Why brands like Wendy's and e.l.f. are releasing albums

e.l.f. Cosmetics has released its second album. Yes, you read that right. The beauty company has an album of original music titled “Mirror Mix.” And e.l.f. isn't the only corporate brand branching into music.

Fast-food chain Wendy's also released an album. The company, known for the Frosty, dropped “Songs to Listen to in a Wendy's Parking Lot,” featuring several pop, punk, and emo artists. Even California-based Blue Bottle Coffee released a contemporary jazz record on vinyl.

To explain what these brands are trying to get at, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Kimberly Adams was joined by Dan Runcie, CEO at Trapital. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kimberly Adams: Dan, I want to start by playing one of the songs off an album from Wendy's. Here is "My Frosty's Funeral" from vocalist Lat Leon and the Holy Wars.

Adams: What are we even listening to?

Dan Runcie: This is one of the more recent evolutions we've seen of brands making a strategic attempt to insert themselves in music, and we've seen this happen over the past few decades. And a lot of this started with your typical jingles that you would hear in different songs, whether it's McDonald's with the "ba da ba ba ba, I'm lovin’ it," or even things dating back to Wheaties or Pepsi and others making their own music. But we continue to see the evolution of that, and what I think we're seeing now is whether it's Wendy's or e.l.f. Beauty, Gap and some of the collaborations they've done, or even companies that have started their own record labels like Coca-Cola or Cash App or the Golden State Warriors; they're leaning more into competing for attention. And instead of just simply licensing their music or licensing music in general for commercial, they are trying to interrupt the traditional advertising with their own entertainment.

Adams: What is typically the process that companies use to create this kind of original music versus, you know, hiring somebody to write a jingle?

Runcie: In the music era, specifically right now with streaming, it is so much easier for artists themselves to create their own music. They can release it directly through a distribution platform, which can get it up on a streaming service instantly. But it's not only artists; a lot of these brands saw that as an opportunity for them to do it themselves, and when it comes down to it, a lot of that music may come and go, and not a lot of it may stick. But if you make something that sounds substantial, similar to what we just heard with "My Frosty's Funeral," maybe it can break through. For instance, I always think back to 10 years ago. It was April 1, April Fool's Day, and Hamburger Helper had put out a five-track mixtape called "Watch the Stove," a play on Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Watch the Throne" album, and they had some songs on there that gathered, I believe, 5 million streams on SoundCloud within the first week.

Adams: Are these efforts successful?

Runcie: And that's a great question because that's the core piece that a lot of folks get back to. Because even advertising itself, with commercials, a lot of brands have often had questionable results on how effective that was. And to be honest, I think the ROI is still TBD on a lot of these projects. Is there a way that they can say, "OK, every song or every play that we get, this then helps us sell X more products or widgets or whatever that company is doing?" That's the piece — that attribution is still hard to come by.