Products Placed: How Companies Pay Artists to Include Brands in Lyrics

Songs that refer to products and brands have been with us for years, from Simon and Garfunkel singing "Mama don't take my Kodachrome away" to Janis Joplin's plea for a new car in "Mercedes Benz" and beyond. Conscious of the branding value such mentions can bring, some artists have gone so far as to approach companies with offers to include brand and product names in their song lyrics.

A e-mail from the Kluger Agency, which performs such product placements, mistakenly sent to Jeff Crouse of the Anti-Advertising Agency and Double Happiness Jeans, provides a rare glimpse into the secretive market for song lyric product placement.

"I'm writing because we feel you may be a good company to participate in a brand integration campaign within the actual lyrics of one of the worlds most famous recording artists upcoming song/album," begins the opening e-mail in the eventual salvo between the two.

Yes, you read that right: things have gotten so weird in the music business that high-profile acts are inserting ads into their song lyrics. The next time you hear a brand mentioned in a song, it could be due to a paid product placement. And unlike magazines, songs are not required to point out which words are part of an advertisement.

In the e-mail, Kluger (who has represented Mariah Carey, New Kids on the Blog, Ne-Yo, Fall Out Boy, Method Man, Lady GaGa and Ludacris) explained via e-mail that for the right price, Double Happiness Jeans could find its way into the lyrics in an upcoming Pussycat Dolls song. Crouse posted the e-mail on his blog at the Anti-Advertising Agency, an art project of sorts that's basically the philosophical mirror image of a traditional ad agency.

The thing is, Double Happiness Jeans is not your everyday brand -- it's a virtual sweatshop organized by EyeBeam for a display at the Sundance Festival, which involves paying Second Life citizens 90 cents an hour to make real, customized jeans designed in the virtual factory. Crouse and Steve Lambert, his partner at the Anti-Advertising Agency, are probably the last people on earth who Kluger would want to receive this e-mail. Both men spend a fair amount of their time questioning, undermining and criticizing the pervasiveness of materialism and advertising in our culture.

"It was hilarious," Lambert told us via telephone, "that he wanted to put Jeff's fake Second Life sweatshop company in a pop song. It's this desperation that advertising has come to because you can't just tell people about your product anymore, because nobody cares. Advertisers have created this situation where they've made themselves obsolete. There's too much advertising out there, so they try to find new ways to cut through the clutter that they've created. And this is one of those ways."

Soon after Crouse posted Kluger's e-mail and his own response on the blog, a commenter wrote, "Either a spammer/con-artist is using the name... or (they are) really bad at marketing themselves." Kluger asked Lambert and Crouse via e-mail and telephone a number of times to remove the post and comment. "Will you please remove the post on your blog? Now a new comment was made basically calling us 'morons,'" he wrote in one of the requests. "When I google the blog or my name, the tag line is 'spammer/con-artist' using the name Adam Kluger PR. Obviously, this is not good for business, and more importantly, I'm quite embarrassed."

UPDATE: (A representative from Adam Kluger PR contacted wired.com to say that agency was not involved in this issue in any way).

Never mind that it was he who first approached them via unsolicited e-mail by using a scraper program that identified them as potential clients for his product placement service. Or that the words he objected to were in readers' comments, not in the original post. Kluger doesn't like the comments and wants them removed from the internet.

The Anti-Advertising Agency declined and has already drawn some attention to the practice of selling space in lyrics to advertisers through its blog. "Maybe Ludacris wants to rap about a luxury SUV, and is just looking for the right one," said Lambert. "We'll never know (everything about) how it works, because that takes the mystique out of it, and the mystique is one of the things that they can sell." But thanks to this e-mail, we at least have proof that the phenomenon is real.

For his part, Kluger claims that product placement can be done in such a way that artistic integrity is not affected. "We are just financially taking care of the people that should be taken care of," he told us via e-mail. "If an artist like Sheryl Crow has the same target audience as XZY brand, we feel it's nothing but a strong and strategic way to pinpoint a market.

