You might notice a lot of your favorite "indie" bands licensing their songs for TV commercials. As we have said in the past, television ads are a new medium for gaining exposure for new bands and relatively unknown music.

Ad music licensing can also mean a big payday for up and coming musical acts. Despite this new trend, one advertiser is having trouble buying into this particular market for ad music: Hummer. The controversial (and eco-unfriendly) Hummer automobile division of the GM automaker is having trouble licensing music from smaller indie bands, despite the amounts of money being offered.

"It had to be the worst product you could give a song to," lead singer Hutch Harris (of The Thermals) says. "It was a really easy decision. How could we go on after soundtracking Hummer? It's just so evil." (via Kottke)

Talk about getting your point across. Through the use of clever design and catchy songs, Hilton Hotel's new TV ad campaign manages to effectively capture the viewer's attention. The four ads, tagged "Travel Should Take You Places," are presented as simple line drawings showing people moving through life from the proverbial point A to point B. The ad named Sunrise uses the song "High" by James Blunt (iTunes); Dancing Couple uses "Life is Wonderful" by Jason Mraz (iTunes); Sandcastle uses "Wanna Fly" by Vassy; and Hammock features "Nice Day" by Perspehone's Bees. (via PromoGuy)

Back to Bedlam Atlantic / Wea James Blunt Amazon Music Price:

Mr. A-Z Elektra / Wea Jason Mraz Amazon Music Price:

Wanna Fly ABC Music Oz Vassy Amazon Music Price:

The Super Bowl (of TV Advertising) is this Sunday. If you are more interested in the TV commercials than "The Big Game", several websites will be running all of the ads featured during the NFL championship on ABC. This year, Yahoo has teamed up with iFilm to host the ads online as they appear during the game. But in case you can't wait until kick off to find out what's going to air and when, AdLand has a run down of the commercials' schedule by quarters, and SuperBowl-Ads has screen cap previews. Or maybe you're more into what you won't see during the game's commercial breaks, such as the infamous GoDaddy ads.