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In 2002, Wired magazine cultural guru Kevin Kelly boldly forecast that "the most popular band in the world (will) produce very good 'jingles,' just as some of the best directors today produce only very good commercials."

He was right -- can you say U2/Apple iPod, Jay-Z/Bud Select and Rihanna/CoverGirl?

Kelly wasn't the first to consider connections between advertising and music, of course. In 1989, cognitive music expert David Huron, a professor at Ohio State, clarified music's brand potency: "It is one of the peculiarities of human audition and cognition that music tends to linger in the listener's mind. Despite the largely visual orientation of human beings, photographs and visual images do not infect human consciousness to the same extent that melodies do."

For years and years, advertisers relied on the jingle to service this reasonably scientific tenet to great effect: "Plop Plop, Fizz, Fizz," "Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat," "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner." The creators of the jingle were proficient sonic persuaders, adulators of the hook, master "mnemonicists," sonic signatories and dedicated disciples of Pavlov.

Huron's research also showed that "listeners are sometimes known to display evasive behavior in an effort to prevent being seeded by a melody they know will persist mentally long after the actual sound disappears" -- begging the question to the brands: Did you have to let it linger?

Advertisers came to understand this point, taking a lesson from cool films. Forty years ago, "Easy Rider," followed by a string of Martin Scorsese flicks, used the emotion and associative power of familiar rock songs to resonate with young audiences. With the rise of cable TV, videogaming and the Web, advertisers learned they could also bust through the clutter and competition, and connect with their target audience with familiar songs. A licensing frenzy ensued.

At first it was big blockbuster songs, then it was little teenie-weenie ones -- indie artists found an outlet for their music and thus, a chance to pay some bills. Soon TV shows embraced the licensing world, and the music supervisor -- a.k.a. the purveyor of the playlist, the idolater of iTunes, the search engine-ear -- became a real player in the music industry and a practitioner of what some have called the new A&R.

The brands became cool(er), selling out became selling in, brand alliance companies popped up out of nowhere, record companies became "media" companies.

This past year alone, the perception of the brand in the musical equation has stuck a chord with consumers akimbo: the Eagles/Wal-Mart, Starbucks/Paul McCartney, Rihanna/CoverGirl, Apple/Feist, Disney/Disney, "American Idol"/"American Idol," Bob Dylan/Cadillac, John Mellencamp/Chevy, etc., etc., etc.

Last year, a marketing agency commissioned KRS-One, Nas and Kanye West to record a song, the Rick Rubin-produced "Better Than I've Ever Been," to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Air Force One sneaker. It has become what is most likely the first branded tune to be nominated for a Grammy Award.

Music in advertising, in some ways, has now come full circle back to the jingle -- but one created by a superstar musician.

Historically, the worlds of branding and advertising have been the underwriters of much of pop culture. In 2008 and beyond, much of pop culture, especially music, may begin to underwrite and rewrite the path of advertising and branding, changing the dynamics of that equation from subsidizer to the subsidized.

(Josh Rabinowitz is senior VP/director of music at ad agency Grey Group and an adjunct professor at NYU's Steinhardt School of Music and Performing Arts Professions.)

Reuters/Billboard