The Use of Background Music in TV Spots

Advertisers have always used music to enrich their TV spots and thus stand out from the competition. It is possible to differentiate between already existing and popular music pieces and new compositions, which are often purely instrumental accompaniment pieces. The majority of television advertising spots nowadays is supported by such imagery.

Persuasive, dramatic, epic, structural

The use of musical stimuli in commercials covers four different and generally accepted purposes. These include: persuasive, dramatic, epic, and structural functions.

The persuasive function is often described as the most important. The goal here is building an emotional charge to boost the advertising message and the displayed product and elicit an emotional response from the viewer. We would like to reference a spot advertising Samsung's Gear VR as a current example: Samsung Official TVC: Ostrich

When music creates familiarity

Not infrequently known titles are used for this affective function, since the familiarity with musical stimuli has a positive effect on the viewers perception. In addition, the text can also support the content and the intent of the message. In the case of SAMSUNG, the song "Rocket Man" by Elton John was chosen because the text fit perfectly.

The advertising song in its epic function

Music fulfils a dramatic function in commercials insofar that it creates and maintains tension within the clip. This can be done, for example, by suggesting highlights or underlining or enhancing a particular atmosphere that matches the story or the product itself. In his epic function, the commercial song in particualr takes over narrative tasks. By selecting a particular musical piece or genre it is possible to create a temporal or geographic reference in which the action takes place. It is also possible to create specific atmospheres with which the product or the brand should be associated. Furthermore, advertising songs can assume a structural function by dividing individual sections of the spot. Thus individual scenes can either be charged with different stimuli and thus separated from each other or connected by a common denotator into a unit. Also, individual text passages can be highlighted in this way.

The aforementioned functions are specifically used by the advertising professionals to highlight their TV spots in the flood of competing TV programs and reach potential customers.