"Now, we don't want an artist to write a song specifically to promote a brand, we just feel that if it's a product that's admired by the artist and fits his/her image, we now have the capability of leveling out the playing field and making things financially beneficial for all parties involved. 'Brand-Dropping' is the term that the Kluger Agency coined to describe discreetly advertising by product mentioning in song, and we feel we can make this the way of the future without jeopardizing any artists creative outlet or typical style."

Whether because the Anti-Advertising Agency exposed the practice of product placement in lyrics, because Kluger doesn't like being called a moron on the blog's comments section, or both, he says he's going to sue.

In an e-mail sent to Lambert, he wrote, "$5500 is what it's going to cost me to have an attorney stick you with a $150,000 judgment for the next 20 years. We've consulted with two different firms. This was written with the intent to hurt our business and we will win, period... We will go after Steve Lambert, AntiAdvertisingAgency.com, and Budget Gallery (where Lambert sells his art). Since you are intentionally damaging our California-based agency, you will have the opportunity to defend yourself in the state of California. If you think I'm bluffing, that's fine with me."

Lambert remains unconvinced. "I really don't think there's any way he can win," he told us."I have every right to have that there... Jeff's commentary doesn't say anything about this guy's company, it's just funny. And bloggers aren't responsible for people who write comments -- it would be like holding the New York Times accountable for every letter to the editor ever sent them."

Kluger's angry, litigious reaction to his offer being posted indicates that he knows he's doing something a bit shady. Bands like The Pussycat Dolls don't have much integrity to lose, but we were still sort of surprised to find that they sell elements of their songs to the highest bidder.

What's next, a song called "My Family And I Enjoy McDonalds-Brand Food Products"? A band called "Exxon/Mobil Greatly Benefits All Aspects of The Glorious Environment"?

I appreciate that artists need to embrace a variety of revenue opportunities to make it today, but selling song lyrics seems to go over the line -- assuming there's still such a thing as selling out.

Stephen Chow IS Kato And Helms The Green Hornet

Stephen Chow, one of Asia's most popular box-office draws as the award-winning star and director of such films as Kung Fu Hustle, CJ7, and Shaolin Soccer, will direct Seth Rogen and star opposite him as Kato in Columbia Pictures' The Green Hornet, set for release June 25, 2010, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures. The screenplay is by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, who will also executive produce. Neal H. Moritz is the producer through his Original Film production company.

In tapping Chow to helm The Green Hornet, Sony Pictures Entertainment continues a long association with the star and director. Under its local language initiative, Sony co-produced and released Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, which went on to gross over $100 million worldwide and received a Golden Globe(R) nomination as well as six Hong Kong Film Awards and five Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. Sony also released CJ7.

Commenting on the announcement, Tolmach said, "When Seth, Evan, and Neal said they wanted Stephen Chow to be part of The Green Hornet, it was a fantasy. Now that it's happening, it's almost too good to be true. Stephen's been a very important part of the Sony family for many years, so it's truly serendipitous for us to be moving forward with him directing the movie and starring as Kato."

Chow added, "I'm excited to be taking on The Green Hornet -- obviously, I've been a huge fan of the show since I was a kid. The idea of stepping into Bruce Lee's shoes as Kato is both humbling and thrilling, and to get the chance to direct the project as my American movie debut is simply a dream come true. I'm grateful to my friends at Sony, who have shown so much faith in me for so many years. I'm looking forward to working with Seth, Evan, Neal, and the team at Sony, and I'm eager to get started."

Moritz said, "The Green Hornet is a dream project and it's come together in a dream way. Seth will be fantastic in the lead role, and Stephen was the only name on the list for Kato. The material is a perfect match for his sensibilities -- Stephen in the director's chair is the best thing for the film."

Rogen said, "Stephen was always my and Evan's first choice for director and to play Kato. We just hope that he never finds out we're not the Wachowski Brothers."

Stephen Chow, Asia's number one comedy star and one of the region's most beloved entertainers, has directed five feature films, most recently CJ7.

His previous feature Kung Fu Hustle was the third highest grossing film in Hong Kong history after Titanic and Jurassic Park. Chow made his directorial debut with God of Cookery in 1996, followed by King of Comedy in 1999, both of which he also wrote and starred in. In 2001 Chow directed, wrote, and starred in Shaolin Soccer, the fourth-highest grossing film of all time at the Hong Kong box office, which also broke box office records across Asia. Shaolin Soccer went on to win seven major awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Sound Design and Best Visual Effects.

