Commercials can be a great resource for adding music, earlier this year we saw Empire of the Sun’s “Walking On A Dream” makes it’s way back into playlists because it was featured in a commercial nearly 10 years after it debuted.  The Rolling Stones licensed “Start Me Up” to Microsoft when it launched Windows 95.  Music is an important part of brand recognition which can be a good and bad thing.

When watching TV, Target is known for coming up with some pretty cool sounding songs that have made their way into the social mainstream over the years.  There are websites that list several of the songs that have been used over the years including this one.

The key for Target has always been, find something new, find something different, and find something catchy.  They continue to do that, however it can cause problems that you may not notice with your marketing department.

As sports DJs, paying attention to the songs our sponsors use is important and gives us an easy music bed for their announcements or promotions.  However, we also need to pay attention to their competitors.  Imagine playing Diggy, which is being used in heavy rotation right now, when Walmart is sponsoring your team.  Whoops.

It’s a fun song and may very well have made it to your rallies, dance cam or other playlist, however make sure it’s not sponsored by Walmart, Fred Meyer, Meijer, etc.

Awolnation’s “Sail” became popular in a BMW commercial in 2012, but doesn’t have the specific a brand recognition.  However, playing it for Mercedes Benz may not be a good idea.

The last thing you want to do is upset a sponsor, and they take their money away from the team.  Keeping an ear out for what’s play by them and their competition is important.  Now, if you’re in a market that doesn’t have one of their competitors from another market and you play that competitors song-of-the-moment, there’s not much you can do about that and nobody may even notice.