How To Leverage Big-Brand Ads For Sync Licensing
You're sitting on a gold mine. ✨
You Are Not An NPC
When you see an ad in the wild, what is the first thing that comes to mind for you? The average, non-creating NPC sees an ad on TV and thinks one of two things:
“The thing in the ad speaks to me – I should buy it.”
“They are out to brainwash us with consumerism – I will never buy it.”
You are not an average, non-creating NPC. You are a creator, and one that creates music for a purpose. And since the music you create must fulfill a need, you need a reference to do that. “But how the hell can I get that reference?” The answer is ads in the wild. You know, the ones fed to you as YouTube pre-roll or between episodes of your favorite Hulu show?
Let’s cut the sh*t. You are in the business of making music for money. So it only serves you to study up on the music that makes money. Big brand pay big money for the music you hear in ads on TV. And it’s free for you to analyze, obsess over, and take advantage of in your own sync productions.
Each time you mindlessly watch an ad, you rob yourself of the opportunity to cash in on what works. Instead, you always want to make sure you output something for every thing you input. Get into the habit of creating something at the slightest jolt of inspiration from an ad you see in the wild.
How Do You See Ads?
When you see an ad on TV, what is the first thing you notice? If I were to show you an ad right now, could you make a list of the things you notice about it? Could you describe the music, the mood, and setting? Could you list out the things that make it valuable? Diving deeper, how do ads make you feel? What do ads make you think? It’s usually the simple questions that challenge us the most. Does this feel like uncharted territory? Then now is the time to begin asking yourself these types of questions with each ad that blesses your eyeballs. 👀
Today is the day you make the commitment to never like or dislike the music you hear in an ad ever again. Liking the music in an ad is not enough to earn you an income. Disliking the music in an ad will never earn you an income. The mere fact that a brand licensed a track for their ad has nothing to do with your personal preference. Whether you like it or not, that composer still made more money than you did.
Take a look at how deep I go when studying ads that I aim to use as reference material. I listen intently. I write what I see, hear, and feel. This helps guide my writing to ensure I stay in line with the type of story that a brand like Meta aims to tell.
MK Ultra, mkay?
Mkay, so we’ve established that ads are only made to control the minds of the masses if you believe it to be true. Skeptics who waste precious creative time on conspiracies make $0 in the process. And we know there are people who don't even watch the beautiful case studies of high-value music you can leverage to get paid today (for free). Ads are a bathroom break in their eyes, and that means no royalty check for them. Sad. Since you’re a thinker and you ask the important questions that get you paid... Let’s dig deeper to reveal the most important part of leveraging ads you see in the wild.
Do you watch movies?
What are movies to you? What do you believe movies are?
Do you read books?
What are books? What do books mean to you? What do books make you feel?
Mkay, now for the big one, mkayy?
What is life?
What do you see when you look at life? What does life make you feel?
The common denominator: They’re all stories. Ads, movies, books, life… They’re all a series of events told over time. And that’s just it: Ads are stories. Movies are stories. Books are stories. Life is a story. Stories are human. Stories are the currency of sync licensing. I implore you to start seeing ads in this deep way. The people who make money writing music for sync licensing see ads as human stories first – You have to see them as human stories too.
$ee $omething, Make $omething
Where you see a story, you see a need. Doors open up emotionally, intellectually, and musically... Based on characters, plot, mood, scenes, and settings. The sooner you start looking at these attributes as resources, the sooner you'll put a buck in your pocket. When you see an ad while watching TV, make a point to not waste the opportunity to:
Take notes in your phone on what you’re hearing.
Shazam the track and save it to a playlist for later.
Find the ad on YouTube so you can reference it in studio.
Send the ad to a collaborator to get started on a similar piece of music ASAP.
Once you see something, commit to making something without judgment or reservation. This is the true task of the high-value creator: Input value, output value. See the valuable stories in ads for what they are. Create a valuable track that tells a similar musical story. Commit to these two things daily and you'll experience an endless well of output, inspiration, and creativity.
You will be able to tell endless $tories. 🔥
All my best,
Graham Barton
Composer · Mentor · Imperfectionist
@syncbeast.co
