What Killed the Jingle? | Hacker News Reader

What Killed the Jingle?

theatlantic.com

57 pointspmcpinto60 comments

I think one of the obvious reasons to buy an existing pop song today instead of using a jingle is that is contextual proven. Updating a jingle is probably a far greater risk.

I think some recent artist have been accused of purposely writing songs to sell. There is an urban myth that X Ambassador wrote "Renegade" just for Jeep (reality is they were working on the song anyway) [1]. The myth though is not far from the truth. I wonder how many other artist are thinking hmm this song could work great for a commercial. I have wondered if Rachel Platten was thinking that when she wrote fight song... that song is so emotional syrupy... it was made to be sold for advertising (I thought for sure though it would be used in the olympics but lost that bet to my wife).

[1]: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-jeep-fou...

There's definitely a sense that some artists are intentionally writing for the "drop pile" (songs easily and cheaply licensed) of Ad Execs and Marketing.

Several electronic artists, Celldweller being the big one off the top of my head, have been somewhat intentionally building instrumental works just for the off chance that Hollywood wants something "epic ready" for a film trailer. (He has an entire "series" of albums geared towards this called Soundtrack for the Voices in My Head. Several of them will probably have heard before in film trailers.)

Even one of my cousins' bands engaged with this in a meta-joking way by titling one of their recent albums "Music for Car Commercials".

Vaporwave[1] is an entire music genre around ironically sampling business background music and ads specific music

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporwave

Edit : the label Business Casual is a good start http://music.businesscasual.biz/#_=_

The proclamation that jingles are dead isn't true and the best ones will never die. This is evidenced by the fact we still reference Folgers, Dr. Pepper, etc. I appreciate the comments about Japan and Korea as I wouldn't be aware of those otherwise.

Like most things advertising evolved and since mass appeal is the objective it makes sense that pop songs, which are simple and catchy would fill the role that jingles once played.

Pop songs, however, are relatively expensive, and even more so if you have an effective commercial that you want to run a lot.

Without doing any additional searching I can name 2 great, current jingles running here is Los Angeles. Powell Electric's, "...we'll fix it in a flash..." and Empire Carpet, "...call Empire Today..."

So now I think they fill the purpose of lower budget commercials, but they are still a live and they are still a great tool for the right job.

I can attest to the staying power of Empire's jingle here in Chicagoland. Especially their phone number, included in the jingle here. That, and (see if you can complete it in your head, Chicagoans): 773-202-

And the jingle for the Kars for Kids charity is the sort of ear worm that makes me change the station when I hear the first strum of the guitar accompaniment, but it's done its job and gotten stuck in my head. "1-877-KARS 4 KIDS; K A R S, Kars for Kids".

Jingles work for the audience who hears them. Plenty still listen to radio on their commutes.

>but it's done its job and gotten stuck in my head

But it has had the complete opposite affect. As much the charity might be a great and worthy cause, I will never support them and hope the fold simply so I don't ever have to hear that damn jingle again.

What?! When I was a kid in the Chicago area (late 70s), Empire was "588-2-300....Empiiiiiire." When did the number change?

I also recall 5-8-8-2-300. And that's the number on the website, and the one that still plays on WGN.

Grandparent post is referring to 7-7-3-2-oh-2-LUNA!

It still is (I think). He was asking us to complete the Luna Mattresses song.

773-202 beep-beep-boop-boop luna

Empire is:

800-588, 2300, empire (late they added "today" to the end)

I assure you it is still the same, (800) 588-2-300. Call Empire, today.

http://www.empiretoday.com/

Curious about that Powell Electric jingle because there's another firm out here Texas way by the name Milestone Electric that uses the same slogan. Curious if it's a franchise model. Something akin to how Clear Channel has a robot playlist Bob FM, Jack FM, Steve FM, etc in different large markets.

Funny thing about Bob FM. I used to live in Austin, and I didn't believe in Bob. I went around complaining about how there wasn't really a Bob. One of my friends was the son of a guy who was in the radio business, and he used to try to convince me that there really was a Bob. I still didn't buy it. Some time later, my friend got married. At the wedding reception, he came up to me and pointed out a guy at the next table, well dressed, in his mid 50s. "See him? That's Bob." And it was. Bob is a guy who runs a robot-playlist radio station in the Austin area. (Or at least he was a wedding guest who was willing to play along with the ruse.)

