It Can Be a Powerful Brand Attribute — If You Don’t Slip Into Cliched Playlists
Music has always played an important role in my life. My father lost his own father at an early age and supported himself and his mother by playing violin and sax for an orchestra back in Romania. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps and imposed violin lessons on me at age 6. It wasn’t the hippest instrument a young boy could think of, and at 12 I finally had the guts to rebel and quit my lessons. Little did I know that my old man (who was initially opposed to my pursuing advertising) had given me the basis for an important component of my work, and that my early musical education would come in handy on more than one occasion.
A lot has been said about the role music can play in Hispanic advertising, more so than even in the general market (whatever that term means these days). We can say music is one of the clichés of our industry. It wasn’t long ago that it was mistakenly considered to be the central idea — as opposed to an executional component — when it came to reaching Hispanics in the U.S. I remember when I first moved to Miami back in 1993 and I saw a commercial for a bank in which all the cashiers were dancing salsa. I remember asking myself, “Would I really want to deposit my money here?”
Read the entire article at Ad Age.