The Battle of Sync: How to find just the right song for an ad
By: Henriette Szocska // Photo: Line Svindt
At one of Saturday’s last SPOT+ conferences there was still plenty of laughs to be had and questions to be asked as we were invited to nothing less than a good ol’ “sync-off”. The contestants were Halfan E. (BFM), Andreas Mølbak Henriksen (Upright Music), Mette Zähringer (Iceberg Music Group), Yebo (Crunchy Frog), and Laura Littauer (Sundance Music).
In charge was the skilled music producer Josh Rabinowitz who was ever-present with a flurry of crowd-pleasing jokes, American charm, and buckets of knowledge to withstand the audience’s many technical questions. Josh had brought an advertisement for an upcoming American fitness brand that he had previously worked on with his team. The videoen was shown to the audience and the contestants twice, whereafter the five contestants donned their headphones and began working.
Just 15 minutes was given to each contestant to raid and rummage through both their brains and computers for any and all music that could fit the energetic ad.
The first one to finish was Yebo from Crunchy Frog and the last was Halfdan E., who pulled off his headphones and said “fuck, this is hard” with an air of disappointment. Under normal circumstances, this process isn’t over in 15 minutes. Far from it. In fact, music supervisors will often spend weeks or months working with their team to track down the perfect song. Not to mention the fact that the pitch is usually done in less stressful environments. So naturally, the contestants were under a lot of pressure. But they all accomplished the task at hand and managed to impress both the audience and Josh with their talents.
In the end, Crunchy Frog was named the winner and Josh awarded a marijuana candy to the lucky winner.
The intent behind the session was to give the audience a behind the scenes look into the process of finding the perfect song for an ad.