The moral of the story is that there is a Bob. Probably.

I'm not sure, and I am not familiar with the TX company, but if you want to take a look for yourself, this is a link to the Powell I am referring to: http://www.powell-electric.com/

I hope that was an answer, in a flash...

Now, just because I am curious, mostly because it is catchy, if you do confirm an affiliation either way please let us know. Thanks.

Just did a quick Google search and saw where someone posed the same question on Milestone's Facebook page. According to their rep, they are not the same company but they are "friends".

Probably not affiliated but mostly just aware of each other and not in direct competition due to regions.

Thanks again on the follow through.

Jingles are cheesy but many of them stick with you for a long time. "Best part of waking up, is Folger's in your cup", "Kiss a little longer... hold tight a little longer... longer with Big Red", "I'm a pepper, she's a pepper, he's a pepper wouldn't you like to be a pepper to" and probably hundreds of others. Maybe it was just hearing them so many times when TV and entertainment were more limited and linear, but they definitely worked.

I really hate it when advertisements hijack existing music, especially when it is classical music.

Classical makes sense as I imagine there are less rights to deal with (probably just need to pay for the performance but not the song) and orchestral classical music has been used in everything from ads to cartoons for decades.

I think the ones I really hate are when they use a more recent "classic" pop tune and essentially wear them out so I never want to hear them again. One example is "Just What I Needed" by The Cars. I used to like that song but after it was used in an ad (perhaps Circuit City?) I can't stand to hear it again.

Yeah, for a long time I couldn't listen to O Fortuna without thinking of the commercial with the ship.

Joke's on them, though: I could never remember the actual product being advertised!

Or post/alt rock, the first time I heard Sigur Rós in an ad was an odd experience, especially as they don't (or didn't at the time) allow such uses: http://sigur-ros.co.uk/media/homage-or-fromage.php

You could imagine my surprise when hearing The Kronos Quartet teme for Requiem For A Dream being used in a trailer for one of the Lord of the Rings franchise pictures.

The one that cracks me up still is Carnival cruises using Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" which coincidentally a lot of people associate with the film Trainspotting.

For a while there was a car ad that used a clip from Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights", specifically the portion of the song which references the title.

For context, the song itself is about a man trapped in a loveless relationship after swearing to his girlfriend that he would love her to the end of time so that she'd come across in the car, leading to the titular paradise. Now, though, he's "praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive, 'cause if I gotta spend another minute with you I don't think that I can survive".

I can't figure out if Comcast/Xfinity is "in on the joke" by hijacking "Everything is Awesome!" Be a drone! Be like everyone else! Watch the screens!

In one example, GM has coopted "Eminence Front" by the Who, without checking what the lyrics might mean.

If they checked it and used it anyway, then... well, okay then. It feels like they didn't check.

Except in Japan where jingles are still thriving like nothing happened.

Probably similar in Korea, or at least as far as I can tell from watching Starcraft GSL broadcasts on Twitch. The chat always went crazy when this catchy ad started playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA7PJsp-erM

Or more recently, this ad became a bit of a meme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfYla7FWZK0

But plenty others also had such little tunes in them.

Best i can tell, Asia never picked up the "minimalism" that swept "the west" somewhere around the 90s.

i don't think minimalism really "jives" with cultural values in asia. sure you'll see flat design and minimalistic logos being adopted but the products being sold under those banners are anything but.

I think the ParryGripp "Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom" video was the original for your second link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWi7CLoZ2Q

Wow, I never knew that existed, just assumed it was an original song. It has a very jingle-like quality to it.

Perry Gripp makes all kinds of jingle tunes. My kids love em, and tbh I do too for whatever, twisted reason. From what I gather, they do real jingles on occasion.

A lot of things are thriving in Japan that already died out in the rest of the world. Like fax machines and hand drawn animation.

hand drawn animation? A lot of japanese studio nowadays use digital 3d models for their characters to save time - and it looks MUCH worse than before. The hand-drawn talent in animation is a dying breed.

And vice versa. Using movie stars in TV ads is the new new in America, but is old hat in Japan. Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold, Bruce Willis and Scarlett Johansson are the only ones that I can recall in the past few years here.

