The Price For An Icon

Suppose you were making a commercial and you wanted the theme to be about good times on a sunny day. You'd need background music of course. In the old days, you'd usually have some song guy or gal write a jingle for cheap. But nowadays, you want to get the attention of boomers, so you try to use songs that they know and like.

What song are you going to pick? Aim high now. This is a commercial for a huge corporation. They've got a ton of money. The ad time is going to run into tens of millions of dollars. What's iconic? The Beatles of course. Unfortunately for you, recordings of Lennon/McCartney tunes aren't available for use for commercials that aren't hawking Beatles products (the songs are, but not the original recordings). But lucky you, songs written by George Harrison are as long as the other Beatles aren't playing on the tune. And what song did George Harrison write that would be just perfect for your commercial? Times up. Here Comes The Sun.

You can just see it. All those positive images for your product on the screen and George Harrison singing his heart out in the background, "Here comes the sun and I say it's alright." Perfect!

You go to the company that handles the rights to the song. They ask what kind of commercial it will be. You say, travel, upbeat, and you mention the name of the company. They call back a few days later - they aren't in any rush, this is an iconic song - and say fine.

You ask how much.

They say three million dollars.

You ask if they can cut a deal. The music industry is tanking and all; you can get a song about the sun for next to nothing from some indy guy or gal. They say, fine, get a song for next to nothing. But this one costs three million dollars for commercial use.

Gulp. That's double the budget of the entire commercial.

You go to your client, which loved the idea of using Hear Comes the Sun. You mention the cost. They say no way.

So you go back to the company that controls the rights to Here Comes the Sun. And you say what else do you have. They come up with a list of songs. There's a new single coming out by Sheryl Crow that they mention. You could have that for 80K plus they're looking for a tie in to their video for that song. Sheryl Crow. Now that's a name a baby boomer could trust. She's pretty hot. You start thinking about using her, showing some skin, singing the tune.

You go back to your client. I got a whole new idea, you say. Sheryl Crow. New song that's coming on the charts. They want help on their video plus 80K. You sketch out the idea. They love it.

The above scenario happened a few years ago. If you want to use Here Comes The Sun in a commercial today it will still cost you three million dollars. I'm sure you can get Soak Up the Sun for a lot less than 80K today because it was already used extensively in one commercial campaign and the price of music for use in films and commercials is plummeting except for the truly iconic songs.

Will those icons like Here Comes the Sun ever drop in value? It true there is a ton of good music out there that can be bought for virtually nothing. Want a song like Here Comes the Sun for cheap? Here's one. It's by M. Ward. It's not half bad. Actually, it's about as good as Harrison's tune, which is a pretty dull throwaway tune in comparison to many in The Beatles catalog. But it's The Beatles. The recording doesn't have John, Paul or Ringo, but there is the distinctive voice of George, just like on the original Beatles record. The sentiment in Harrison's song is oh so sweet. And how many people of a certain age don't instantly smile when they hear that tune remembering when they were young? How much are those positive memories worth? Probably three million dollars or more for many years to come.