) a history outside the commercial and original commercial music is music that has been composed directly for the commercial. To further qualify the impression of distinctiveness, the question of what relationship the music has to the product being advertised, can be of help. An initial reservation would be, that on occasions, the affiliation between music and product is somewhat blurred, as when music used to promote a product becomes a desirable product itself. This is in effect a kind of product placement, and it can be identified both in relation to newly composed, pre-existing music - a clear example represented by Babylon Zoo's appearance in a commercial for Levis in 1995 with their subsequent hit Spaceman - or to 'oldies' as shown by different Levis commercials, in which old blues, punk or rock tunes are used and revitalized on miscellaneous compilations (cf. Smith 1998 for a discussion on somewhat similar processes when it comes to the use of pre-existing music in films). So when reading the following overview, it should be remembered, that music appearing in commercials has always the potential of becoming a product in itself, even though music is the outspoken product in only one of the categories.

Table 1: Categories and prevalence of music in TV-commercials

In the categories of coincidence and coherence, existing music is quoted. The music appears in the commercial as it would do on CD or in the film, and it appears in the commercial without any modification apart from being presented only in extracts, and often in a montage style involving several pieces of music from the same album (in the case of CD's). The vast majority (about 95%) of these commercials are expressed in a 'voice-over' format; i.e. the music is presented as a product by a human narrater not motivated by - or seen on — screen (cf. Stigel 2001). If the music was not accompanied by a voice-over, the audience might not clearly recognize what was the product — the voice-over is needed to frame the music as product; music without framing could possibly not be heard as product and instead understood as a case of arranged connection in which music, to be described below, serves another product. This point is particularly relevant to highlight when analysing the genre of TV-commercials in which viewers visual attention cannot be taken for granted, as implied earlier. The music in the category of coincidence is considered to have a relatively high degree of distinctiveness, in that music seems to dominate the flow of pictures (in contrast to the 'picture dominated music' in the category of coherence).

In the categories of arranged connection, music is linked to the product in apparently deliberate ways. This linkage can either be constructed by arranging the visual elements with some close correspondence with pre-existing music (not unlike the aesthetics of the music video) or by arranging the original commercial music in close correspondence with the pictures. In the first instance distinctiveness is relatively high mostly because of the music being well-know to most viewers (i.e. the music typically representing a prominent history), and in the second instance distinctiveness is relatively high because of the music's structure, interaction and possible spreading in different media (e.g. in radio commercials for the same product).

When pre-existing music is appearing in this category, the music in the commercial also quotes pre-existing pieces of music — as is the case in categories of coincidence and coherence — but on occasions the reference must be referred to as "quotation" (in quotation marks), in that it represents a hardly noticeable, modified quote. In contrast to categories of coincidence and coherence it is typically only one particular piece of music that is used, and sometimes in a contracted form as to allow several of the songs possible hooks, breaks and gimmicks to be included. Concerning commercial formats, the voice-over is typically not represented in arranged connection, and other formats such as drama, presenter, and testimonial are used. Within these formats, the music usually takes on a central role in establishing sentiments, affects, dramatic sequences, humour, etc., as the following analysis will exemplify.

When original commercial music is appearing in this category, affiliations to existing music can be of three different categories: one is paraphrasis, in which case an obvious rearrangement of a piece of pre-existing music is expressed. In other two categories, the music in the commercial has no obvious reference to a particular piece of music, and meanings will emerge not from the music having a particular history and use (as is the case with quotations and paraphrasis), but rather from the music being expressed in certain styles and genres. In some cases, this music will display explicit affinity to well established conventions of musical meaning — typically involving ethnicity, geography or history - and thereby refer to certain styles and genres via so called stereotypification. In other cases, the reference is more implicit, as when the music can be heard to refer to styles and genres via allusion. The distinction between stereotypifications and allusions is not always easy to make, but clearly examples of each can be singled out.

In the category of incidental connection, music is only loosely coupled with product. The music could hypothetically be substituted by other music without the commercial appearing noticeably different in expression. The music is characterized with a low degree of distinctiveness by usually appearing in an auditory background (usually to a voice-over in the foreground) and with no ear catching features.

Overall, the category of arranged connection seems to be of particular interest when discussing musical meaning. Although al music has relevance for the production of meaning in TV-commercials, it is within these categories that the contribution of music is most identifiable. This category represents music that seems to 'demand' some level of attention from the viewer; it is as if the music confronts the viewer with apparent imperatives (if an anthropomorphic illustration is allowed): 'Listen to me, I am known!' (in the case of pre-existing music) or 'I want to be known, so listen to me!' (in the case of original commercial).

