Advertising Background: A Full Breakdown

Pay attention the next time an ad comes on TV. Do you hear background music that matches the type of ad being played? Now imagine if background music wasn’t added at all. Most commercials would sound like they were missing something, and they would be! They would be missing the vital background music that makes an ad captivating and engaging. That’s what makes advertising music so crucial to the TV ad. Music is crucial to advertising and branding, it plays a huge role in grabbing the audience’s attention and retaining it.

Advertising Background Music

Advertisements are typically for a product, service, or brand. Advertising background music is often upbeat, light, and has an overall happy tone to accompany what is being shown in the advertisement, but isn’t always limited to that. This applies to both products and services that are being advertised. The instruments used in ads often depend on the brand’s identity, the demographic they’re targeting and the specific thing they are advertising for. Think about what you’re advertising and add background music accordingly.

How to Choose the Right Music for Your Advertising Project

You’ve got an advertisement to create, now what? You’ll need to choose the tone and style of the advertisement, including how you want it to look and sound. Adding background music is imperative in making any advertisement successful. At Score a Score, we can help you find the perfect track.

What Message Do You Want the Advertisement to Deliver?

This should be the first question you ask yourself when choosing the right music for your ad. What story are you telling? Is there a conflict in the story that will be portrayed in the ad? Will the ad stay upbeat the entire time? The background music you choose generally should match the story being told, or can juxtapose it for comedic effect.

If a climax or conflict arises during the ad, the music can highlight that. The music doesn’t have to be extremely dramatic, but the tone or tempo can change slightly to let the target audience know about the change.

How Loud Should the Advertising Background Music Be?

Depending on the type of advertisement you’re creating will determine how loud your background music should be. If the advertisement is energetic or dramatic, you may want to choose background music that is louder or bolder to match the story being told in the ad. Not only will this grab the viewer’s attention, but it will also let them know the overall theme of the advertisement.

An advertisement that showcases a service or company will often be less dramatic and will need background music that simply supports the ad's script. This could be light music that doesn’t take away from what the advertisement is selling or what the VO is saying. This type of background music keeps the service or company at the forefront of the ad while adding simplistic music that completes the story being told.

Why is Advertising Background Music important?

Music helps incite emotional responses, and emotions play a vital role in advertising, marketing, and sales. When emotions are ignited, people become personally connected to what has incited that emotion.

Background music that creates an emotional connection between the target audience and what’s being advertised can increase the audience's chance of choosing to purchase that product, service, or brand. This is the overall primary goal of creating an ad. You want to reach as many people as possible and have them choose your product, service, or brand over the rest.

The music also helps reinforce the product, service, or brand being advertised. It is a subtle way to encourage viewers to trust what’s being advertised because of the music that matches in the background.

The music also plays an important role in telling the story. Background music will help you know how to feel when watching the ad. Even when you’re not watching the TV at the time the ad is being played, background music can grab an audience’s attention and redirect it to what’s being advertised.

The effect of advertising background is almost always subconscious for the viewer. The viewer is likely not directly thinking of the music when they’re watching the ad, yet the music is having an effect on them.

What if Advertisements Didn’t Have Any Music?

Commercials without any music could easily be unmemorable. It’s often the music that sets ads apart from the rest. In fact, it can be the song that first catches the audience’s attention rather than the commercial itself.

This is especially true in situations where the audience has lost interest in what they’re watching and has turned their attention to something else, like a phone or tablet instead of the TV. It’s when the ad begins playing background music that the audience can be captivated once again.

If ads didn’t have music, you might not know how to feel during the advertisement. Adding background music contributes to how well the overall tone and theme of the commercial are understood. Background music helps the audience know how to feel, or at minimum, directs them to a range of emotions that the advertiser wants them to feel about the advertising campaign.

How to Use Music in TV Ads

Adding background music to an ad needs to be done legally. You will need to obtain permission and a music license to use the song in a commercial. Music that is used without a license will subject you to copyright infringement. The best-case scenario for copyright infringement is having your ad blocked or muted. The worst-case scenario for copyright infringement is being sued.

Final Thoughts

Adding music to your commercial is essential. It will captivate your audience’s attention and incite an emotional response within them. This is important because it will help increase sales of the product, service, or brand being advertised, which will make the ad successful.