Daft Punk’s influence on advertising in recent years

From space to advertisements. Not just technological products and futuristic machines, somehow similar to their world and their imagination. Over the years, Daft Punk’s music has also served as a sound accompaniment to commercials for clothing and perfumes. Proving itself practically suitable for all occasions. The latest advertising – in chronological order – to use a song by the duo composed of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, who wrote some of the most beautiful (and iconic) pages of electronic music of the last thirty years, is the one linked to the launch of the new Chanel fragrance, “Chanel N° 5”. In the commercial, with protagonists

Margot Robbie And Jacob Elordishot on 35mm and directed by Luca Guadagnino (nominated for an Oscar in 2018 with “Call Me by Your Name”), their “Veridis quo”, taken from the 2001 album “Discovery”. The advertisement is a true “auteur” short, set in California: it tells the story of two lovers who chase each other scene after scene, missing each other every time, to the tune of “Veridis quo”. A little gem.

It was 2003 when the commercials appeared Apple linked to the launch of the iPod Classic. Known to history as the «Sihouette advertising campaign», the advertising campaign showed silhouettes of people dancing against brightly colored backgrounds while holding iPods in their hands, with white earphones in their ears: it became an immediate cultural phenomenon. In 2004 U2 agreed to give their “Vertigo” to the commercial to promote their album “How to dismantle an atomic bomb”, while in 2005 in an advertisement from the series it sounded “Technological” by Daft Punk, who already had two albums under their belt, the 1997 debut with “Homework” (2 million copies sold worldwide) and “Discovery” in 2001, and in those very weeks they were celebrating their return to the scenes with “Human after all”, after bringing disco music into the future with their avant-garde touch and hits such as “Da funk”, “Around the World” and “One more time”. The same “Technologic” would be used three years later in Italy as the background music for the advertising of theAlfa Romeo MiTo.

Maybe it’s because their songs, often characterized by powerful bass and hypnotic grooves, as well as irresistible melodic lines, they convey a sense of innovation and modern quality that blend perfectly with the message of many advertising campaignsespecially those related to engines and technologies. The fact is that Daft Punk have returned several times to collaborate with automotive companies. In 2013, for example, “Giorgio by Moroder” resounded in a thirty-second spot signed by the Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund linked to the presentation of the car that the team Lotus he would have driven at the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix, branded by Daft Punk, who conquered the world that year with the album “Random access memories”, thanks to hits such as “Get Lucky” and “Lose yourself to dance” . In 2023 also Renault chose a song by the two French “space travellers” for the launch of one of his cars, the Renault 5 E-Tech100% electric city car produced by the car manufacturer: the track in question was “Instant crush”, again taken from “Random access memories”.

But beyond technology and engines, there is more. In 2010 Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter appeared in a commercial for Adidas “Star Wars” themed. With the world of fashion, but this time less streetwear, they also collaborated in 2022, when their “Around the world” appeared in the advertising campaign for the spring/summer collection of Dior. After all, Daft Punk have always been more than a musical group: a true cultural phenomenon capable of establishing itself as a crossover between music and lifestyle. Advertisements that used their music often aimed at a young, modern audience, and the duo’s music helped reinforce this message of “exclusivity” and avant-garde.

Brilliant communicators, at one point Daft Punk they found themselves directly inspiring a company. When they launched “Random access memories” in 2013, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter had a video in which in the control room of what looked like a large spaceship a mysterious character, with gloves on his hands, opened an envelope containing the duo’s album. Sony revived the idea for the launch of the Playstation 4creating a clip virtually identical to Daft Punk’s, only instead of the disc there was naturally the console.