Musical Marketing

So, I’m sitting and thinking about my reflection paper (writing, thinking, writing, thinking, glancing at the Rutgers vs. Pittsburgh game), and this commercial comes on the screen. There is a man in black leather pants, black leather boots, no shirt, a black leather vest, a black top hat, with tattoos and an abundant amount of jewelry playing this beautiful and sleek electric guitar. There are six beautiful black car in the background stacked in threes on shelves to look like speakers. The doors of the cars are wide open, for some reason, and the man is screaming away on the guitar, riffing and improvising quite impressively. After his cadence, the man’s voice (you know, “the man,” the same man that speaks in every commercial) appears and gives the sales pitch.

I have Googled the commercial, and found this from advertising.about.com:

V-dubs Rock will run until December 31, 2006, giving anyone who buys or leases a new Rabbit, GTI, Beetle, Beetle convertible or Jetta a custom First Act GarageMaster guitar. What's so special about getting a guitar? You can actually plug it into your VW and play it through the car's stereo (http://advertising.about.com/b/a/256601.htm).

So, what is this stigma related to getting a free guitar when purchasing a guitar, especially a guitar that plugs directly into the car’s stereo? (By the way, the guitarist is Slash, a former Guns N’ Roses guitarist.) Knowing this, who was this commercial for? Men? Women? Whites? African-Americans? Hispanics? Latinos? Asians? Cripple? Fat? Blind? Deaf?

I know this isn’t a sociology class, per se (well, is it?!?), but this issue goes further in my mind.

It brings to mind two incredibly important questions regarding music education:

1) To whom are we marketing music?

2) Why?

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[Oh, and if you're interested, here's some more information and a picture of the guitar: http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/volkswagen_news/printer_1842.shtml. Go buy that car, if it was marketed to YOU]