EXTENSION CHORDS

EXTENSION CHORDS

DEPARTMENTS

SEX IN ADVERTISING

by

Allen Hester

Advertising makes magazines possible. The cost of the advertising space helps pay for printing, staff salaries, writers, photo graphers and cost of circulation and distribution. Some readers find the advertising annoying; others read the ads first, then read the articles. Most of us are probably somewhere in between, reading whatever catches our attention as we

thumb through this or any other magazine. And there's the key: How do advertisers "Catch our attention" in an ad? What methods do they use to set themselves apart from the crowd, to insure that their ad will be read?

Some would say it is by ruthless psychological manipulation, by subliminal messages, by reaching the unconscious desires of the reader and demanding that he buy the product. Whether that is true is for scholars to debate; ever since Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957) people have been arguing over the "ethics" of advertising, and will continue to do so as long as advertising is around. In other words, from now on.

In the music business advertising is undergoing a great change right now, largely due to the impact of video clips and the MTV channel on cable television. Record companies are beginning to use the video format to sell albums, and the happy result of this is that a lot of new music gets played first on MTV (provided, of course, that it is a good video!), thus creating a demand in the FM radio markets. It is great for program directors, because they can "add" new songs that have already been introduced (in other words, MTV takes the risk of playing the record first) to their playlist without fear of alienating the listeners who might not like the song.

All that is great for record companies. But what about musical merchandise manufacturers? Guys like Gibson, Fender, Yamaha, Peavey, Ludwig, or Pearl. Have you ever seen a Fender commercial on TV? No. Why not? Because it isn't a "good buy": that is, there, aren't enough guitar players among the viewers of a particular show to justify the expense of producing and airing a Fender commercial. (This may change because MTV provides a specific "target" audience for the makers of musical instruments.) However, for right now, virtually all of the advertising by musical manufacturers is done in the pages of music industry magazines.

What can you say about it? You can say that these ads run the gamut, in terms of themes, styles and budgets. From some of the most prestigious advertising agencies in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles we get these beautiful full-page, full-color ads that rival anything one would see in print.

All the way down to the simplest 1/8-page black and white ad that looks like it was thrown together at the last minute. Furthermore, since music has a special technical language all its own, there are a lot of catch-phrases and buzzwords that are used which nobody outside the business would understand. A lot of companies rely on the “artist endorsement” as the strongest statement of quality. If the star uses it, they reason, isn’t it good enough for anybody? Won’t the readjer be impressed by the endorsement? Well, suppose the reader happens to hate the endorser with a passion? I guess it can work either way. And then of course there is the old stand-by, that bastion of American business—SEX. When all else fails, go out and get Cheryl Tiegs or Lauren Hutton to sell

“The New Improved Latest Rage In-”,

and somebody will buy it. Even the music business, yes, that most pristine and noble pastime of American Youth, has been infected with this insidious scheme—using sex to sell products—that has been cast upon the unsuspecting public by Them (whoever They are!). What is really striking is the lack of sexually-oriented advertising in a business that glorifies sex. (In other words, rock V roll). Most advertisers prefer to use other approaches, probably because they realize that a lot of people who buy instruments and equipment do not play no rock ’n’ roll. Therefore they aren’t interested in sex, so why bring it up, right? Seriously, there are several distinct ways that advertisers appeal to us for a purchase of musical merchandise, and once again, nobody else but CREEM will take on the task of sorting this out for you, dear reader, so that you. may be An Informed Consumer. So listen up, and no gum-chewing.

SEX AND THE SINGLE-NECK EXPLORER

There is something about “guitars that tune good and firm-feelin’ women” that goes, shall we say, “hand-in-glove”. In case you haven’t figured it out, the guitar is a phallic symbol, and when you see an ad that features a beautiful woman in bed with a guitar, and a caption that reads “Rock Your Baby All Night Long,” well, you khow what the real message is: “If you owned this guitar, you could attract women who look like a million bucks, and they would do anything you asked them to.” Bullshit, right? Maybe so, but did you read the ad? Do you now know about a new guitar that you didn’t know about a moment ago? Then the defense rests. The point is, or the assumption is, rock ’n’ roll musicians like pretty women, fast cars and hot guitars. Show them some cheesecake, get their attention, then sell the guitar. Talk to them (us) on their level. Relate to them. You may not like it, but you have to agree that the principle on which the ad is based, that musicians like sexy women, is as immutable a law as the Theory of Gravity. There may be exceptions, but they are all oboe and tuba players.