It is in this category that musical brands can be identified; that is: music with a distinct structure, obvious interaction with product (typically involving logo/and or logo) and with a consistent use throughout different media, across different TV-commercials and possibly across different media (e.g. radio commercials). Only rarely, though, is pre-existing music used as a musical brand, and reasons for that might have to do with the music's past, present and future appearances, that are, of course, not so controllable as the original music (to be discussed in more detail below). The following represents a list of formats of musical brands that can be identified, with the jingle being the most common in the sample material:

Table 2: Formats, prevalence and typical characteristics in category of 'Arranged Connection'

All formats have the functions of reveille (to attract attention) and mnemonic identification (to facilitate product memorisation and recognition). A preparatory function, often identified in relation to other kinds of TV-music (e.g. signatures for news programmes (Graakjær 2004) and TV-series (Tagg 1979, Tagg and Clarida 2004), is only in some cases and senses relevant to highlight: cases of jingles and emblems appearing at the beginning of the commercial are preparatory (jingle and emblems in the middle and end have the functions of emphasising and rounding off) and in a wider sense all commercial music can be said to be preparatory in that it help to characterize the product that can be obtained for future experience. The formats of song, instrumental tune, and groove are typically appearing throughout the commercial and functions include also the structuring of the commercials formal expression by 'gluing' picture frames together and constructing build ups towards climaxes (similar to certain functions of film music).

In the next section some theoretical perspectives on the analysis of musical meaning in audiovisual expressions will be presented and discussed. In the following analysis these perspectives shall be exemplified in more concrete detail.

Audiovisual meanings

In analyzing potentials of meaning in the commercial, some of the semiotic and interpretive perspectives mentioned above can be of help. Especially Cook's concept perceptual selection appears enlightening (Cook 1998). In this perspective, the moving pictures can be said to promote a certain selection of the music's possible potentials of meaning and vice versa. From the interplay of music and pictures, meanings emerge as prevailing meanings cannot be ascribed to neither the music nor the pictures respectively. For at least two reasons the term selection might be considered unfortunate, though. Firstly, it might give the impression that interpretive processes are being reflectively and deliberately carried out, even though Cook, in choosing the term perceptual, might have wished to indicate otherwise. It is more likely so, that reflective and deliberate processes are at least accompanied — if not dominated — by pre-reflective and habitual processes. Secondly the term might give the impression of a listener constructing unambiguous meanings from a well defined range of possibilities, but that is hardly the case, as the concept of emergence indicates. As Cook would very likely agree, music does not offer a specific range of possibilities, and only in particular instances — e.g. in the case of certain onomatopoeia and/or highly conventionalized symbols — is it possible to identify a somewhat unambiguous reference being offered through music. Musical meanings are established on the basis of the potential that music offers; in Cook's own words: "What it [music] has is a potential for the construction or negotiation of meaning in specific contexts" (Cook 1998, 23) and this potential offers, if not limitless then very broad possibilities for the actual emergence of meanings: "...one might think of music [...] as having a potential for signification that is much broader than anything that can be realized in any given context" (Cook 1998, 83). Again reservations must be stated about terminology that seems to give priority to reflective and deliberate processes (construction and negotiation), but, that aside, the idea is very useful: the potential of music can be specified by identifying characteristic attributes of music. Even though specific attributes are not clearly stated in Cook's account, it seems reasonable to say that the auditory evolvement in time, already hinted at, has great importance for the understanding of the potential: with this come the ability of music to express and correspond to human experience and to intersect with another temporal expressions such as the moving pictures, speak and other sounds of TV-commercials.

