Is she responsible for one of the more memorable jingles of all time?
Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s a little bit of a trendlet happening right now in the world of advertising. Jingles have made a comeback of sorts. And I’m thrilled.
It’s not just because I love a good pop tune, although that’s just as much the case. It’s because jingles are a great way to get consumers to remember your brand.
Perhaps you didn’t live through the late 1980s, a bleak time when Steve Winwood, Phil Collins and Glenn Frey, among others, penned same-sounding “jingles” for a variety of beer brands—and sold some records along the way. (Momentary digression: For readers born after 1985, “records” were pressed grooved vinyl discs that reproduced music. They often warped or skipped, but sounded better than the Katy Perry mp3 you just stole downloaded from BitTorrent.)
Prior to the early dark ages of corporate tour sponsorship and music/marketer partnerships that, on balance, have turned into a good thing for musicians, marketers and fans, advertisers crafted some truly memorable jingles that helped build their brands into corporate megaliths.
The Chiquita Banana Song? Burger King’s Have It Your Way campaign? Alka Seltzer? All memorable in their own way.
“So,” you say to yourself, “that’s great, blogwriter. You remember jingles from when you were a kid.” And my response to you is this: In the past few years, we’ve heard some great advertising—and not just on the (satellite or Internet-streaming) radio. True, the vast majority of ad music is licensed. But it’s great to hear original songs building brands—helping them to become that-much-more memorable. Sure, these little musical gems may not be to your liking. And as with any type of messaging, it’s easy for advertisers to go overboard by either smashing the non-monotonic curve—causing the audience to, forgive the pun, tune the message out—or just become irritating.
Here are three that I’ve enjoyed from Subway (which you’re probably sick of), a new spot from Truvia, and a holiday-themed warranty spot from Hyundai USA.
Why do I like them? Because they’re memorable—possibly even earworms. (That’s right. I just dropped some Dr. Oliver Sacks into a blog piece about jingles. Deal with it.) A jingle is branded. It’s original. It’s owned media that’s crafted by a marketer and targeted to a specific consumer to represent the brand in its best possible light. Other than buying your product, what could be better than a consumer singing your brand’s jingle under his or her breath—your brand name, your tagline, your point of difference—possibly without even realizing it?
I don’t think for a second that we’re entering a second jingle “golden age,” but it’s nice to have these hummable, memorable brand nuggets of ear candy back on the airwaves.
Ross Freedman is Creative Director, Concepts & Content at LAUNCH.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Branding & Packaging, Owned Media, Trending & Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I used to enjoy watching old commercials with their fun jingles. I especially like Coca cola ads not only because they are nice but also because their jingles are nice too.