If you’ve been bombarded with bed brands’ ill-matched music tracks for their ads since Christmas, flummoxed why furniture brands fail to align brand values to a track, tired of travel companies using tracks that should remain firmly in the shade, then perhaps you’ll share my reason for penning this piece.

When time, effort and money has been spent on setting out your stall, strategically, creatively and visually with some decent production values, why do some brands seemingly treat music as a throw-away line?

The execution of music is every bit as important and should be as skilfully matched as your media planning, as if you were engaging in a sponsorship programme, or indeed any business partnership, if it is to prove effective. In short, there should be a strong brand-fit, with all elements aligned.

But then, when some music licence owners seem to want to take the money and run, not giving a fig as to the impact on the originator’s product and reputation, who can blame some brands from wanting the halo effect that a big bands’s name might bring. Though when it’s a cheesy as ‘Another one bites the dust’ for the Dacia Duster, when there is already out there yet another Queen track, ‘It’s a kind of magic’ for Furniture Village and it’s likely other tracks are also employed, I’m not altogether sure what positives either brand or music owner gain.

Of course, one can go too far in throwing money at the music. I’m reminded of a global campaign I worked on for Tefal some years back now, where to my delight our French agency colleagues decided to employ a hero of mine, Hamish Stuart of Average White Band fame to compose the music and flew both agency and client teams over to London to see the multi-talented musician at work. I got front table tickets for his weekend gig at the 606 Club, which impressed a girlfriend at that time, I’m not sure what anyone else got out of it!