Wonderful Pistachio Disguises Sound Branding With Honey Badgers and Cats That Play Keyboards

Those nuts at Wonderful Pistachio are at again . . . and this time with the infamous honey badger (above television commercial).  What we find interesting (other than the commercials being funny) . . . They continue to establish their brand by using a playful violin and brush drum end tag / stinger as their mnemonic (ya know, that little sound doodle at the end of their spot after the stock music).      

 

Gone is their ace composer - the keyboard playing cat from previous campaigns.  Here to stay is a two instrument sound brand communicating simplicity and whimsy with a down home acoustic/organic feel that is consistent with the campaign and brand.  We like this use, and it works well here, moreover, it also shows how different pieces of music can work well together within a multi-spot campaign (and given that the rest of its production music it was likely ok on their budget).  Check out their other videos online here starring Crytsal the Monkey, Kermit The Frog, Angry Birds, Snooki and Mr. Bill too!

Custom Stock Music - The New Hybrids

Given a choice, we would all have originally scored music for our projects.  We get it.

But, budgets sometime dictate the need to use production music off the shelf.

What's a girl to do?

These days, a few companies are (legitimately) custom scoring their library music and results can be awesome when done right:

Yes, it costs a bit more than the rate card . . . but it is still a big savings compared to original music and you can still get that warm fuzzy feeling knowing you got a kick ass piece of music for advertising. 

Does Size Really Matter?

When it comes to choosing a production music library does size really matter?  If you are in film, television or advertising production chances are you've hit the google search before to see what pops up when you enter stock music or music licensing and it's an overwhelming digital ocean of choice and claims . . ."900,000 Royalty Free Tracks" . . . "The Biggest Music Library in The Universe Ever Created" . . . "500,000 Music Tracks in 400 Genres" and so on.  Yikes! How is a creative professional supposed to navigate all of this to find what they need?

Chances are, you are looking for the right track and chances are you need one piece of music in that moment.

Unequivocally, our vote is to choose QUALITY over quantity every time.

Two reasons:

1) Music Search Fatigue.  There are some libraries out there with 100,000 tracks but only a fraction that are even worth a listen.  More likely than not, you need to sift through lots of subpar tracks in order to find anything decent and that takes way too much time.  The result, you either settle for something less than great, convince yourself you found something better than you have because the search is taking so long or wind up giving up altogether because you cant find what you need.  Exhausting. 

Good libraries have a deep bench of well meta-tagged tracks.  Search should be easy, quick and the quality high (even fun!).  You shouldn't have to weed out bad tracks to get the one you want, rather come away with a few choices and options that you feel great about. 

2) The Human Touch. Most large music libraries are music mills.  They are run by webmasters and not music supervisors or creative professionals, they are automated and lack meaningful human input and might as well be selling toasters, socks or books.  Robots don't make music.  Composers do.  Databases don't care about your project, but a high quality music library will go out of their way to help you make it amazing.  Smaller and mid-size libraries typically have a terrific staff of creative professionals standing at the ready to assist you.  These people live and breath their music catalogs and often times have the right music knowledge to help you find the gems that fit your project.  Hug a music supervisor (we hug back)!           

m2c