Then there’s the ad with the riveting blond in spandex pants and furry jacket, with huge fur-lined leather boots. In the background there is only a yellow moon and pink smoke; on her shoulder is a gleaming black and chrome guitar. The caption reads: “Nothing Like It.” Like what? Pink smoke? Moonlight? Aw, c’mon, you know what there’s nothing like, there’s nothing like Her. And she’s got something she wants you to have, but it’s gonna cost ya.

LET’EM KNOW WHATYOU THINK!

Here’s your opportunity to let musical instrument manufacturers and their advertising agencies know what you think about their advertising. In the space below, CREEM has provided the names of the companies and their ad agencies—so you can write to them regarding your feelings about their ads. Don’t forget: your criticisms and opinions help shape what advertisers will try to say to you, so take advantage of this opportunity to tell them what’s on your mind. You just might see some of your ideas appearing in future issues-of CREEM!

If you have any additional questions regarding ads you see—or criticism you may have, either pro or con—let us know, right here at CREEM. We’ll make sure that they’re forwarded to the right companies and people.

Thanks for your help!

The Editors

Ambico

101 Horton Ave. Lunbrook, NY 11563

ATTN: Marty Cohen

Beyer Dynamic, Inc.

5-05 Burns Avenue,

Hicksville, NY 11801,

GHS Strings

2813 Wilbur Ave. , Battle Creek, MI 49015

ATTN: Dave Holcomb

Guild Guitar

Company: Guild Guitar

225 W. Grand St., Elizabeth, NJ 07202

c/o Neil Lilian

Agency: Oz Communications

36 E. 30th, New York, NY 10016

ATTN: Kevin Heisen

Ludwig Drams

Agency: Biggs Gilmore Associates

111 Portage St.

Kalamazoo, MI

49007

ATTN: Debbie Buehler

Steven Ross and Associates

, 271 Madison Avenue, 15th Floor

New York, NY 10016

Paiste

Company: 460 Atlas St., Brea, CA 92621

Agency: Jeff Hasselberger

J.' Hasselberger Associates

321 High St., Burlington, NJ 08016

Pearl

P.O. Box 111240, Nashville, TN 37211

ATTN: Tim McCormick

Rogers Drams

Company: Fender/Rogers/Rhodes

Gemeinhardt

1300 Valencia Dr. Fullerton, CA 92631

Agency: Joe Phelps

Joe Phelps and Associates

4020 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505

Zildjian

Company: Zildjian

P.O. Box 198, Accord, MA 02018

Agency: Robert Cipriani Associates

36 Melrose Street, Boston, MA 02116

My favorite of these type ads is not from a guitar manufacturer, but from a sound gear maker. It’s in black and white—like a cheap porno movie, and the picture shows a woman standing between two giant stacks of PA cabinets. She is dressed in a leotard, black fishnet hose, and high heels. She holds in her hand a black leather whip. The caption reads: “You Can’t Beat Our System.” Imagine if you can a mid-range horn in shackles and chains, and this sinister woman flogging away at it. Obviously, this is not for the faint of heart, but I have to believe that the advertiser is showing a little tongue-in-cheek humor here, confident that the -reader will take it for what it is, simply a joke, a play on words, and an effective eye-catcher.

One has to conclude that advertisers are willing to take the risk of offending some readers in order to reach the majority of readers who will stop and look at an alluring woman long enough to get the message. And it is hard to argue against the notion that musicians and engineers are attracted to beautiful women—I think it is very safe to assume that most of them cure. What is really surprising, giyen the nature of the ‘typical rock ’n’ roll band lifestyle’ is that there are so few ads that,use sex to sell a product to musicians. Those ads that do appear may cause some controversy, but they are only a small part of the overall advertising thrust in the music business. Other types of ads are far more frequent.

ARTISTS ENDORSEMENTS: DO THEY REALLY MEAN IT?

When you see a famous musician lending his name, face or words to a product, do you wonder how sincere that artist really is about it? Do you think, hey, they paid the guy to say that, or they gave him free equipment to say that, and he really doesn’t mean what he says about it? Before you dismiss these types of ads as just another come-on, stop and think about the situation.

In the first place, the artist doesn’t have to say anything to get equipment. Musicians who are desirable as endorsees usually have a very lucrative career going, for them, and they can afford to have any kind of gear they want. Furthermore, it is to their benefit, for tax purposes, to spend money on equpment for a tax write-off. Plus, the artist runs the risk of endorsing a product that is really not that good, thus hurting his own credibility by being associated with that product. So there are several reasons why an artist would not want to endorse any products. Why then are there so many artists lending their names to product advertisements? This is by far the biggest single category. Just take a look at some of the endorsees: A1 DiMeola—Ovation guitars; Lee Ritenour—Ibanez effects and guitars (there is a Lee Ritenour model Ibanez semi-acoustic); Steve Morse—Lexicon digital delay; John Cougar Band— Peavey; Simon Phillips—Tama; Frank Zappa—Carvin; Steve Gadd—Zildjian; Jeff Porcaro—Paiste; Dave Blubeck—Alvarez. This list goes on and on. Why?

