Advertising in Music Videos

Music videos constantly advertise different things in their content. Most of this being done on the side of the actual video, instead of making the music video an actual advert for the item, they implement it subtly. This applies for almost anything, it depends on the music genre, but in things like hip hop, cars are advertised. This is called product placement.

A particular artist that has a large amount of product placement in their music videos is Britney Spears, specifically the songs Work Bitch and Hold it against me. In Hold it against me, there is an extensive use of Sony products, in almost every shot, also the video has Make up Forever as a product that it is advertising.


As you can see in the images there are several uses of product placement for advertisement to the audience. Britney Spears got a total of roughly £500,000 for implementing these products into her videos. Which is a rather substantial amount for a music video.


Another way of advertising within a music video is called synergy, this is where two areas of media work together. This can relate to a music star releasing a music video which feature scenes from a Hollywood movie. This helps to promote the film but also the artist as their song will feature in the film and probably the trailer which a wider number of people will see. An example of this is from Paramore, and their song 'Decode'. It was the lead track from the Twilight New Moon soundtrack. This synergy enabled Paramore to reach a very wide audience which is made up of teenage girls around the world. It also cements their image as alternative, moody, and visually interesting. The officially video on YouTube gained 77 million views, the most they have received on any of their videos.

A major label strategy is another way in which artists advertise their music. VEVO have a partnership with Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group. They host music videos of YouTube and use adverts at the start of each video to produce revenue. This is good for music companies as it allows them to regulate the online distribution of their music videos and make money from it.