15 seconds of music for commercial...how much?

nepotist · Post by **nepotist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:45 pm

I have a chance to possibly write a 15 sec sting for a commercial, just a small regional spot..very small time. Right now they seem to have a stock track in there that no one likes. I have done some TV show stuff but never a commercial so I really have no idea how much I should charge? I imagine it depends if they would own the track in the end or not, but if anyone could give me a ballpark or some advice that would be gr8 thnx!

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:56 pm

charge as much as u can from the greedy bastards and say stuff like 'this part of my track will make them always think of the product' etc..

nepotist · Post by **nepotist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:57 pm

haha yeah but here is my issue, as I haven't done much commercial stuff I want it for my reel, however they could decide to say fuck it we'll just use the stock. So i don't want to price myself out, you know?

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:00 pm

nepotist wrote:haha yeah but here is my issue, as I haven't done much commercial stuff I want it for my reel, however they could decide to say fuck it we'll just use the stock. So i don't want to price myself out, you know?

call the station

find out how much it costs to put the commercial on air

ask the client how many times they're planning on running the commercial

then u can get an idea of what kind of money they're made of

i've seen music for commercial (TVC) sell for about $4000USD for a 30 second spot from a random producer..

what is the commercial for?

nepotist · Post by **nepotist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:03 pm

furniture. I'm thinking maybe i'll just charge them a small fee and then I'd get the royalties right? It works the same as TV shows with cue sheets and all that? Excuse my ignorance but this part is kind of new. The station is known for running cheesy shit so my friend is trying to get my track on the commercial to give it a bit more chilled out cool vibe, as opposed to some horns and stuff they have on there now.

see the light · Post by **see the light** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:15 pm

It would help to know how long the TV campaign is running, rough marketing/advertising budget (and whether your built into this budget), amount of people watching the station, station demographics, etc

Come up a with a fee relative to what it will cost you i.e cross charge any real studio costs for the mastering of the track, etc. Nothing wrong with producing a very basic contract for them to sign entitling you to own all rights to the song and specify it can only be used for the TV commercial

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:19 pm

nepotist wrote:furniture. I'm thinking maybe i'll just charge them a small fee and then I'd get the royalties right? It works the same as TV shows with cue sheets and all that? Excuse my ignorance but this part is kind of new. The station is known for running cheesy shit so my friend is trying to get my track on the commercial to give it a bit more chilled out cool vibe, as opposed to some horns and stuff they have on there now.

ask them for the price u want and a desk

im not sure about the royalties side of things.. if the music is more like a jingle i think it becomes a "synchronization" license.. which is worth more because your music becomes intrensic.. to the branding... you could have two options:

1) sell it as royalty free and sell them the concept that they wont have to pay u for ongoing use

2) go for the royalties and get a low price and a nice quote from the managing director of the company saying how your music helped differentiate them from the competition and stand out and use that to get urself more work..

nepotist · Post by **nepotist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:20 pm

yeah good idea, I'll look into that info, thanks!

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:22 pm

You're likely only going to get any royalties if you're part of the musicians guild, and registered at that. I'd say for what you're talking about, $150-200 is fair, though it depends on how small a regional commercial you're talking about too. I did some commercial work back in the days and 15 seconds of larger metro region was paying about $300-500. Mind you that's for a larger area wide store chain, or franchise, not some small mom and pop store. Usually you only discuss points on the national campaigns, the rest are on spec and are cash on delivery.

nepotist · Post by **nepotist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:27 pm

yeah it's really small so 150-200 was what i was thinking too because they could just grab something off a buyout cd, which is probably what they normally do. thanks everyone for the help.

roby · Post by **roby** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:35 pm

related OT question: how does one go about getting gigs like this?

nepotist · Post by **nepotist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:46 pm

in my case I've done tv work because I'm an editor so i have a lot of contacts in the industry...the commercial stuff is through a friend, but I have a few contacts in advertising too so I've sent them stuff and asked them to pass it along to people they know, etc. In all of this i've found that cold calling rarely works, you need to network and get people talking about what you do. Word of mouth is your best friend.

pieter · Post by **pieter** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:28 pm

it's always hard to find the right price. sometimes it's worth to ask for their budget and add a bit to that. lately i lost an opportuniy because i asked 3000 euros and their budget was 500. i never heard of them again :-/