When it comes to the correspondence with human experience the potential of music to mean something might be understood as originating in the very early interactions between child and primary caregiver. Thus recent research within developmental psychology, here represented by Daniel Stern's work (see especially 1985, chapter 3), has shown that these interactions are structured around certain patterns and qualities of sound, that seems to correspond to certain emotional conditions and experiences identified as somewhat undifferentiated vitality affects. This can be identified both as utterances and interactions of synchrony between mother and primary caregiver (e.g. an utterance characterized by a descending line of intonations with decrescendo and rallentando corresponding to experiences of relaxation and comfort). These kinds of correspondences are developed through infant's ability to perform amodal perception and by interactions often being synchronously accompanied by for instance tactile and visual expressions (e.g. downward moving of the torso and head, and slow and soft caresses). In musicology this perspective can be related to discussion on anaphones (Tagg and Clarida 2004, 99ff), and quasi-synaesthesia (Cook 1998, 33ff), that indicates how cross-sensory correspondences is a very common phenomena in human experience and in the appreciating of multimodal expressions (e.g. 'brightness' as a perceived quality of both music and pictures). Based on cross-cultural studies of lullabies and the way parents vocally addresses their infants in general (cf. the 'parent language' motherese), it seems that, at a low level of specificity, certain universals of correspondences and meanings can be identified (Gregory 1997), and as such in can be seen as a backdrop to the experience and understanding of later developed, conventionalized systems of sounds, such as speech and music. What is pointed at here, is the potential of sound and music to mean something (relates to questions of why and how music is meaningful), and more specific meanings (relates to the question of what music means) is of course dependent on the actual cultural, situational, and multimodal context of expression. For instance, the above described utterance might not be experienced as calming if accompanied with moving pictures of a petrol truck falling from a cliff. And this leads to considerations on the intersections between music and other temporal expressions.

One helpful systematic account is the classifications of attributes of sound, hereunder music, offered by Leeuwen (Leeuwen, 1999). From a social semiotic perspective Leeuwen identifies the semiotic resources of sound and lists six general headings: perspective, time, interaction, melody, timbre, modality. Some of these are comparable to semiotic resources of other modalities like vision, and an example, with direct relevance for the following analysis, is the experience of background and foreground, discussed by Leeuwen under the heading 'persepective'. Auditory elements represent a complex expression that allows certain qualities to attract attention while others will serve as a less profiled background. To a certain degree this profile of foreground and background is dependable on voluntary listening strategies of the listener, but usually some qualities seems to afford certain perceptions based on cultural and habitual conventions of expressions and receptions (and arguably this also involves some universal characteristics of human cognition, cf. the gestalt psychologist 'laws' of perception); for example, the common experience of melody (foreground) over accompaniment (background) expressed and experienced in much western music. But while it makes immediate good sense to discuss the issue of foreground/background with reference to a particular modality, as gestalt psychologist studies has shown with respect to visual expressions, it is more doubtful if it makes sense to extend the issue to also include the relationships between different modalities. This extension is routinely carried out in relation to music and vision — typically by way of identifying so called 'background music' in films and commercials. (e.g. Bode 2004 and Bjurström and Lilliestam 1993), but the metaphor somewhat misleading: sound does not perceptually appear 'in front of' or 'behind' pictures. Rather sounds might be understood as appearing 'in' the picture (regardless of the more technical issue of diegetic/non-diegetic). More fruitful than trying to identify foregrounds to backgrounds in the relationship between pictures and sound would be an analytical endeavour focussing on the attributes that can be seen and heard as a kind of common denominator for both visual and auditory expressions. It is not least through intersections of visual and auditory expressions that certain meanings might emerge (and maybe perceptual intersection could function as a supplement or even alternative to Cook's perceptual selection).

Chion has developed similar ideas in his analysis of the importance of temporal dimensions when analysing audiovisual expressions. So, for instance, sounds may 'unify' or 'punctuate' pictures, and sound and vision may intersect in 'synch points', to involve some of the terminology Chion offers (Chion 1994, 35ff). With the term synchresis — "Synchresis (a word I have forged by combining synchronism and synthesis) is the spontaneous and irresistible weld produced between a particular auditory phenomenon and visual phenomenon when they occur at the same time" (Chion 1994, 63), Chion highlights temporal intersections as being of great importance, and moreover he identifies these audiovisual intersections to connect with possible pre-reflective levels of interpretation (cf. discussion on Cook's position above). Even though Chion's contribution is probably the most advanced in trying to understand the temporal intersections between sound and moving picture, it seems that there is still some questions in need of elaboration (for example, compared to the relatively advanced discussions on the topic of diegetic/non-diegetic). This cannot be pursued in any great detail at this point, but a few suggestions shall be introduced: it seems that at least four levels of intersections may be singled out when considering how music might correspond to the moving picture: characteristics of the picture frame (e.g. not moving, moving fast, slow, up, down, in, out, etc...), characteristics of the sequence of picture frames (cuts separating frames), clusters of picture frames (different frames depicting same phenomena or part of narrative) — inspired by Cooks discussion on parallelism of process (Cook 1998, 77) - and characteristic of specific elements in the picture (people, trees, cars, etc...). Especially in the genre of music video are these perspectives artistically elaborated — cf. the playing backwards of both picture and guitars in parts of the Red Hot Chilli Pepper's video 'Give it Away' and the synchronizations of zooms in picture frame with the groove in the Nelly Furtado video 'I am like a bird' - but it goes for all audiovisual media, that the kind of perspectives mentioned (together with possible others) is of particular interest when analysing audiovisual meanings.

