ABSTRACT

Prior to the significant organizational, legal, and technological changes in both the radio and music industries that have produced an environment in which licensing to advertising is more common, music already represented an important weapon in the cola wars’ arsenal. From Coke’s classic 1971 commercial featuring hundreds of young people gathered on a hilltop to sing “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke,” to the more recent iTunes and Pepsi cross-promotion, music and cola, both products targeted primarily at a youth demographic, have endured a lengthy association. Through the case of the colas, this chapter examines how product type informs the licensing process and how music provides a shortcut to branding for products with no natural connection to music.