'I'm drinkin' it - they payin' me for it'

When McDonald's recently announced that it would spend the summer of 2006 paying hip-hop artists $5 each time they mentioned a Big Mac, the idea came in for widespread derision. Product placement in song lyrics seemed to many to be breaking some kind of taboo. In fact, it has been a regular feature of the US marketing scene for almost 20 years and is now creeping across the pond to find a home in the revenue streams of UK rappers and DJs.

"It costs a lot of money to put a record out these days," says Mervyn Lin, vice-president of marketing at Sony BMG UK, Lemar's record label. "When Sony and BMG merged in February, we set up a Futures division to explore ways for working with partners on shouldering those costs. Brands like the idea. We're looking at working with, say, mobile phone companies like 3 to help with the costs of videos or recording sessions in exchange for exclusive tracks or alternate endings."

In the past, these deals have tended to sidestep record labels, usually being done between the brand and the act or the act's management. The recent master of the strategy is the spirit Hypnotiq - a blend of vodka, fruit and cognac that launched in the US in 2001 and in the UK last year. Hypnotiq started from scratch in New York, sold into off-licences personally by the brand's founders Raphael Yakoby and Nick Storm. Storm had previously worked in the music industry and he started getting bottles to the urban music community, where it began featuring in videos.

By 2005, the brand had been either name checked in or appeared in the video for 26 different tracks, including three by R Kelly, two by Missy Elliott, one by Lil' Kim and one by Usher. Memphis Bleek and Jay-Z even went so far as to record a track called Hypnotic. The drink went from selling 10,000 cases in 2001/2 to 700,000 cases in 2003/4 without spending a penny on TV or magazine advertising.

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