Anyone who has watched television without a DVR in the past few months, saw ads online, or just stopped timeshifting to watch the shiny new Apple ads, have heard some very catchy songs. Their latest commercials for the iPod Nano, Macbook Air, and others before, know the style and kind of music that Apple uses for these ads.

    Strongly enough, the last two songs to be featured in Apple commercials have been later met with large commercial success. Take, for example, the Macbook Air song, New Soul, by Yael Naim. Like virtually every individual in North America, you have never heard of this person. She is a songwriter and artist who gained relatively large commercial success in Europe, but practically nothing in the North American market. This all changed, however, when Apple unveiled the debut commercial for their new ultraportable at Macworld.

    After seeing what happened with the song ‘1234′ by Fiest when it was featured in an iPod Nano commercial a few months ago, I rushed to the iTunes Store to check the popularity. A couple of days after the commercial was first unveiled, the song had a two bar popularity level, a pittance. I bought the song (iTunes Plus, btw) and decided to check back in awhile.

    Of course, I forgot about doing that until yesterday. I decided to look at the Billboard 100 for the United States for some unknown reason, when… There it was! An obscure French artist, who would likely have never been heard of in America, suddenly in the top 10 songs. I then rushed back to iTunes, and sure enough, it was in the top songs, with a maxed out popularity.

    This leads me to the conclusion that Apple really has the ability to catapult an artist to stardom. All the proof you need for that is to see the Grammy nominations for Fiest. These songs are even so unique, that hearing one of these songs on the radio, on a bus, or anywhere else, reminds me of the commercial. Apple gains free advertising when radio stations simply play a top 10 song!

    Congratulations, Steve. You (well, your employee’s) are the marketing god(s).