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The Branding Power of Music - Then & Now:
When it's time to translate your business vision into an ad jingle (or, as our friends across the pond say, an "advert jingle"), you begin a process that's as old as broadcast advertising (many would argue that it's much older).
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Have you tried Wheaties? They’re whole wheat with all of the bran. Won’t you try Wheaties? For wheat is the best food of man. They’re crispy and crunchy The whole year through, The kiddies never tire of them and neither will you. So just try Wheaties, The best breakfast food in the land. |
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The jingle aired in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where, astonishingly, 30,000 of the 53,000 cases of Wheaties sold that year were purchased by jingle-humming consumers!
The commercial jingle was born, and commercial jingles were to thrive through the 20th century right up to the present.
We all know the most famous company jingles - the cool jingles, the fun jingles - our favorite funny jingle of late is our own Magic Mushroom Pizza ("baked on a stone" - sung ala Bob Dylan), but, funny jingles and cool jingles aside, the one thing they all share in common is their ability to brand companies.
Want a mind blower? Over 93 percent of consumers remember at least 10 jingles (word-for-word, including the melody) from when they were kids. Psychologists now say that there is, literally, "no more powerful branding tool than the musical jingle."
| The jingle - for all the common beliefs about how corny it might be - "is the best investment any business-to-consumer business can ever make if it wants to brand the brains of consumers" (John Francis, The Consumer Mind) |
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Of course it didn't take long for jingle companies to spring up. Many have come and gone. Our favorite, of course, is Blue Market Creative - but not just because we happen to be Blue Market Creative. Rather, we love BMC, because we know that we're the only jingle company that combines deep industry talent (our Director of Music Composition/Production was a signed Sony Publishing artist, one of our Audio Producers has been on the Billboard charts) and marketing experience (our CD comes from a marketing director background in the financial industry).
Another unique aspect of BMC is that we don't just produce a jingle package. Rather, our approach to jingle production - one that sets us apart from any other jingle production company - is that our jingle samples reflect a sense of the jingle tune, the device that creates an "ear bug" in the listener - branding power that can only come from decades of work and study. For, there is a notable difference between jingle tunes (as utilized in the most effective jingles) and the tunes utilized in the pop genre, where rhythm must (for reasons revolving around radio and online formats) drive the process. Jingles companies must take an approach that involves creating melodies that "magnify impressions by way of natural cognitive processes" (Clemens, The Art of Music In Advertising).
When you listen to jingles, you can tell whether or not the composer really knows how to make a jingle. Marketing jingles must instantly generate a response by way of the relationship between the melody and the brand. Because music jingles are not simply songs - a mistake often made by novices in production or marketing/advertising.
| An interesting sidebar - advertising psychology has recently offered a verdict as regards the recent spate of famous songs licensed for products or services. Says James Frankl, a professor at NYU who specializes in advertising psychology, "All the study data says that companies that grab a famous Beatles, Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen song are really shooting themselves in the foot." Why? "Too many psychological associations, and not all of them are good." What's the best approach. "Check out the jingle examples that really work: Wheaties, Coca Cola, McDonalds, BandAid. They're all original tracks - jingle music by jingle makers, not songs that have already made psychological impressions on listeners. Find a company with a great jingle demo and license real, live jingle music." |
Take note of the radio advertising jingles you hear. If they're really constructed correctly, they will drive a 62 percent increase in the impression effectiveness of the ad. And believe us when we say you'll notice the difference. Radio commercial jingles composed by folks with deep backgrounds in the industry will literally leap out of the speakers and burn themselves into your consciousness. Yet, there remain many radio jingle companies (and here we speak specifically of that broadcast medium) that, quite ironically, seem to miss the core branding approaches associated with effective radio jingle production. Decades of radio jingle samples bear this out, and radio jingles in general have suffered to such an extent that one PD to whom we spoke said quite seriously that nearly every company other than BMC should offer their radio jingles free. Listening to radio jingle samples, indeed, to many radio station jingles, we're inclined to agree.
Years ago, we decided that selling jingles was and is all about moving beyond boilerplates or song jingles and into the realm of advertising jingles designed specifically to pass the branding test, multiplying the effectiveness of our clients' advertising.
Whether it's a radio jingle or a television jingle (or TV advert jingles to our friends across the pond), the goal is to identify the perfect marriage of branding, music, melody and image(s) . And the work must function effectively when used in many types of broadcast media. TV is often overlooked by jingle companies and they seriously fail to utilize the awesome combined power of images and music. We understand this power, and our experience has been that all TV and radio music jingles must revolve around an understanding of marketing, advertising, media, musical branding psychology and the general psych principles involved in achieving the objectives of a given brand.
We do this better than the rest, because writing jingles represents our first love & our greatest passion.
We look forward to helping you GROW BLUE!
