The Null Device

Branded sugar-pop

Meanwhile, in the land of commercial radio, the latest entry to the top-40 charts is a pop group named after a confectionery brand. The fictitious band named Starburst, whose actual performers' identities are concealed, was manufactured by a marketing firm commissioned by confectionery maker Mars. Their song, "Get Your Juices Going", whose lyrics are built around the flavours of Mars's Starburst sweets, was released by Zomba Records (who also released Britney Spears' branded hit "Taste The Victory", free with bottles of Pepsi not that long ago), and is on heavy rotation on "hip", "alternative" new commercial radio station Nova. Is it just a 4-minute ad jingle, or the future of branded pop culture? And what would Naomi Klein say?

(Also, haven't extended versions of ad jingles been released on records before? Was that "It's The Real Thing" Coca-Cola jingle that those DJs sampled recently released to the public; or the German commercial jazz on Popshopping? And I vaguely remember some commercial-techno Coca-Cola jingle being in the suburban Sanity singles racks in the mid-90s.)

There are 1 comments on "Branded sugar-pop":

Posted by: mark
http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/
Tue Sep 17 00:22:56 2002

Dear $deity!

Yeah, Coke did something like that about... oooh, four, five years ago? But wasn't that just taking an existing (non-commercial) song, associating it with a brand, and then offering new versions?

Frankly, I find this new trend to be *monstrous*

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