The most conventional way to pick up songs is typically from listening to the radio, finding one on iTunes, or perhaps listening to music at a party. However, one alternative way to collecting some great tunes is by paying closer attention to some of the new hit songs via television commercials.

Television commercials do not always feature the number one song from an off-the-charts artist, like a Lady Gaga song. Nevertheless, some of the songs they do feature have evoked a popular response, such as AT&T’s commercial featuring Landon Pigg’s “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop.”

“Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop” was first featured in the DeBeers Diamond commercial in 2007. Later on, it was played again in the AT&T telephone commercial, which really helped it gain its claim to fame.

Feist’s song “1234” reached an insane level of popularity when, in 2007, Apple Inc. featured it in its commercial to promote the Apple iPod Nano. The commercial allowed the song to boost up to number seven on Hot Digital Songs; the song itself was gaining 2,000 downloads per week. By the end of 2007, Time magazine named the deemed the song as one of the top ten songs in 2007, and the Feist later performed it on an episode of Sesame Street.

M.I.A.’s song “Paper Planes” became more popular after being featured in the 2008 Pineapple Express film trailer. The remix of the song had been featured in the academy-award winning film Slumdog Millionaire as well as in the film Hancock. The song was even eventually nominated for a Grammy award.

So, the next time you flip through the TV channels, purposely avoiding the commercials, try stopping on a channel and listening to one of the new featured commercials; you might just find the next big hit.