A native of Hong Kong, Stephen Chow was one of three children in what he describes as a "very poor family." He grew up as a Bruce Lee fan and a martial arts fanatic, but he remembers that as a child his own kung fu training had to stop after six weeks when his family could no longer afford lessons. Chow started his entertainment career as the host of a TV children's show, "430 Space Shuttle." He quickly made a name for himself with his witty style, but it was not until 1988 that he began acting in films.

In 1989, in the movie Final Justice, he played a supporting role, which won him the best supporting actor award at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards and established him in the Hong Kong film world. The key turning point in his career came only a year later, when he had his first starring role in the 1990 Chow Yun-Fat spoof All for the Winner. In this movie, Chow's unique and hilarious onscreen persona -- playing his first in a series of lovable underdogs -- made him an overnight sensation in Hong Kong and throughout Asia. Asian film observers also say that in that film Chow gave birth to the "Mo Lei Tau" ("nonsense") comedy style, now considered a fully established genre of Hong Kong comedy.

Since All for the Winner, Chow has gradually but firmly established himself as Hong Kong's comedy king. Among his 50 some movies, Justice My Foot won him the best actor award at the 1992 Asian Pacific Film Awards, and A Chinese Odyssey won him the best actor award at the 1996 Hong Kong Critics Society Awards as well as at the Hong Kong Golden Bauhinia Film Awards.

Stephen Chow's Star Overseas recently formed a new multi-feature collaboration with Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, under which Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute the features produced by Star Overseas worldwide.

Ori Marmur will serve as the Executive Producer of the film.

Alan Moore on 'Watchmen' movie: 'I will be spitting venom all over it'

For the record, Alan Moore has not softened his view on Hollywood nor its plan to bring his classic graphic novel "Watchmen" to the screen next March.

"I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying," Moore told me during an hour-long phone call from his home in England. "It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change."

Moore is often described as a recluse but, really, I think it's more precise to say he is simply too busy at his writing desk. "Yes, perhaps I should get out more," he said with a chuckle. In conversation, the 54-year-old iconoclast is everything his longtime readers would expect -- articulate, witty, obstinate and selectively enigmatic. Far from grouchy, he only gets an edge in his voice when he talks about the effect of Hollywood on the comics medium that he so memorably energized in the 1980s with "Saga of the Swamp Thing," "V for Vendetta," "Marvelman" and, of course, "Watchmen," his 1986 masterpiece. The Warner Bros. film version of "Watchmen" is due in theaters in March although the project has encountered some turbulence with a lawsuit filed by 20th Century Fox over who has the rights to the property. Moore has no intention of seeing the film and, in fact, he hints that he has put a magical curse on the entire endeavor.

"Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic. Perhaps it's been cursed from afar, from England. And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."

Moore said all that with more mischievous glee than true malice, but I know it will still pain "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder when he reads it. The director of "300" absolutely adores the work of Moore and has been laboring intensely to bring "Watchmen" to the screen with faithful sophistication. But I don't think there's any way to win Moore over, he simply detests Hollywood. Moore said he has never watched any of the film adaptations of his comics creations (which have included "V for Vendetta," "From Hell," "Constantine" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") and that he believes "Watchmen" is "inherently unfilmable." He also rues the effect of Hollywood's siren call on the contemporary comics scene.

"There are three or four companies now that exist for the sole purpose of creating not comics, but storyboards for films. It may be true that the only reason the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise. Comics are just a sort of pumpkin patch growing franchises that might be profitable for the ailing movie industry."

There is one film that Moore is supporting right now. It's the new DVD release entitled "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" and it's an artfully executed documentary that is built entirely around Moore sitting in his somewhat spooky living room and ruminating about art, storytelling, magic and culture. The movie was made by Dez Vylenz, who was still a student at the London International Film School when he sent Moore a letter expressing interest in creating a documentary film on the writer as his senior project.

