Songs for Screens: How Bebe Rexha Turned ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ Into a Pop-timistic Anthem for Walgreens in Record Time

variety.com:

By Andrew Hampp Claudia Butzky, Warner Records’ senior VP of brand partnerships, was getting ready to start her weekend on May 8 when a seemingly impossible request for one of her artists to be part of an ad campaign crossed her inbox.

Though it wasn’t clear at the time, the resulting commercial would make its broadcast premiere just eight days later on May 16, as Walgreens’ 2020 graduation campaign to promote its family photo albums and same-day gifts.

To help provide a musical pick-me-up for displaced 2020 grads, Walgreens and its agencies VMLY&R and Berlin Cameron were seeking the following: Could Warner identify an artist who could write contemporary lyrics to “Pomp and Circumstance,” the iconic graduation march first composed by