citizensound have put together a number of sync deals over the last few months for a range of brands, including a tropical soft drink and a nails enhancement product.

And we’ve had the most success by sourcing music from a range of indie labels, and artists who are are keen to exploit their unreleased catalogue. Which is why having an experienced A&R man with a great set of ears and a good contact book has been crucial to our recent success. The success we’ve had was not only down to the music perfectly fitting the creative brief, but we also being able to deliver within what were sometimes tight budget constraints. Which it is not always an easy job these day.

We recently approached one publisher for a the clearance on a track from a still relatively unknown, but up-and-coming, UK artist. Both the label and the artists publisher were keen for the deal to happen as they valued the potential exposure to extend sales of the current album, but the publisher responsible for the co-write on the track wanted over three times the total budget for the finished advert, killing the deal stone dead. The final track picked by the agency and client for this campaign came from a small US indie label Standard Recordings, and their artist Marla Hansen (whose name you might recognise if you’re a Sufjan Stevens fan). They were not only a whole lot more realistic when it came to doing a deal for themselves and their artist, but it was also a real kick to get a totally unknown US artist onto a UK ad campaign.

citizensound says:

The next step is to extend these synch deals into real partnerships, bringing together the brands and their agencies with the artists, managers and labels, to deliver something that truly benefits everyone, even the music fan!