"If you leave me now" & Riberhus cheese

In a commercial for the Danish cheese product Riberhus, the well-known Chicago soft-rock ballade 'If you leave me now' is heard throughout the commercial. Riberhus is a particular brand of cheese from Arla, which is the name for the, by far, biggest producer and distributor of dairy products in Denmark. Riberhus represents a brand of cheese made with special care 'out of good traditional principles and with very gentle handling', as it says on Arla's website. The Chicago song originally appeared on the album Chicago X from 1976 and has music and text by lead singer Peter Cetera. The version heard in the commercial represents a "quotation". Instruments are added with the effect of, most importantly, a more smooth and even sound compared to the original. With reference to the presented categories, the commercial, as mentioned above, represents a case of pre-existing music ("quotation") and arranged connection between music and product. The commercial is expressed in a drama-format, that is: a small fictional narrative, like a miniature film, involving different characters and a storyline (Stigel, 2001). The commercial consists merely of pictures and music, and not until the end of the 30 second long commercial is there a short lasting presentation of the Riberhus logo.

Figure 1: Still from scenario from TV commercial for Riberhus
(Courtesy of Helene Birk / Arla Foods)

The commercial is structured around a narrative in three parts, and it has a short, ending display of the Riberhus-logo. The three parts of the narrative can briefly be described as follows:

1: A presentation of scenario and characters. The scenario represents — expressed via clothes, buildings, (gender)roles and automobiles — a diary from the fifties. A young dairyman is presented as the main character, and he is looking at a truck with a sad face, apparently because he is about to see some of his cheeses leave the dairy. A young dairywoman is standing in close proximity and looks comforting and sympathetically at the man.

2: Stealing the truck. A couple of men — dressed in prisoner clothes, supposedly in the midst of escaping prison — are seen running to the truck, and driving it away to the despair of the surrounding people at the dairy, and not least the dairyman.

3: Desperate and longing dairyman and woman in close-up. The dairyman is seen with other people at the dairy yard, all running after the truck. But they stop their futile endeavour: The truck cannot be stopped and it disappears to the surprise of the gaping crowd. At one point, the camera zooms in on the dairyman's face as it is exposed out of the crowd. In close-up, we can see tears in his eyes, and again the dairywoman is seen in close proximity.

Figure 2: Still of stealing of the truck (from TV commercial for Riberhus)
(Courtesy of Helene Birk / Arla Foods)

The three parts are arranged in connection with the musical quote in the following way: The first part coincides with the instrumental intro. The second part coincides with first part of the melody: a fluxing, high registered, on-beat line, lyrically expressing state of affairs: If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me. The third part coincides with second part of the melody: a curved, higher registered, melismatic and syncopated line (the 'hook line') lyrically expressing an emotional plea: Uh, uh, uh, uh, no, baby please don't go.

In this particular commercial, meanings are constituted by two overall correspondences between music and pictures, and they might be said to be perceived with different degrees of reflection; the first being more dominated by reflective processes than the other: One is the thematic overlap of 'love and longing' and the other is synchronizations and similarities of attributes between musical gestalts and movements in the moving pictures.