That project went well and, several years ago, the filmmaker and the author decided to do it again for a film that would be released to the public. Vylenz has intercut images and used visual effects that give the film a psychedelic swirl and shamanistic textures (it reminded me a bit of the sensibilities of a Godfrey Reggio film, such as "Koyaanisqatsi," but on a far, far smaller scale production-wise).

"It was very enjoyable to sit there in a chair and talking and talking and talking because, as anyone who knows me for even an hour will tell you, that is my second nature. The idea of it -- just me talking -- sounded incredibly boring to me but Dez Vylenz is very talented and if there is anything about the film that is not a success, I would blame the flaws of its central character." The film was made in 2003 but is just now reaching stores, with a Sept. 30 on-sale date as a two-disc DVD from Shadowsnake Films.

In the film, Moore makes it clear that he believes magic and storytelling are clearly linked and that, upon closer examination, the definitions of what is real and what is imagined are far more slippery than generally considered. This documentary is not the compelling success that "Crumb" was but, like that 1994 film by Terry Zwigoff, this one will leave casual viewers with the impression that some of the more peculiar geniuses of our day tend to gravitate to comics.

Moore sometimes wears metallic talons, describes himself as an anarchist and, in the past, has told interviewers that he worships an ancient Roman snake god. But what's really unusual about him is that he seems to be the very last creator in comics who would hang up on Hollywood anytime it calls.

"I got into comics because I thought it was a good and useful medium that had not been explored to its fullest potential," Moore told me.

He went on to explain that it was the late Will Eisner who brought a cinematic approach to comics in the 1940s after watching "Citizen Kane" dozens of times and transferring its visual style and approach to transitions to the pages of "The Spirit." "As much as I admire Eisner, I think maintaining that approach in recent history has done more harm than good. If you approach comics as a poor relation to film, you are left with a movie that does not move, has no soundtrack and lacks the benefit of having a recognizable movie star in the lead role."

Moore said that with "Watchmen," he told the epic tale of a large number of characters over decades of history with "a range of techniques" that cannot be translated to the movie screen, among them the "book within a book" technique, which took readers through a second, interior story as well as documents and the writings of characters. He also said he was offended by the amount of money and resources that go into the Hollywood projects. "They take an idea, bowdlerize it, blow it up, make it infantile and spend $100 million to give people a brief escape from their boring and often demeaning lives at work. It's obscene and it's offensive. This is not the culture I signed up for. I'm sure I sound like Bobby Fischer talking about chess "

Moore said he is now working on new installments in his marvelous comics series "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," which is far more nuanced and daring than the forgettable film of the same title. The new stories take the narrative to the moon where there is a war underway between the giant insects (inspired by the H.G. Wells 1901 book "The First Men in the Moon") and nude lunar amazons. "The idea, it pretty much sells itself, doesn't it?"

He is also at work on a massive, 750,000-word novel. "It's the grown-up kind, with no pictures at all," he said. "Although modern binding technology may be overwhelmed by the size of it. It's a huge mad fantasy called 'Jerusalem.' "

The story is partially a history of his native Northampton that dates back to its Saxon settlement days in AD 700, but it is also a "demented children's story" that features Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Cromwell and "an explanation of the afterlife that conforms to all known laws of physics."

There's also a huge sort of reference book of magic that he is toiling on with contributions from notable artists and writing peers. It delves into Kabbalah, astral projection, seance, tarot, practical applications of magic and deep research into the origins of magic history, such as the true beginnings of the Faust tales. Talking about the book, the skeptical shaman of comics sounded positively giddy, especially for a parchment wizard trapped in a crass digital age.

"Magic is a state of mind. It is often portrayed as very black and gothic and that is because certain practitioners played that up for a sense of power and prestige. That is a disservice. Magic is very colorful. Of this, I am sure."

-- Geoff Boucher

Photo of Alan Moore, circa 2001, in Northampton, England, shot by Graham Barclay for the Los Angeles Times.

Images from "Watchmen" courtesy of Warner Bros.

Cover image from "The Mindscape of Alan Moore," courtesy of Shadowsnake Films.

Artwork of Rorschach from "Watchmen" graphic novel, drawn by Dave Gibbons, courtesy of DC Comics.

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