Local stars are used all in the as well in Japanese commercials. Idols, Actors/Actresses, Singers, etc... all because Dentsuu is basically in control of what goes on TV and they tend to enforce the use of personalities.

The article says that jingles have been replaced with pop-songs, and that is also something they very much do in Japan.

And/or a mix, here are two full pop songs that are just commercials (intel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBxW22JLUmg and (amoled screens) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRxylJho898. Not Japanese though.

I wonder if these songs suck when you know the language. For me they sound good and have their place in my playlist.

The Amoled lyrics are quite silly actually :)

Its a mix in Japan. They also do pop songs ONLY for commercials. Or sometimes they take a pop song and tweak it for the commercial. It's rarely just cut and paste.

I had the same thought. Hardly a day goes by that I don't have a jingle stuck in my head from Japanese TV.

Interesting. But no mention of any studies or tests whether jingles are actually effective. Perhaps advertisers discovered they just don't work at selling products.

Bingo. I have tons of jingles stuck in my head for products I have never bought nor world consider buying.

There are a few things that advertising is good for. One is spreading familiarity with a brand, but that has limits, especially with already well known brands. The other is psychological priming. You can actually hijack people's brains and change their enjoyment of a product through advertising by creating associations. This is similar to the way we have "comfort foods" that we associate with, say, being at home, etc. Advertising can prime your experience of a product and enhance your enjoyment of it, and also make it more memorable. Then you start layering your own experiences on top of that kernel and you build up something like a pearl of personal associations around that product. This is the true power of advertising, and it's huge. Jingles, I suspect, don't always play into that aspect or create much priming.

>Jingles, I suspect, don't always play into that aspect or create much priming.

you say that as you instantly recall each and every product associated with the jingles you remember. you may not think it's influencing you but when you goto the supermarket late at night,tired after a hard day at work and get the message - oh be sure to get some [food item]. do you go with the brand name you remember(your eyes hunt down the specific look and name of the product even) or the generic thing just a few steps over that costs a little less?

Best. Jingle. Ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS18jHMmhAI

> "who has been nicknamed “The King of the Jingle” and whose greatest hits include the long-running “Nationwide Is On Your Side”"

I really have no idea where she learned it, since really no media she consumes contains ads, but I've heard my 4 year old daughter sing "Nationwide is on your side" on multiple occasions. It's both cute and kind of terrifying.

Probably from the olympics. It seemed like Nationwide was every other commercial during the breaks.

Ahh, yes, she was watching a decent amount of that.

Jingles sure are less popular these days.

The SNCF "jingle" comes to mind as one I've heard recently, though [1]. It's very distinctive, just like advertising jingles.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA5MwhuHWLo

Barry Manilow was successful in the pop music world, and also wrote several well-known jingles[1][2]. Many/most didn't know he wrote them until long after they had been established.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=bar... [2] http://barrynethomepage.com/commercialjingles.html

There's a great episode of Crap From The Past[0] about pop songs that started out as commercial jingles[1]. The most surprising one to me was the Carpenter's hit "We've only Just Begun".

[0] http://www.crapfromthepast.com/ [1] https://archive.org/details/cftp-2015-11-20

First thing that comes to my mind is the Nationwide jingle, and lately, hearing Peyton Manning hum it. Anyone know how long the Nationwide jingle has been around?

There are definitely still a lot of jingles that I instantly recognize or can think of (like other posters mentioned here, Folgers is definitely another one).

Anyone know how long the Nationwide jingle has been around?

Decades, as I recall it from when I was a child, and I've got more days behind me than ahead of me. I'm surprised to hear that they're still using it.

What about in podcasts?

No Agenda is a good example. The show utilizes jingles, songs, and soundbites for entertainment reasons rather than commercial. Too many to list (or find), but a few examples below.

In The Morning Breakfast jingle: https://clyp.it/1jlijg2g

See Something, Say Something: https://clyp.it/hcjt1i2g

Uber Spies acapella: https://clyp.it/wgpj4jjh

Don't Look Over Here (Nothing To See Here): https://clyp.it/on2d3pf3

Monsanto: https://clyp.it/ayuf1scs

> to be a pepper too

fixed

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