Thematic overlap

The thematic overlap is constructed by framing the personal pronouns of the songs in a way so that 'me' (cf. the lyrics) becomes a dairyman and 'you' becomes an anthropomorphic cheese. From this reframing of antagonists, a humorous atmosphere emerges, in that neither the music nor the pictures can be said to be humorous when experienced on their own. The nostalgic implication of the song when listened to today — 'a well known and famous love song from many years ago' - is highlighted by the scenario of a good old, 'authentic' and caring dairy. Even though the commercial involves a somewhat unfeasible situation — as we hear a seventies song expressing thoughts and feelings of a man living in the fifties - the match between old song and older scenario is likely to be accepted or even go unnoticed by by the audience. This relies partly on the acclimatization of the viewer to the very common and thereby non-controversial phenomena of films involving anachronistic music when depicting historical settings, and partly it relies on the humorous atmosphere involving an ironic distance: the drama is overly melodramatic and the construction of the dairyman loving the cheese as 'the biggest part of me' is somewhat over the top. This can also be said about the stereotypical construction of good and evil and the general intensity of emotions involved in relation to the cheese. Most modern producers and viewers of TV-commercials seem to have made an implicit contract that commercials are not necessarily depicting reality — TV-commercials that do pretend to be realistic and trustworthy are in serious danger of being disliked by the audience, and commercials that have a humorous and ironic edge are in vogue, at least in Danish television. And with this comes an increased tendency for the commercial to allow - or even demand - an active contribution from the viewer, in that the commercial constructs a situation where blanks need to be filled out, so to speak. In the Riberhus commercial, elements not heard or seen connected before are carefully arranged in connection, and the viewer has to make an active contribution to experience the possible meanings of this arrangement. To be able to do this, some level of cultural insight is needed, and it is in this respect that the discovering of thematic overlap can be said to involve reflective processing (cf. the short discussion above).

Synchronizations & similarities of attributes

When it comes to synchronizations intersections between music and pictures can be identified at three of the four levels, mentioned above, and in particular movements of specific elements in the picture — the dairyman and —woman - seems important. Only synch points between music and cuts separating frames are not precisely and remarkably appearing, and that has do to with certain characteristics of the music and moving pictures in general, which shall be further discussed below in relation to similarities of attributes.

One kind of synchronization between pictures and music appear as the first part of the 'hook line' of the song — uh, uh, uh, uh no - is visualized with the bodily movement of the dairyman and the display of the tearful face in part three. The ascending movement of the melody is carefully synchronized with the forward movement of the dairyman's body and the camera zoom (an example of characteristics of picture framing). The interplay between music and picture constitutes sadness and mourning, and Cetera's melismatic outcry is framed and visualized as weeping. Shortly thereafter, the last two notes of the hook-line (to the words 'don't go') are imitated in the instrumental accompaniment in synchronization with a movement of the woman standing close to and a little behind, the dairyman. She turns her head to look at him as we hear the imitation, and when the imitation ends she looks straight forward again. The musical development of the particular imitation is perceived in conjunction with the visual movement of the girl's head, as the particular movement in the visual is the only one exposed at this point: the dairyman is standing petrified, the picture frame is still, and there is no cut in the sequence of picture frames. In effect the musical and visual movements are mutually enhanced, and the music is being framed as sympathy — the woman understands and sympathizes with the dairyman. Earlier, the melody and lyrics are established as expressing the dairyman's state of mind, and it becomes obvious that the instrumental imitation serves the role of expressing the woman's feelings.

Figure 3: Still of dairyman and woman from TV commercial for Riberhus
(Courtesy of Helene Birk / Arla Foods)

It could then be argued, that the particular visualization of the music brings salience to different layers of the narrative structure: a sung melody intersected with the dairyman through synchronizations (and the thematic overlap, mentioned above), a wordless imitation in the accompaniment intersected with bodily movements of the dairywoman, and a more undifferentiated collection of accompanying instruments and timbres more loosely intersected — that is: with no salient synch points — with the crowed and overall scenery. It is the common attribute of being able to express a relation between foreground and background in pictures and sounds respectively that allows these intersections to occur, but it is the actual intersections and mutual influences that allow the more specific meanings to be experienced. Hypothetically other parts of the music than the sung melody could be framed as foreground or at least as a much more prominent feature compared to the analyzed version (the reservation "at least" is noted, because the sung melody has a very strong conventional appeal as representing foreground, as mentioned earlier): the beat of the drum could have been synchronized with the flow of picture frames — the cut from one frame to another in synch with the musical beats — so as to activate alternative meanings compared to the ones exposed above.

In a temporal perspective the narrative structure is developed and divided by parallelism of processes in pictures and music, as described above with reference to the three parts. A climax is reached synchronously, and the ending indicates that it is only temporary, in that both music and pictures are left unresolved: the Riberhus logo is presented in the foreground on a background of the dairyman and —women standing, while the picture quality gets increasingly vague, and the song continues from the hookline with a few bars: "And if you leave me now...".. If only heard, the music ends quite abruptly, but when 'seen' together with pictures of increasingly dim quality, the ending is more likely accepted as a fade-out, even though the actual sound level is constant throughout.

