Budweisers Cannes Gambit.
Brand Theater at its best.
Last week in Cannes, Africa Creative DBB premiered a video case study on behalf of their client Budweiser featuring one-second clips of various classic and well known songs culminating in AC/DC’s Thunderstruck.
The case study highlighted a series of social media ads, each containing 1 second of a famous song, challenging the viewer to name the tune. The “controversy” surrounding said campaign stems from them openly (and somewhat smugly) admitting they didn’t pay any licensing fees for the “1 second songs”.
This rightfully caused much consternation in the music community, though there might be more to the story. Here’s a few ways this could have played out.
Africa Creative DDB/Budweiser intentionally didn’t pay licensing fees. Though the case study features AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, as well as video footage from Led Zeppelin, Queen, Guns N’ Roses among others. In my experience, using an artists likeness in a beer ad would require a license. They figured the resulting lawsuit settlements would be worth the scene-points they garnered from the ad, plus the ensuing legal fallout and settlement would keep re-upping the ads exposure in the ad industry press cycle.
2. Africa Creative DDB/Budweiser used social media services to add music to the videos. Similar how you can add a Beyonce song to your IG story without paying a licensing fee. Essentially they would argue the ads somehow fall under “user generated content” and be under whatever blanket license Instagram, Tik Tok etc.. has in place with the labels and publishers.
OR
Africa Creative DBB/Budweiser got cute with the term “music rights” and actually paid a fee in form of a charitable donation, or other remittance in lieu of a normal music license. In other words, they licensed the tracks for $1 each, as long as they paid/donated $250,000 to an entity mutually approved by the artists and Budweiser. They technically didn’t pay music rights.
They actually paid for the music rights, and lied in the case study. The name of the SAO PAULO BRAZIL based ad agency is AFRICA CREATIVE. They’re already lying. Here’s their logo :
That’s Africa! Check out Madagascar on the right hand side. Brands and ad agencies do all sorts of weird stuff to get attention.
Conclusion:
This whole brouhaha further proves that most people see music as a cheapo afterthought, while at the same time admitting it’s often the backbone of an ad campaign. Imagine what this campaign would look like without music.
Musicians don’t need ad dorks. Ad dorks definitely need musicians to earn those awards that matter to no one but other ad dorks.
