Achieving high sales in the music industry has taken a back seat to a degree in many a music manager and musician’s mind today. Sure, click they still have the t-shirt sales to fall back on but the growing number of artists putting their name to strange and unusual products up for public purchase is relatively high. Here are some examples of big names in music who have put their odd stamp on the advertising industry. Scrutinise as appropriate.
Iggy Pop for Swiftcover.
If you’ve seen this particular advert, health you’ll remember the unnecessary and eerie mini-Iggy puppet that accompanied him. The intense Stooges frontman reportedly increased Swiftcover car insurance sales by 31%, capsule using the tag line ‘get a life’. As a man is recognised for abusing heroin for years, rolling around in broken glass and vomiting during gigs he seems a peculiar choice for selling insurance, in this case the gamble paid off for the company. What is amusing, however, is that he remains ‘The Passenger’ while being driven around by his uncanny doll friend.
John Lydon on Butter
I can’t believe its (not) Johnny Rotten, God save the cow, curds and way in the U.K … Call it what you will. Country life butter bagged the Sex Pistol’s legend for an advert that I’m sure left people with a few questions regarding many things. Why Rotten? Was it an act of irony? How much did he get paid? A barrage of questions surrounding the anarchic Lydon sprung up vis a vis his integrity along with an onslaught of terrible puns on the topic. One more: Never mind the Bollocks, here’s the butter. Worth it.
Snoop Dogg for Moneysupermarket.
We see a man riding an invisible low-rider through the street. The man in question is illustrated as a stereotypical ‘nerd’ yet is surrounded by hip-hop heroines and exudes every amount of confidence. Apparently, this depiction is “so Moneysupermarket”. Narrated by Snoop (Dogg? Doggy Dogg? Lion?) this is an example of another advert that raised eyebrows initially, namely from within the Hip-Hop community itself. It could have potentially been a shameless exercise of power and a show of invulnerability over media attacks, or was it act of financial desperation. Regardless, Snoop doesn’t strike me as a fitting man to endorse value for money on insurance.
B y Geneva Pattison
