The songs that sell: How music shapes the Super Bowl

Every February, more than 125 million people tune in for the Super Bowl, and not just to watch the action on the field. 

It’s advertising’s biggest night, where brands spend millions of dollars and months of planning to capitalise on the rare, cultural moment when people actually look forward to seeing the commercials.

A single needle drop can make a good advertisement remarkable by raising engagement, recall, authenticity and brand affinity.

While the jokes, celebrities and cinematic production get most of the attention, there is an unsung hero quietly driving the emotion behind many of the very best spots: the music. A single needle drop can make a good advertisement remarkable by raising engagement, recall, authenticity and brand affinity.

What’s more, a recent poll of 1,000 people found that it’s the music that makes Super Bowl ads more memorable than celebrities or a movie character/franchise affiliation.

Above: Smartphone-viewing has taken over from commercial breaks in many people's lives. 

The instant connection effect

In a society where more and more people are instinctively grabbing their smart phones during commercial breaks, music might just be the only thing they’re still processing, even if passively. A familiar song has the 'instant connection' effect of triggering a welcome, emotional reaction and pulling people’s eyes back towards the TV screen. While stock or 'slop' audio can certainly check a box, creative that earns attention (and holds it) will ultimately drive ROI and improve the KPIs brand managers and agencies care about most.

A familiar song has the 'instant connection' effect of triggering a welcome, emotional reaction and pulling people’s eyes back towards the TV screen. 

When Aerosmith’s Dream On roared through Kia’s 2018 Super Bowl spot, it wasn’t just about the performance of its vehicles, it was about a nostalgic transformation through the emotional power of driving, with Steven Tyler literally driving himself backwards in time. The song did the heavy lifting of instantly transporting viewers back into that place and time.

Above: Aerosmith's Dream On was the impactful soundtrack to Kia's 2018 Super Bowl spot. 

Doritos tapped the same emotional lever in its Salt-N-Pepa Push It 2022 Super Bowl spot, where the entire narrative was driven by the track itself. With hardly any spoken words at all, the instantly recognisable beat became the engine of the joke, driving humour, nostalgia and attention the moment it kicked in. It showed how a single, well-chosen hook can carry an entire spot.

Few recent ads have used music more effectively than the 2024  Volkswagen An American Love Story spot.

Few recent ads have used music more effectively than the 2024  Volkswagen An American Love Story spot. Neil Diamond’s I Am… I Said turned a brand history reel into something intimate and cinematic, where the spot feels way more like a fond memory than your typical car commercial.

Last year’s Mountain Dew Baja Blast Super Bowl spot featuring Seal (as a seal) performing a revised version of his song Kiss from a Rose injects an immediate emotional familiarity, giving the brand room to embrace humour and absurdity without sacrificing credibility.

Above: Neil Diamond provided the music for VW's 2024 Super Bowl commercial. 

Finally, the whole process of clearing a song for the Super Bowl is particularly complicated. There are delicate initial requests to the copyright holders, possible bidding wars, attempts to secure the correct levels of exclusivity and usage, tracking down all the entitled and active rights holders, and aligning on a price that is suitable for all parties. 

Mega brands and agencies can often do this in-house when they have the bandwidth to give this caliber of project the proper attention. However, experience shows that music clearance is not just a transactional exercise, and it is rarely 'cookie cutter' in practice. Working with specialists can protect budgets, prevent clearance gaps and build smart contingency plans for the roadblocks that tend to surface right when deliverables are due. More than ever, success depends on approaching the correct rights holders with the right information and a request designed to earn a 'yes' from the start.

Licensing with intention

As an expert music clearance, supervision and strategy service [transparent self-promotion alert!] Can You Clear Me Now has been behind hundreds of licensed tracks for brands, including Super Bowl spots and Emmy Award-winning films, and I believe that today’s creatives are, musically, sharper than ever. The challenge is not taste, but knowing what is feasible, knowing what a song should cost versus what will it cost. Knowing what rights are actually available, and where clearances can typically stall. 

The smartest brands approach licensing as part of the storytelling.

Sometimes the victory is securing the exact song a client had in mind. Other times, it is discovering something new that exceeds expectations and softens fees on the final agreement. I've learned that while music clearance may sound like paperwork, it’s really a creative vision puzzle and gumshoe-style negotiation. Every artist, label and publisher has their own point of view about how their work should be used, and they can’t all be expected to work together in harmony to fulfil a brand’s vision. The smartest brands approach licensing as part of the storytelling. It helps to use music in a way that aligns with the artist’s voice and/or motivations as opposed to just 'renting' their song.