Oscar Ads And 60's & 70's Music Anthems Are Big Business

Normally during top rated television programs such as DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES or CSI, ads are a big business, pulling in about $330,000 for 30 sec spots. During the SUPERBOWL they shoot up to as much as $2.4 million for 30eec spots. During the high rated events such women's figure skating in NBC's 2006 Torino OLYMPIC coverage, ads reportedly pulled in $700,000 for 30sec spots. And last night advertisers reportedly paid as much as $1.2 million for their 30sec efforts to promote their wares.

One of the best new advertising campaigns was a new one by JC Penney corporation that makes effective use of several new versions of the T.Rex classic song, GET IT ON(actually entitled BANG A GONG during U.S. release due to the prior release of a hit single by a group headed by the late Bill Chase, called Chase, also called GET IT ON).

Not only is the use of the song very effective as GET IT ON is one of rock music's most durable anthems, but with several new versions of the song, a new level of viewer interest focuses in on the ads each time they are aired.

The use of popular older rock anthems in advertising is a very big business as the young audience that once listened to these songs as counter culture anthems of the soundtrack of their lives, now has aged considerably into a prime market of well heeled conmsumers in the market for high priced automobiles and clothing.

One of the most counter culture groups of the 60's was The Doors, however their classic first 1967 single, BREAK ON THROUGH was the overwelming first choice of Cadillac to promote their high priced automobiles, which 1960's young pot smoking, antiwar youth, has now grown old enough, and establishment enough to now afford.

BREAK ON THROUGH and other Doors classic songs are unlikely to find their way into the current popular use of many classic rock anthems in advertising because of a strange series of in-fighting between former Doors member drummer, John Densmore and family members of the late Jim Morrison and his common law wife, suing other former surviving Doors members, Ray Manzerek and Robbie Kreiger, stripping them of the use of The Doors name with a new lead singer, and the use of licensing Doors classics for advertising purposes.

Some years ago, Paul Shaffer joked with a Jim Morrison-like song use for a fake Energizer Batteries ad. Now this is even more unlikely because of The Doors lawsuit situation. But it is highly unlikely to stop the rest of the "gravy train" of use of popular 60's and 70's rock themes in advertising.

Popular rock themes make a real connection to the formally young demographic buyers who purchased the 45rpm singles and the albums when the songs were chart toppers, but are now more affluent as they have aged.

The popular 60's and 70's anthems of BORN TO BE WILD, MAGIC CARPET RIDE, GET IT ON, FOR YOUR LOVE, GET READY and many more hot anthems are now the popular soundtrack for the aging population that is the drumbeat to drive the wheels of commerce.