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Sidebar: Miller's Man Some baby boomers where shocked and offended in the late 1980s when Wieden & Kennedy plucked the Beatles' "Revolution" and used it to sell Nikes. Television historian Sut Jhally called the moment a "watershed" in advertising. "Anything became fair game after that," he said. Co-opting the rebellious rock songs of previous generations has become standard fare for advertisers. In order to grab the attention of today's twentysomethings, however, mining rock songs of the past doesn't always cut it. To establish credibility and befriend its target market, W&K also co-opts today's sounds. For the Miller Genuine Draft campaign, for example, Wieden & Kennedy bought the rights to a lo-fi pop song by Land of the Loops, an obscure band that currently records for an offshoot of Sub Pop records in Seattle. WW talked to the man behind Land of the Loops, Alan Sutherland, about his leap from obscurity (he says his record received limited airplay in Seattle and in Boston, where he knew a DJ) to national television exposure. Sutherland, 28, recorded his last record, Refried Treats, at his home in Boston. WW: How did W&K get in touch with you? Sutherland: I was in Seattle playing the Sub Pop anniversary party. A fax came in. They also called my parents' house asking for the name of my publishing company. My parents almost hung up on them because [my parents] didn't know what [Wieden & Kennedy] was talking about. Wieden & Kennedy was under this big deadline. They needed an answer in four days. I asked them to send me a tape of the commercial, so I could see it. It was all these Gen-Xers sitting around. I was like, "Oh brother, this is so obvious." I was like, "Oh my God, I'm not gonna do this," but everyone was like, "You gotta do this. You should do it just to get free beer." Anyway, I was told by the lawyers at Sub Pop that I could stand to make a lot of money. They said it was a unique opportunity. Well? They had to pay me a writer's fee and a licensing fee to Sub Pop. It was pretty good. A friend of mine, who originally recorded the song for me--I was able to give him some money so he could quit his job making burritos and run his studio full time. The clinching thing [for doing the ads] was finding out the other people who were doing the ads. There's Eartha Kitt and another respected guy who does what he wants in the industry. If those people can sell out, so can I. What is the song about? Does it have anything to do with beer? It's called "Multi Family Garage Sale." It's about ending a relationship. Getting out of a relationship, you know, in a breakup when one person is psyched and the other person is miserable. Do you drink Miller? I do now. People buy me Miller. It's a running joke. I'm the "Miller Man." --JF Corporate America spends $150 billion a year on advertising--twice what it did in 1986. "No one ad is so bad," clinical psychologist and author Mary Pipher recently told Business Week in a cover story on advertising. "But the combination of 400 ads a day creates...a combination of narcissism, entitlement and dissatisfaction." Portland's Waterfront Blues Festival during the July 4 weekend was sponsored by Miller Genuine Draft this year. Wieden & Kennedy's MGD ads stood in as backdrop for the performers.
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