Advertising in Song Lyrics?

This thought of advertising in song lyrics hit me this morning when Fabolous's "You Be Killin' 'Em" came on the radio. What caught my attention was right in the first verse, he raps about her Louis Vuitton shoes causing "shoe-icide" and "iPhone 4 Face Time." Looking up the rest of the lyrics, he also raps about having a donkey with Juan Valdez (yeah, I googled that one), playing green as long as Paul Pierce (Boston Celtics player since 1998- yes I googled that too), wearing Timbos (Timberland boots) and rocking a "BBM Pose," which according to Urban Dictionary is "Usually a sexy mirror photo, stomach photos, thongs , big boootayyyss! Most people default it for there BBM." (BBM = BlackBerry Messenger.)

There are 6 brands mentioned in this one song: Louis Vuitton, iPhone 4, Juan Valdez/Columbian Coffee, Paul Pierce/Boston Celtics, Timberland, and BlackBerry.

And what does this have to do with food? Well, it reminded me of something I read in "Chew on This," that in March 2005 McDonald's offered to pay rappers for mentioning "Big Mac" in their songs. Research I've been able to do shows that McDonald's was in talks with a Massachusetts marketing firm recruiting rappers to "do what they do best" and let them "creatively bring to life the product in their song." The rappers would get anywhere from $1 to $5 every time the song is played on regular or satellite radio. McDonald's seemed to think this was the solution to "culturally relevant" advertising at the same time they started promoting salads as healthy alternatives. Fortunately, eight months after the March announcement, bad press and public outcry caused McDonald's to stall their plans because, they say, they couldn't find suitable lyrics.

So while rappers aren't rapping about Big Macs, they're providing lots of other "hidden" advertising for products starting with Adidas, with a song by Run-DMC called "My Adidas," in 1986. Although originally the song was just about their favorite shoes, Adidas saw it was a golden opportunity and made a deal with the band for around $1.5million to promote Adidas. Since then it's become kind of the norm to advertise in songs or videos. I'm not sure why I didn't see it sooner.