A glimpse of a tiny niche in the music universe – where songs are brokered for advertising campaigns

Today we’re going to shine a light on a tiny little niche of the vast music industry.  We’ll have a look at an Australian company called Music Mill that specialises in finding and licensing songs for use in advertising campaigns.  The name of this type of work is “Music Supervision”, and the licences are called “Sync Licences” because they usually involve synchronising music with video.

“Finding” means that they search for songs that will fit with a brand image and a campaign concept, supporting the message of the campaign with the power of a song.  “Licensing” means they track down the publishing companies and record labels who represent the songwriters and the artists, and then negotiate a deal to use the song.  “Advertising campaign” is obvious, but the important thing is that they don’t do the same thing for films, or TV series.  That’s a related field, but not something that Music Mill is involved in.

Bruce and Clare Tweedie own and operate the business out of Sydney, and they have enormous experience in this highly specialised arena.  Music Mill has been in business for over 25 years, and during that time they have licensed many thousands of songs, worth nearly AUD $200M.  That’s a lot of money going into various pockets in the music industry, but particularly to the songwriters and artists. 

They also employ a couple of experts in music licensing – McKenzie Roberts and Cassie Canon.  They have both been practising their craft for many years, because experience is everything here.  They have incredibly interesting jobs, where every day is different, every challenge is new.  There are lots of moving parts, and lots of things can go wrong, so a lot of their work is troubleshooting.

It’s quite interesting that Music Mill have such a narrow focus, that they only do one thing.  They say that this specialisation delivers two huge benefits for their clients:

• Subject Matter Expertise – if you want to be really good at something difficult, you have to give it everything you’ve got. Doing just one thing means that they are honing very specific skills, every day.
• Focus – if you try to do lots of different things, you get distracted. They are always concentrating on the core business, so they are not spread thin.

Their clients are mostly advertising agencies and brands, so if you work for one of them, you can get in touch with the experts at info at musicmill.com.au.

For more general information have a look at www.musicmill.com.au

If you would like to see examples of their work, check this out:  https://www.musicmill.com.au/work/

Footnote: We expect that a lot of readers will be artists or musicians or composers, and you might be thinking that you would like to have your music featured in an ad.  But unfortunately Music Mill doesn’t accept submissions of songs, or represent any music – they leave that to the music publishers and the record labels.  They are the companies who are best placed to help their writers and artists, by striving to get syncs for them whenever the opportunity arises.  So Music Mill’s advice is to find a reputable publisher and a good record label. Ask around, do your due diligence, talk to your peers, and find someone to represent you who knows what they are doing.