2005 marked another year of cutting-edge, groundbreaking work for HUM-- distinguishing themselves with highly successful contributions of original music, licensed music, shrewd branding consultancy, and their participation in several prestigious industry workshops, seminars, and roundtable discussions.

January 2005 started out on a high note—with HUM’s extensive musical supervision and licensing providing the teeth for Pepsi’s successful “Bottle Songs” campaign, featuring Gwen Stefani/Missy Elliot’s “Rich Girl”, among several others. These spots aired prominently during the 2005 Superbowl, as did the work of another HUM client, Budweiser. Bud’s hilarious “Skydiver” spot, featuring HUM’s original music, was chosen by AdWeek as the #1 Superbowl commercial for 2005. In fact, staff members around HUM were experiencing deja-vu throughout the game—with 5 total spots airing prominently during the telecast.

HUM’s composers and sound designers don’t like to limit themselves to one sport either—when they’re not doing the Superbowl shuffle, they like to dust off their elbow pads, tighten up their fakeys, and don crash helmets. What the heck am I talking about? Well, simultaneously with the airing of the Superbowl spots, the team at HUM was putting the finishing touches on the complete package of music and sound design for the 2005 Winter and Summer X Games. Dude, not only was this some gnarly big air, but it’s another example of how HUM musically extends the brand identity of its clients through long-form music and sound design.

Long-form…Short Form…Just a few notes….HUM does it all and loves doing it well. Proving this point, HUM was contacted in early 2005 by Sony International, looking for help coming up with an international mnemonic. Not only does HUM know how to spell mnemonic, they can serve ‘em up too—their mnemonic contributions for Sony can probably be heard at this very minute somewhere in New Delhi, as well as in several kosher Deli's.

So you're Bill Gates—you’re the wealthiest guy on the planet—but you’re not happy… Why? Well, you’re just about to launch the new MSN Search Engine, but you’ve got no fly beats to accompany the ad spots. So whom do you turn to? Hmmmmm….? No—actually HUM, that’s who! To support the launch of MSN Search-- Microsoft dedicated a large media buy for getting the word out, and turned to HUM to supply the appropriate licensed music. HUM brought in John Doe (formerly of the band X) and Blackalicious for some epic re-recorded covers of “See Ya Later Alligator” and “Basketball”, respectively. These two spots proved to be so popular that HUM arranged for the complete, full-length versions of the songs to be made available for download on the MSN site, generating a large amount of additional hits. For those keeping track at home, another example of HUM assisting to extend the brand in unexpected ways.

No stranger to controversy, in May HUM found themselves right in the center of a doozy, and this time it had nothing to do with their resident composers’ penchant for nudity. In this case, the scantily clad body belonged to Paris Hilton-- all too eagerly bumping and grinding her way into America’s hearts while washing a Bentley and hawking the latest Carl’s Jr. burger. The ad campaign, which featured the distinctive HUM arrangement of Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris (in the Springtime)” as sung by indie siren Eleni Mandell, received a tremendous amount of media attention and wound up as the topic of discussion on local and national newscasts, talk-radio shows, BrandWeek and CNN. At the height of Paris-mania, HUM responded to the tremendous public response by going back into the studio with Eleni to re-record a full-length version, released on the HUM Recordings label and available for download on the iTunes website. We can honestly say that this track is the second most downloadable Paris Hilton item on the Internet, but it rocks the hardest!

Also in May, HUM teamed up with Range Rover for two critically acclaimed spots. The first, “Timeless”, featured jaw-dropping CGI visuals by Digital Domain and the licensed music of Paul Van Dyk. “Breathe”, helmed by Gerard de Thames, featured live Japanese Taiko drumming and was ubiquitous for several weeks— the :60 second, “mini-movie” version could even be unknowingly found waiting on the hard drive of anyone with a TiVo who wanted a peek.

Around this same time, if you happened to be in Düsseldorf (or in fact most anywhere in Europe…), you’d have been treated to HUM’s original music driving the European campaign for the BMW 7 Series. Let’s just say that no accordions or tubas were used.

Now Honda started looking for some love, and contacted HUM about providing the musical elements for their latest Civic campaign. HUM constructed a bold package of licensed and original tracks to accompany the spots that featured hipper-than-thou musical artists The Postal Service, Grandaddy, and Sri-Lankan rapper M.I.A., as well as their own staff artists. Several of the spots went on to critical acclaim as part of several trade “Best of” lists, including a vivid, animated spot directed by Roman Coppola.

As the year wound down, HUM made it a luxury-sedan trifecta by contributing the original music for the launch of the all-new, redesigned Lexus IS. These distinctive spots are still found regularly on-air and have helped Lexus re-define their brand for a younger demographic.

In addition to their exemplary work on the air, in 2005 the staff at HUM have continued to build upon their reputations as industry experts in the fields of music branding, licensed music, and music supervision-- appearing numerous times in various publications, seminars and workshops. HUM Owner and Creative Director Jeff Koz was featured in Creativity, Shoot, The Sacramento Bee, as well as in music roundtable discussions that appeared in Boards Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter. HUM Director of A&R Tricia Halloran has had her opinions on music and licensing featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Southwest Spirit Magazine, The Arizona Republic, and Austin Fit Magazine, just to name a few. Never to be outdone, Executive Producer Debbi Landon was interviewed by Time Magazine for a profile on women poker players, only to be mercilessly cut out of the piece just before it made it to print!

In September, HUM was also very pleased to partner with Boards Magazine as a vital part of the 1st Annual Boards University, a day-long seminar for up and coming agency producers and creatives that takes the “students’ through a crash course in commercial production. At Boards U, HUM presented the disciplines of music licensing, supervision, and production to a very receptive student body, featuring presentations by professors Jeff Koz, Tricia Halloran, and Debbi Landon. Tricia Halloran was also a featured speaker on the topic of music licensing as part of the prestigious and widely attended Boards Summit, held just after the U.

Already hard at work on several top-secret major commercial campaigns for 2006, HUM is poised to continue and build upon the momentum generated in the past year as one of the industry’s premier music, sound design, and branding firms. The spots mentioned previously are only a few of the many impressive projects generated by HUM in 2005, to see more—please click on the “REEL” button.