If I may be allowed to say this again (beyond my couple of tweets)…yes, I purchased Sona Mohapatra’s Ram Sampath-composed song, ‘Paas Aao na’. For INR 10 (great deal, if you ask me!), on ArtistAloud (has a short sample too!). The website’s payment gateway was a royal pain and for something priced 10 bucks, the trouble to pay online didn’t seem worth it, but I persisted only for the song’s sake and managed to buy it after a day’s struggle!
I’ve been looking forward to this Close-up jingle’s full version for a l-o-n-g time and I’m glad the full song is as good as the short jingle.
But this gives me an idea and that’s what this post is about!
Close-up has spent tons of money promoting this song, while promoting their tooth paste. This song is incredibly familiar to anyone who watches TV. Would you say this jingle (if not the song) is as popular and familiar as a chart-buster from a Hindi film?
Yes, that’s what I’m hinting at. Why can’t a film producer/director buy the rights to this song and use it as part of a film’s narrative/soundtrack?
Think about it – everyone wins in this deal.
The producer/director gets an already popular song and that works at many levels – amazing pre-release promotion for the film and a chart-buster song in a film long before its release.
The brand that owns the song/jingle gets to associate the brand in a big-league film (depending on who buys the song). In-film advertising is not new and brands are anyway looking for innovative ways to integrate the brand contextually within the film (not like that godawful Coca Cola plug in Subash Ghai’s Taal!) – this is a great way to do without even showing the product since people associate the song first with the product and then with the film!
The composer of the jingle gets a big boost by getting into full-fledged music composition, if he/she is not one already.
And the best part, there are so many ad jingles that I can think which could gain from such associations! Paas aao na (Close-up), of course tops my list – imagine how appropriate it could be in a standard Karan Johar type film! The other song I’d l-o-v-e to hear fully (if it ever exists in a full form) is the Aaj ki raat (remix) for Coca Cola (starring Imran Khan)! Suman Sridhar‘s (of Sridhar/Thayil fame) vocals are worth dying for…wonder who composed this remix version!
I’m sure there are many other jingles that could make the cut as full film songs – feel free to list them in the comments…just for fun, as of now. If some good film maker sees this post and does something about them…pat yourself in the back!
Indian ad jingles have an old tradition of moving from films to ads – I think its time for a reverse migration!
