Peddling With Grace: Studies On Music Videos As TV Commercials

Music Video, the invention of the pop promotional film - or 'video' - is normally accredited to 1970s rockers Queen, who, in November 1975, found they were unable to appear on BBC TV's Top Of The Pops due to tour commitments. Their solution to the problem was to spend two days on recording a video for their latest single, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to be shown in their place. It was a decision that inspired many other acts to do the same and by the early 1980s there were (just) enough videos available to sustain an entire TV channel - MTV. Since shortly after its inception, the style and content of music video have strongly influenced advertising, television, film, and popular culture as a whole.This thesis is split up into two parts, containing theory and case-studies respectively. The theoretical part is divided into chapters on the basis of outcome of visual culture and its advertising attribute of music video, eventually linking these together in "the advertising power of MV" in order to introduce a new advertising behavior - MV + TVC, which means, with a strong financial support from a commercial brand, a music video is produced for the singer's latest hit and then launched into the TV commercial to initiate a new round of brand advertising campaign. In the age of the internet and multi-channel television, the relationship between music and visual culture is intensifying and multiplying. Music videos continue to abound, now that are developed as a brand new type of commercial advertisement. The case study part provides several analyses of music videos from PEPSI, who continues to get "music star + ads." involved into its marketing strategies. A conclusion on how to assess this new settlement between sound, vision and advertising is drawn at the end.