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Because the artist and the manufacturer both have something to gain from a mutual agreement. What the manufacturer gains is credibility for a product via associating the product with the good reputation of a particular artist. The artist, in turn, gets what every successful artist needs—exposure to the public. For example, the Ovation ad that features A1 DiMeola playing the new Ovation cutaway model guitar tells a lot about the artist, as well as the product. First thing you notice is that DiMeola is making an unbelievable chord formation on the upper part of the guitar neck. His left hand stretches over nine frets to make this one chord. Immediately you want to grab a guitar and see if you can do it. And the copy says that this guy was voted “Best Jazz Guitarist” for the last five years by Guitar Player magazine. So, if you haven’t heard of DiMeola, or seen a picture of him, this ad allows the artist to reach you, and perhaps stimulate you to go out and find his records. To help reinforce this desire, there is a caption in the ad that gives the name of DiMeola’s latest album and the record label that he is on. So DiMeola benefits in terms of exposure. He was using Ovation guitars before he became famous, because he liked them. He hasn’t been bought off with equipment, he simply traded the fact that he uses the. Ovation guitar in exchange for exposure to the record-buying public, not the guitar-buying public. DiMeola is interested in selling albums, not Ovations. But an artist can only produce so many albums per year. He can only play so many concert dates a year. Even if musicians could crank out four or five albums a year, the market could not support them. Even if they wanted to play 300 dates a year, they couldn’t sell enough tickets to play that often and still meet their overhead and make money. So the name of the game is this: keep your name in front of the public in between albums and tours so that you are not forgotten. And by having your mug in the trade magazines, people remember who you are, what your music is like, what you look like, and so on. Politicians call it “name recognition,” and they know, as domusicians, that you need to have it working for you if you are to stay in a highly competitive business.

TECHNOSPEAK: THE BROTHERHOOD OF LANGUAGE

You’re walking home from the Rolling "Stones movie when a seedy character in an overcoat suddenly appears from an alley. “Hey, Mac, want some more Hertz? How about this Full Bandwidth? I’m talkin’ 300 milliseconds, here, man! Don’t you want a little, shall we say, Equalization? And hey, dig it, it’s programmable!”

Musicians, sound engineers and producers are bound together by the language of music and electronics. Try telling your next door neighbor that you are really into humbucking pickups and he might write you off as some kinda freak. But say that to another guitar player, and right away the conversation runs to such things as flux density, gauss strength, inductance and D.C. resistance. A lot of advertisers aim at the reader by appealing to the desire for technical knowledge of a particular product, knowing that musicians are members of a fanatic group that spends countless hours discussing the merits of the truncated sawtooth waveform.

OUTRAGEOUS GRAPHICS: OR ABRACADABRA, WANNA REACH OUT AND GRAB YAI

Here is where the agency creative director turns his graphic artist loose and says, “Be Creative.” The results are eyecatching, outrageous and often very amusing advertising illustrations that demand attention. Sometimes photographs can be just as outrageous and funny. Anvil Cases has an ad that features one of their road cases, complete with roll bars, headlights and rear-view mirror, running a Baja road race. Another ad, for O’Hagan guitars, shows a picture of their Shark model underwater, with only the fin (body bout) of the guitar sticking out of the water. Electro-Voice dramatizes the small size of their new Entertainer PA system by showing a musician loading the entire system into the trunk of a compact car. The funny thing is, the entire car, PA, musician and everything is in back of a trailer truck! Dean Markley illustrates their new wooden acoustic guitar pickup, the Pro Mag, by showing a photo of the pickup, a pocketknife, and some wood shavings. The headline says simply “A Cut Above.” Now it is obvious that nobody would want to whittle away at this pickup, but the picture shows that the product is made of wood, and that is what is unique about it.

In virtually every ad, regardless of the approach, whether it is one of using sex to sell, or an artist’s endorsement, or heavy technical language, or an outrageous illustration, there are several elements at work. Headlines, photos, illustrations and copy must blend together to form the whole ad. Most ads have all three elements: artwork, headline, and body copy. Blending and balancing these three basic elements into a good ad in not easy; you can’t just throw something down on the drawing board and expect it to be effective. Even when you see a simple ad, you can bet that a lot of thought went into it before it was finally approved for publication. And before you get annoyed at advertising, remember that without it, the magazine you are reading might not even exist. And finally, remember that the ultimate choice —whether to read the ad or not—rests with the reader. Nobody insists that you read any of them.&