Bands Featured in Commercials

**Lopez** · 10-12-2017

I was recently listening to a compilation of 60s psych bands. There were some commercials interspersed, such as the Moody Blues doing a Coke commercial and the Royal Guardsmen doing one for the Army. I believe there are several CDs out there of Coke commercials done by a number of groups such as Jan & Dean and others.

I remember the Yardbirds did a commercial for a product called Great Shakes (it was awful; the commercial and the milkshake). A local dry cleaner in Providence for a couple years had a huge picture in their window of the Jimmy Page–era Yardbirds, the one in which they are all wearing furs, advertising their fur storage. A friend of mine tried to get them to give it him. No luck.

Any other instances of bands hawking merchandise (other than their own albums)?

**JJ88** · 10-12-2017

There's a 'Stones one from very early on in their career (1963/4). I don't remember what it's for though...the lyrics are about getting up in the morning and doing something or other!

David Bowie did one for something called 'Luv' ice cream.

Cream did a commercial for Falstaff beer. I always say this is one of the best examples of Jack Bruce's brilliance as a singer- he even manages to lend gravitas to that!

The Carpenters did a few- something with a 'it's a whole new bag' hook and some Japanese ones for something called Suntory Pop. (As an aside, the song 'We've Only Just Begun' was discovered by Richard after seeing its use in a bank TV commercial!)

**mogrooves** · 10-12-2017

Yeah, I remember those Great Shakes commercials. JA did a commercial for Levi's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1VR-QnIw3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKnS4HSZJjU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiTyqYRE2vU

**JJ88** · 10-12-2017

^The last is the 'Stones one I mentioned- Rice Krispies!

There's a 'Happy Jack' jingle for BBC Radio 1. I seem to remember 'Little Billy' was written for some similar kind of anti-smoking venture as well but I don't know whether it was used.

**Mister Triscuits** · 10-12-2017

In-A-Gadda-De-Odorant, baby!

ETA: I didn't know about that H.P. Lovecraft one that mogrooves linked to. Man, that Ban must be some psychedelic deodorant!

**Dave (in MA)** · 10-12-2017

IIRC it was in the box set that I have.

**JKL2000** · 10-12-2017

Of course there's this:

**Dave (in MA)** · 10-12-2017

In 1990, closer to the 60s than it is to now (shudder),

http://web.archive.org/web/200511050...udweiserad.mp3

**Dave (in MA)** · 10-12-2017

**JKL2000** · 10-12-2017

Is this for real?

**JKL2000** · 10-12-2017

**JKL2000** · 10-12-2017

80s Genesis and Michelob - perfect together!

**GuitarGeek** · 10-12-2017

Originally Posted by JKL2000

80s Genesis and Michelob - perfect together!

Michelob also had one with Steve Winwood and one with Eric Clapton (which was weird because Eric had finally quit drinking around the time he did that ad).

I believe The Who did several commercials around the time of The Who Sell Out, but whether any were used in actual adverts, I'm not sure. There was one for Coke, one for Jaguar cars, and on The Who Sell Out, the intro to I Can See For Miles is effectively an ad for Rotosound Strings.

I always heard there was a Coke commercial with Yes in it, but I've also heard it's just Jon Anderson.

Of course, there's been tons of TV ads using well known songs. I stll say the two best ones were for Jag-Ooh-Arrg, and HP.

The Jag ad used I'm In Love With My Car by Queen. In the first place, it's absolutely the right song to use in a car commercial, because, well, that's what the damn song is about! So it's the perfect melding of music and ad copy. Secondly, it's a relatively obscure song, not one of their famous hits, and it's sung by Roger Taylor, so to a lot of people, it might not even be recognizable as Queen.

The HP ad I remember was from about 10 or 12 years ago, and you kinda have to see it understand it. They string together all these shots of kids, apparently learning their first song. You hear each kid play one chord (or in the case of a bassist, one note), out of tune, and they sound very tentative, etc, before it switches to the next kid playing the next chord, and so. But as it develops, you start to realize, they're are all playing Smoke On The Water! After this goes for long enough for you to recognize the riff, it's explained that Fender uses "HP technology" to put guitars in the hands of young people!

Again, perfect mix of message and music, because what you hear in that ad, is what's really like when you're playing the guitar for the first time. You're trying to play a cool song, but your fingers are sore, the guitar is out of tune (and you don't yet know how to tune it), everythign sounds all wrong, and you're not even good enough to be able to change chords quickly. But it still sounds cool.

As a side note, I read an interview with John Fogerty where he talked about a jeans commercial that used Fortunate Son. Yes, his angry frell you letter to all the rat bastard politicians and other "VIP's" who pulled strings to keep their sons from serving in Vietnam was used being used to sell clothes, which needless to say he was upset about. So apparently, he complained about this in one interview, and the guy who ran whichever clothing company it was apparently read or heard the complaint, and ordered the ads pulled, because he felt for John not having control over this songs and the fact that he obviously never intended a song like Fortunate Son to be heard in that fashion.

Lately, there's been a lot of ads using Devo songs (re-recorded by Mark Mothersbaugh, apparently to the annoyance of Jerry Casale, from what I gather). There was that Swiffer ad that used Whip It, there was a couple ads using Freedom Of Choice and Beautiful World (I think both used by Target, but I can't remember). Every time I saw one of those ads, I kept thinking, "You guys don't actually know what that song was originally about, do you?". I dunno, it comes off as stupid, but maybe it illustrates another aspect of devolution, that mainstream society is co-opting songs that original ridiculed mainstream society.

**Lopez** · 10-13-2017

Originally Posted by mogrooves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKnS4HSZJjU

Wow. I love that H.P. Lovecraft Ban ad. Did they actually show that naked chick with the dry pits? Someone must have tacked that on to the end of the commercial later on.

**Mister Triscuits** · 10-13-2017

Originally Posted by Lopez

Wow. I love that H.P. Lovecraft Ban ad. Did they actually show that naked chick with the dry pits? Someone must have tacked that on to the end of the commercial later on.

The Ban commercials were for radio--the visuals were added by whoever put them on YouTube.