The best thing I read this week: Taco Bells new sound

After reading about Songtradr's acquisition of the independent music website Bandcamp, I was enticed to follow a hyperlink to a Songtradr article which discussed a change in the music used by Taco Bell in its advertisements.

The article, by Nick Fulton, notes that Taco Bell has conducted a notable shift from its former laidback electro-pop sound, to embracing heavier, more energetic rock music. Not only does the article outline the details and timeline of this shift, but it provides direct examples in the comments.

Of course Songtradr has a vested interest in pointing out the efficacy of music used in advertisements, being a music licensing company, but the examples were direct nonetheless. It also hyperlinked to a couple Taco Bell ads on YouTube, which immediately paint a picture of what Taco Bell is trying to accomplish.

This shift in music used in their ads was not something I had noticed, and I consider myself a Taco Bell mega-fan. But now I feel like I will be more conscious of the music they use in their ads, and see if their sound shifts again in the future. I also think I will be more conscious of the music choices used in ads to begin with.

I often forget that advertisements by major companies often use popular, artistically relevant artists and that it's not always vapid mass-produced corporate music. For instance, one song Taco Bell used recently is "Holiday" by the punk band Turnstile. This is a song and a band that I really enjoy, and I never would've expected them to end up in a Taco Bell ad, but they did.

Another interesting aspect of the article was the sheer amount of data brought to the table. It contains demographic information, charts analyzing the songs qualities, and shazam line graphs indicating spikes when these songs were used by Taco Bell.

They also reference scientific data showing that rock music increases alertness, which the author claims helps with brand memorability.

Again, Songtradr isn't that sneaky when inserting graphs showing how licensing music for use in advertisements helps the brand, but the Shazam data was pretty undeniable.

This was a topic which I wouldn't necessarily think would be interesting, but I had a lot of fun reading it.