Recently music that contains brand identity is being recognized as a great marketing tool.

‘Music is the only legal drug.’ This was something that used to be trending on SNS. Just like so, the power of music is mighty. It is involved in every single moment of your joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, naturally contains the message you wish to convey, and spreads out far. That’s why music has been an important marketing tool since long ago. Countless catchy advertisement jingles like “You don’t have to say it I know~” or “I can’t keep my hands off, no hands off~” are the proofs.

But recently, the music used for marketing purposes has been showing unbelievable quality. It’s not just a 15~30 second melody that contends with a strong hook, but real music that sincerely contains the brand identity has started to be made. The quality is so good that it even comes out on the charts. Instead of producing new music, sometimes the brand curates existing music that fits the brand message. Why did enterprises start to pay so much attention to music as brand marketing means?

Hyundai Card collaborated with the singer Crush and released a song that includes the brand philosophy of the card ‘Digital Lover.’

According to expert analysis, as media environment has changed, so has marketing approach. Before, in the mass media era, increasing brand awareness or notifying the product function to the consumers was important, whereas now, as we live in the micro media era, it’s more important for the consumers to experience brand. So, the role of an advertisement went from ‘promoting products’ to ‘providing brand values.’ In other words, we are now in a place where we must satisfy the customers’ senses. Satisfying senses is the new homework that brought on the evolution of marketing music.

Excellent Songwriting Touches Hearts.

Athleisure brand released a song for their brand with the singer MAMAMOO (photography source. Official andar Youtube).

Athleisure brand andar recently released a song for their brand, Wanna be Myself (subtitle: I am not different (andar) with their model singer MAMAMOO. It’s about cheering people who do not care what other people think but act and challenge according to their own standards. Lyrics like ‘there’s no fixed standard in the world, don’t compare me this way or that’ aroused much sympathy from all generations, including the MZ generation who especially values individuality and the present. The disco genre retro sound also helped quickly promote the brand message of being ‘Body Positive.’

There are even cases when the consumers want the music to be out on the charts. Food enterprise Binggrae’s For Binggrae Makers was created as an animation video and recorded over 6.47 million views. So many comments are being made, including things like ‘I’m a part-timer at a convenient store, and the song touched me so badly, thus I laid out 5 rows of banana milk,’ ‘I actually thought this was a remake of a musical number and went looking for the original song for 3 hours,’ ‘this is how you do marketing,’ etc.

Great Song Choices Also Touch Hearts.

Jeju Beer uploads playlists that go well with their brand identity on their homepage (photography source. Jeju Beer homepage).

Any branch of the global coffee chain Starbucks will play similar music; this is because the U.S. headquarters curated music for all their stores around the world and sent out the CD. They only play music that goes with the atmosphere to maximize the sentiment one feels in Starbucks.

Just like so, there are more and more services that select and provide existing music which goes well with the brand identity. Cosmetics brand Dr. Jart notifies their playlists for each season on their official Instagram account, and domestic handcrafted beer brand Jeju Beer also announces their ‘Jeju Beer music playlist’ where the customers can choose the music that goes with their mood and beer choice.

There are enterprises that introduce music that goes with their brand identity by using a DJ channel on music platform (photography source. Chanel homepage).

Melon, a Korean music platform, took notice of this trend and set up a ‘brand DJ’ channel. Leading brands from each industry provide their own playlists or videos. Nike filled up their playlist with ‘songs you need for workout’ while Disney consisted their playlist of ‘songs that make you feel like you’re in a fairytale.’ Chanel grabbed the public attention by introducing songs from each country’s ambassadors as well as making a magazine for their collection behind-the-scenes stories.

Hyundai Motors’ Message, Sung by BTS

Recently Hyundai Motors released their brand song ‘IONIQ:I’m on it’ with BTS for their electronic car brand Ioniq.

Hyundai Motors also joined this music marketing craze with BTS. As part of their electronic car brand Ioniq launching campaign, they released the Ioniq brand song ‘IONIQ: I’m on it.’ The vision for infinite potential and capacity of Ioniq was contained in the lyrics, based on each BTS member’s own time and experience. Members expressed the concept of the brand differently under different themes: V under the theme of ‘time for something new and exploring,’ Jungkook under the theme of ‘time for curiosity and challenge,’ RM under the theme of ‘time to reflect on yourself,’ Suga under the theme of ‘time for hope and cheering,’ Jimin under the theme of ‘sentimental time,’ J-Hope under the theme of ‘time for creation and inspiration,’ and Jin under the theme of ‘time that accumulates to future.’

The song can be downloaded for free on Hyundai Motors worldwide website.

In the ‘IONIQ: I’m on it’ music video released on Hyundai Motors worldwide Youtube channel (@HyundaiWorldwide), you can see the BTS members as well as the concept car Prophecy (project name: CE), one of the Ioniq brand line up, which shows off Ioniq’s infinite potential and capacity. The song can be downloaded for free on Hyundai Motors worldwide website (https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/brand/hyundai-bts-ioniq). Hyundai Motors plans to continuously deliver their eco-friendly brand vision with BTS through various collaborations for the first half of next year until they release IONIQ 5 (project name: NE).

So far, we’ve looked into various brand music marketing cases for many enterprises. More enterprises are likely to continuously release brand music as the popular culture of music can be utilized to naturally disperse brand philosophy to the consumers. The quality of music also is getting more and more outstanding; you would not believe it’s just branded contents (contents that naturally contain and disperse brand message). Here’s looking forward to what kind of new brand music would win the consumers’ ears and hearts in the future.