Song lyrics and branded videogames

It is not uncommon for brands to play a part in promoting a singer or musician. In 2006, Absolut vodka offered an exclusive download of the song Breathe, by Lenny Kravitz, on its internet site, in the context of a major promotional operation, Absolut Kravitz [12, p.211]. It is not uncommon for brands to be ‘borrowed’ by certain singers, in particular today’s rappers. This approach is sometimes called brand-dropping.

Even if the media have only recently picked up on these placements, however, the phenomenon is not a recent one. Some may recall Janis Joplin asking God to buy her a Mercedes-Benz because her friends all drove Porsches, on the album Pearl 1971 [13, p.25].

Another forerunner, track three of the album Raising Hell in 1986, by Run-DMC, was entitled without possibility of misunderstanding My Adidas. The brand name is mentioned 22 times in the song. [13, p.27].

The most characteristic marketing case, however, is unquestionably that of US rappers. The insertion of brands into song lyrics anchors them in the real world of society and consumption. In the United States alone, the PQ Media firm estimated that US$30.4 million are invested in placement of product or brand names into songs, whether to praise or criticize them.

In most cases they are high-end, even luxury product brands, and alcoholic drinks, cars and clothing are often emphasized. In 1999, in the song Daddy figure, Kool G Rap inserted notably Armani, Cristal, Martini, Jacuzzi, Bloomingdale’s, Rolex and Moschino into his lyrics. In the original single Stylin in 2002, the rapper Foxy Brown mentions Burberry, Mark Jacob, Planet Hollywood, Frankie B and Bentley, among others.

In addition, various research works have confirmed that even if comprehension of the song lyrics was poor, the simple schematic process used by listeners usually enabled them to orient their behaviour in the direction of the lyrics. Furthermore, in relation to all other musical genres, rap has a particular characteristic in the sense that the attention given to the lyrics is voluntarily heightened by phrasing, wordplay, hidden meanings and the rhythm itself. In 2003, the research agency published the results of a study indicating that 60 percent of respondents considering themselves to be fans of hip-hop were interested in films by their favourite singers and in buying products mentioned in their songs, or for which they were spokespersons in an advertisement. This information is important when we consider that not all placements are necessarily positive. In 2004, ‘High all the time’, from the album Get Rich or Die Tryin’, was telling the always image-conscious 50 Cent that he didn’t need Dom Pérignon, Cristal, Tanqueray or d’Alize, and that he hated being in a Benz, or in other words, a Mercedes [14, p.24].

Nowadays the palette of musical genres is so varied that placement in a song can be an excellent vehicle for reaching a specific target audience. Certain musical niches make it possible in particular to reach certain population segments, notably the youngest, who are sometimes cynical towards the content of traditional advertising messages, especially since many rappers criticize television in the lyrics of their songs. This is what led McDonald’s to appoint the services of a specialist consulting agency in order to research those rappers who might be interested, for a fee, in integrating one of its brands into a song. It anticipated a placement contract that of course came with rights to control the methods of insertion of the brand name. This prudent This prudent approach seems logical for the brand manager.

A placement in a videogame offers additional advantages over the same placement in a film. The player generally pays much closer attention than the viewer. The possibility of control and the concomitant feeling of mastering the environment are greater for players. They must construct a mental map of the game space, as if it were a real space in three dimensions, each constitutive element of which is important. Unlike film, the unfolding of events within the same world may be very different from one round of a game to the next, thereby modifying the player’s interactions with the environment. Finally, the duration of exposure is much longer. Admittedly, a film’s life may be long and may give rise to repeat showings. A videogame, however, also allows this repetition to be concentrated in time. As with cinema, the cost of a placement falls within an extremely broad range, from a few thousand to several million dollars in the case of specific partnerships. Compared with the cinema, the flexibility of insertion methods in a wholly created graphic universe, and the possibilities for verification before the game is mass-produced, are also factors likely to seduce still-hesitant advertisers.

Videogames are increasingly sophisticated, and the production costs are rising sharply – even if production is outsourced, partially or totally, to the Asian corner of the globe – so the cost of producing a single game can today exceed US$20 million [15, p.117]. On the other hand, successful titles that exceed the profitability threshold are rare. On the advertisers’ side, the market for accessible platforms is highly concentrated, since to date only three console manufacturers Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo control almost the entire market. As for games publishers, the market comprises countless small actors and some major names such as Electronic Arts, Infogames-Atari, Ubisoft, Activision, Eidos, Konami and VU Games.

With each new generation of consoles, the graphics become closer to reality. The characters in games inspired by television series such as CSI or 24 resemble the actors of the series in every feature. The same is true for games inspired by films, such as The Godfather by Electronic Arts, The Matrix by Atari and 007: From Russia with Love by Electronic Arts, for example [16, p.29].

The academic research carried out on this subject shows that placements in videogames can be effective, particularly when they target adolescents and young men, that they allow a relatively good memorization of brands placed, and that they can contribute to improving preference for the brand. This is particularly the case when the brand enjoys an intelligent integration, as in the case of the partnership between Activision and Puma, which saw the perfect integration of the brand’s products into the plot of the True Crime series of games.In the same way as for the cinema, considering the attention that the player gives to the action, it is recommended that the placement be prominent. The range of games is now very broad: from educational games for children to war games for adults, via sport, adventure, science fiction, role playing, simulation games, platform games and police thrillers. It has reached the point where the audience constitutes a mass market: on the one hand, because of its volume hundreds of millions of players worldwide, and on the other, because the global turnover that it represents is now larger than that of the cinema. In addition, it is also possible to segment the market and to target a particular, very precise player profile, according to the game in which the product is placed.

Admittedly, as with placements in the cinema, criticism is heard from time to time regarding the possible commercial invasion of games. Too obvious, and above all badly integrated, placements will quickly damage a game’s chances of success. In contrast, those games that set their story in real life would quickly lose their realism if they were free from brands. Nowadays, in an adventure game set in an urban environment in which the streets walked by the hero were innocent of all advertising, we would wonder exactly when and where the action was set. On what planet? A motor race where you could choose neither the exact brand nor the model would lose its charm and authenticity. A sporting encounter without advertising hoardings around the edges of the pitch would be unrealistic. Accessories of everyday life that did not show any brand logo, or only brands that it was impossible to identify, would appear almost bizarre. The characters are increasingly borrowing the appearance and voice of the actors from the feature films on which the games are based, as are the champions for games based on sports. Such realism should be rounded off, like it or not, by the commercial realism that the modern consumer society is acquainted with.