The power of CM

In Japan, commercials for products are also used to launch music careers. Touting that a song was featured in a particular commercial is not anathema.

That said, I am a total sap for liking a recent highly-exploitative, tugging-at-heart-strings kind of clip from Liberty Mutual, all because "Half Acre" by Hem is the soundtrack for the commercial.

I don’t know if the Liberty Mutual ad will have people running for Hem’s albums, but I hope it gets people curious.

Hearing Hem on an ad made me feel the same way when Applied Material featured Onitsuka Chihiro’s "Innocense" in an ad many years back — it was like I’m an insider or something.

To put it less charitably, it made me feel cooler than the rest of you.