When a healthy chunk of today's spots feature classic songs from legendary artists - hell, even Led Zeppelin allowed Cadillac to use "Rock and Roll" for its "Break Through" campaign - whatever artistic stigma used to exist about "selling out" has dwindled to the point of irrelevancy. In a climate of file sharing and eroding sales, artists and record companies have found advertisers to be a deep-pocketed panacea.

This past September, WPP's media investment arm, GroupM, in conjunction with Universal Music Group International, announced a joint venture, BrandAmp, geared towards providing clients with direct access to artists and tracks for "advanced music partnerships". These can involve directly sourcing music for commercials in order to bypass third parties, or teaming up artists or musical content with specific sponsorship initiatives. And the music doesn't have to come exclusively from Universal - BrandAmp is able to source music from non-Universal artists and companies depending on the client's needs.

"One form of partnership could be our clients being the hosts of live gigs," says GroupM UK CEO Stephen Allan. "Perhaps a client like Vodafone could offer selected customers access to secret gigs and then fans could get clips of them via their mobile phones. There are ways that we can't even imagine at the moment."

With the BrandAmp team still being assembled (an announcement about a CEO is pending), the priority, according to Allan, is to "get it right in the first market, the UK," and then move into other territories - "There's been an incredible amount of interest from all corners of the world."

Universal Music Group International http://www.universalmusicgroup.com
GroupM http://www.groupm.com
WPP http://www.wpp.com