In an attempt to leave no advertising dollar left uncollected, Universal Music Group has partnered with ad agencyHavas and ad tech companyMirriad to"feature digital brand integrations in select music videos." What does that mean? They're putting ads in music videos.
Corporations and retailers have been profiting from product placement in music videos for years now with some songs like "Pass the Courvoisier" serving no other purpose but to celebrate a brand. What makes this venture different is that Universal Music Group is going to place those ads retroactively, digitally inserting advertising into previously released music videos.
Mirriad's technology allows for the ads to not only be placed into music videos but to be removed after a pre-determined period of time and replaced with another ad.
Levi's is one of the first brands to take advantage of this new technology with an ad for the Levi's brand appearing as a billboard in the video for Aloe Blacc's 2013 song, "The Man."
Universal Music Group runsVEVOwhich offers over 100,000 official videos and live concert events. As of this writing, videos on VEVO's YouTube channel have accrued over 200 billion views.