Figure 4: Still of dairyman and woman with logo from TV commercial for Riberhus
(Courtesy of Helene Birk / Arla Foods)

An additional interpretation of the ending concerns the lyrics attaining a kind of meta—communicative function. At the same time as the fictional drama is ending with an explicit disclosure of the fictional drama, it is as if the lyrics becomes dis-embedded and regains a new addressee, namely the viewer. Two possible readings are possible: 'If you leave me now...' could both be heard as an appeal to revisit the commercial (as it turns out, the present commercial is succeeded by a couple of follow-ups, so as to construct a small serial) and as an appeal to get (re)acquainted with the cheese.

Whereas the above analysis of synchronizations has focused on temporal intersections of music and visuals, the following will shortly comment on some similarities of attributes in the relation between music and moving pictures. The music is rather slow, has soft attacks with long durations (bass, synthesizer strings) and there are no sudden changes in for example rhythm, tempo or timbre. This matches the visuals, expressed as they are in slow motion throughout and with an arrangement of colours and camera lightening without any eye-catching details or changes. Calmness and smoothness, then, are attributes of both pictures and sounds and this has implications for the meanings produced: It appears as an important feature in establishing specific meanings of nostalgia and it contributes to the construction of an ironic and semi-realistic atmosphere. In a more specific sense, the smoothness of pictures and music has a similarity to the product (being of a dairy category), and it also helps to establish an impression of better and simpler times (c.f. the special care and traditions involved in making this particular product, mentioned above).

When it comes to the degree of reflection involved, it is the intention here — which follows the above mentioned theoretical perspectives - that the meaning potentials established via synchronizations and similarities of attributes for a great part rely on pre-reflective processing during the actual reception of TV-commercials.

Perspectives on pre-existing music

The preceding presentation and case analysis has many implications for the understanding of musical meaning in TV-commercials. With reference to Stefani's levels of codes (Stefani 1987), all of these are potentially involved in establishing meanings when pre-existing music is involved and most striking is of course, that the opus level is being activated, contrary to most original commercial music (cf. paraphrasis as an exception). In the analysis, I have implied this by referring to the lyrics and the nostalgic aura of the song, which are addressed in the discussion on thematic overlap. Here, the history of the particular piece of music assumes prominence, which can further fertilize the relationship between picture and music when supported by synchronizations and similarities of attributes. Although it is most likely impossible to track down the exact history of uses and appearances of a particular piece of music — not least because of an increase in personalized uses (see for instance Bull 2000 and DeNora 2000 for indications on the latter) - some uses and receptions of a piece of music might 'solidify' particular periods in time as to make meanings clearly identifiable. And this has been the argument in the analysis, in which Cetera's song is widely understood as a love song with a flicker of nostalgia.

Pre-existing music not only enables the potential of specific meaning, but it also absorbs this with possible consequences for also future receptions outside the commercial. In principle, this also goes for original commercial music, in which case different styles and genres may be linked to certain types of products. My analysis has attempted to show how the song in question is framed as overly melodramatic and humorous, and how future receptions of the song might inevitably prompt associations of cheese. In many cases, this might entail irritation for those who up to being exposed to the commercial might have had romantic memories of dancing cheek to cheek with their beloved partner when listening to the song in the radio. Surely such a commercial interruption — turning love memories into ideas of cheese - can be irritating (cf. Englis and Pennell 1994).

From a marketing perspective, the use of pre-existing music is therefore ambiguous: the advertiser can possibly activate interest, sympathy, and specific meanings by using particular pieces of music, but unmanageable consequences arise. Aside from potentially causing irritation is must be stressed that the history of a piece of music is not only hard to track down, it is also uncontrollable. The particular piece of music can have had a 'career' (terminology inspired by Tota, 2001), being involved in other (semi) commercial settings like films and series and even commercials: For a Danish audience, the Chicago song is heard on the soundtrack of the Danish film Humørkortstativsælgerens søn, and it also appears in the series Sex and the City and Alley. The British public might recognize the song also from a commercial for Cesar dog food, in which Cetera's uh's are framed with the possible meanings of a dog howling. Moreover, the song is not necessarily 'faithful' to one product, and typically the future existence of a song is unruly. Consider for example the possible associations one might have when listening to Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World'; over time it has appeared in numerous commercials for products of nearby all categories, and most likely different products would come to mind for different people. The potential 'unfaithfulness' that arises from this is a reason why pre-existing music is rarely used as brand for a producer, but more often as highly profiled promoter for a particular, shorter lasting product, as it is demonstrated in the commercial for the Riberhus product (producer being Arla, as noted), and often the use of pre-existing music for particular products is even relatively short lasting (e.g. commercials for the Riberhus product stopped using If you leave me know during early months of 2005). Another reason for the rare use of pre-existing music as musical brands has to do with the importance of a visual anchoring of the music, which impedes the certain effects of cross-medial spreading. Without visual anchoring, such as one finds in radio commercials, music can be heard as 'free-floating' and as just another song from the play list, with no activation of the mnemonic and reveille functions as mentioned above.

