How Frank Sinatra’s inimitable swag is still a hit with brands

Frank Sinatra

(December 12, 1915 - May 14, 1998) 

It was 1995 when I first saw Frank Sinatra in the 1949 musical On The Town on TNT, the channel which appeared right after cartoon dynamite blew up on the telly at 9 PM. I was ten years old. It was spectacular. Over the years, I borrowed my grandma's Sinatra albums and never returned them. I would listen to him till the wee hours. Often, with my ear resting on the stereo, at volume levels only dogs could hear, so I wouldn't wake slumbering adults. Now, I have an iPod and reliable earphones. My playlist, however, hasn't changed. Although I can't say this with any certainty, surely I'm not alone in my reverence for the man they call The Voice. So, how do you explain a millennial's admiration for a mid-20th century singing sensation? Tony Parsons, I find, comes closest to truly defining the inextinguishable appeal of Sinatra. He wrote in GQ; "Popular music marks what it means to be young. Sinatra sang about what it means to be alive."

However extraordinary Sinatra's talent, the legend of Frank Sinatra is what sets him apart as an enduring cultural icon. His inimitable brand of swagger was of a caliber that made little known makers of 90-proof whisky from Tennessee a national brand overnight. "Basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's," Sinatra said. Like Egyptian pharaohs entombed with their most precious possessions in pyramids, he's buried with a bottle of Jack, among other things like Lifesavers, Camel cigarettes, a Zippo lighter and a roll of dimes, he always carried in case he had to make a call. How many brands today can boast of such devotion from their big-ticket endorsers? Although Sinatra was never officially an endorser, in 2015 the year of his 100th birth anniversary, the liquor brand peddled a $500 bottle of Jack Daniel's 'Sinatra Select'.

"Popular music marks what it means to be young. Sinatra sang about what it
means to be alive"

Why do we still care?

Francis Albert Sinatra has always been more than The Voice. He's a singularity. He was the guinea from Hoboken, New Jersey, singing for nickels in his father's tavern, who became an international phenomenon. The earliest ancestors of Beliebers were, in fact, 1940s bobby-soxers, the legions of screaming girls, and boys, who'd faint even before Sinatra sang a note. Sinatra-mania, the kind that turns pleasant young people into riotous hordes, predates Elvis/Beatles-mania.

The artist, the photographer, the man with an insatiable thirst for company and "gasoline" (his endearment for booze); the Italian with a feared combustible temperament, who'd tip shoe-shine boys with $100 bills, orchestrated the greatest comeback in American entertainment history. Parsons writes, "Like all the great stories from Steve Jobs to Narnia's Aslan the lion, from Lazarus to Muhammad Ali to Jesus Christ the legend of Sinatra is built on a man who came back from the dead." Despite his famously impatient disposition, Sinatra elicited irrational devotion from his people; his associates, his Rat Pack, his frenemies in the Mafia and in Washington DC and his women (a handful he married).

But processed talent, the pre-packaged, auto-tuned and photoshopped personalities of the 21st century, have about as much swagger as a pruned poodle in a
Kennel Club dog show.
Sinatra is the Tramp in a Cavanagh hat and tailored suit.

Sinatra truly lived until he died. That's why his life holds endless fascination for fans and brands. "Rock'n'roll people love Frank Sinatra because Frank has got what we want," Bono once said, "Swagger and attitude. He's big on attitude. Serious attitude, bad attitude. The big bang of pop. The champ who would rather show you his scars than his medals." Sinatra invented 'swag'. A quality today's entertainers croon about. But processed talent, the pre-packaged, auto-tuned and photoshopped personalities of the 21st century, have about as much swagger as a pruned poodle in a Kennel Club dog show.

Sinatra is the Tramp in a Cavanagh hat and tailored suit. And some brands want to be associated with what he personified. A 2013 Volkswagen Golf GTI commercial opens with spectacularly rubbish renditions of Sinatra's 'My Way'. The imitators get progressively worse. Then, in a goosebumps-inducing transition, Sinatra's voice booms over scenes of the car zipping and gliding on a Las Vegas strip. "The New Golf GTI. Often copied. Never equalled." Sinatra is incomparable and timeless. Visa and MasterCard used Sinatra's recordings in 2004. And he effortlessly fits into a 2013 Call of Duty trailer in which four friends shoot their way through sniper and bomb infested Sin City to the sound of 'I'm Gonna Live Till I Die'.

"I'm back, baby, I'm back," Sinatra once said, after a long recording session in 1953. He had just heard the playback of 'I've Got the World on a String'.

Here's the thing though, Frank, you never left.

(Published in Brand Equity, The Economic Times) 

Photo Source: Wikipedia