Target Corporation has been using the Beatles classic Hello Goodbye in its recent TV advertising. One spot aired during last Sunday’s Grammy Awards broadcast. They have changed the word Goodbye to Good Buy morphing the song’s refrain into an ad slogan “Hello Good Buy, Hello Good Buy, Hello Good Buy….” The campaign is “Say Hello to Good Buys at Target”.
Hello Goodbye is a song from the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour album and was a number 1 hit for the Beatles in both the US and UK in 1967.
Licensing classic songs is attractive to advertisers (those with deep enough pockets) because they can then begin to trade on the cultural significance of the song. Hello Goodbye is part of the soundtrack for a whole generation (or more). By licensing the song, advertisers leverage this collective, accumulated experience channelling it to sell merchandise. But does our culture (do we) pay a price for this?
Loading ...There are several spots using Hello Goodbye. Each has a different musical style or arrangement. Here is one version taken from YouTube.
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advertising, advertising commercial, ad campaign, beatles, beatles classic, beatles magical mystery, beatles magical mystery tour, commercials, commercial jingle, magical mystery tour, magical mystery tour album, target corporation, tv commercials
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I think it’s somewhat different when the song is obviously being sung by someone else, and in a different style. I almost didn’t recognize Hello, Goodbye when I first heard it in the ad, though I do now. It’s kind of mellow and frothy, which is an interesting take - almost just a cover of the song. And the words, though different in intent, are still basically the same.
I think I recall a Nike (?) ad a few years ago that used the original recording of Revolution to sell shoes or some such. That bothered me a bit more, but still it was nice to hear the song when it came on the air. I just ignored the commercial for the most part.
What really burns me up is when a company takes a classic song and changes the lyrics drastically and re-records it with a sound-alike. Tragic, embarrassing case in point: “Viva Viagra”, to the tune and general sound of Elvis singing Viva Las Vegas. That makes me shudder with shame whenever I hear that commercial, to see how low they’ve dug into Elvis commercialism.