The issue of the somewhat ungovernable potential of meaning being introduced when using pre-existing music has been previously identified in relation to films. Smith refers to this as the 'taboo' in Hollywood scoring of using well-known music (understood here as synonymous with pre-existing music) As he explains: "Well-known music of any kind was thought to carry associational baggage for the spectator, and not only was this potentially distracting but these associations might also clash with those established by the narrative" (Smith 1998, 164). Apart from the dubious theoretical assumption implied in the quote, concerning the narrative being established before and/or outside the pre-existing music, it is interesting to consider how things have changed when comparing a whole range of films from recent decades, in which pre-existing music routinely appears as a central feature in establishing the narrative. It could even be argued, that the ungovernable aspects of the potential of meaning when using pre-existing popular music, helps the film to construct a rather open and varied expression, involving multiple and ever changing associations and allowing the film to be revisited with different experiences (cf. Stillwell 2005 for a more elaborated discussion on this issue). On the face of it this last point does not apply to TV-commercials: commercials appear uninvited and they are not usually searched for and selected by audiences the way that films are. The genre is also rather restricted by the need to convey specific meanings and information related to the product in question. But maybe the Riberhus commercial represents a relatively recent tendency in the aesthetics of the TV-commercial. Thus the commercial is representative of an increasing number of commercials that have pathos-appeal rather than logos-appeal. With reference to Aristotle's various strategies of persuasion, pathos is involved in establishing emotional reactions to the subject in question whereas logos is concerned with providing rational information. In the Riberhus commercial, there is no explicit information about the product (for example, insofar as details concerning nutritional aspects, price and keeping qualities) and, rather the emotional implications of the drama are emphasized. Admittedly, some information about the product is delivered, in that we learn that Riberhus is 'very loveable' and 'hard to let go', but this information is not only constructed implicitly but also arranged with a twist of irony. Pre-existing music, in this respect, can be privileged in constituting a pathos-appeal. Thus, in the Riberhus commercial the narrative is constructed in an ironic and open-ended way that allows several readings that are dependent on the knowledge and earlier use of the song, as well as an understanding of the songs lyrics. This would imply, for instance, that some viewers might not find the commercial particular ironic and humorous through not being familiar with the song or understanding the lyrics.

Conclusion

In summarising, I have presented, discussed and exemplified the appearance of music in TV-commercials. I have argued that it is probable that music is a prominent feature in current TV-commercials, and that further initiatives are needed to support and develop such an understanding. When it comes to the prevalence and categories of music in TV-commercials, two initiatives emerge as highly interesting: one being an extended synchronous analysis involving comparable samples from different places (countries, broadcasters etc...), and the other being a diachronic analysis involving comparable samples from different periods in time. In terms of analytical strategies, I have argued that correspondences between pictures and sounds are of particular interest when it comes to an understanding of musical meanings in an audiovisual context. These correspondences have been identified as both temporal intersections and similarities of attributes, and even though researchers have far from neglected the theoretical issues mentioned (cf. Cook 1998, and Chion 1994), it seems, that further investigations are needed, not least in relation to TV-commercials, a genre that has often been addressed sporadically (cf. Cook 1998). Finally, through the analytical examples provided, I have attempted to demonstrate that the TV-commercial represents a recent trend in the aesthetics of the genre. Borrowing effects from both the genre of film and music video the commercial represents a highly compressed and measured expression. If experienced as a film, the music can be heard as a so called non-diegetic device expressing characters feelings and depicting the more general emotional atmosphere, but when encountered as a music video, the pictures might indeed be seen as a sort of non-diegetic device that expresses a cheesy, musical diegesis.

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