Jingles
Jingles
A jingle is a broadcast commercial presented as a song. It’s most often a 30 or 60-second piece of music with lyrics that sing about a particular product or service. The jingle lyrics coupled with a catchy melody help make them memorable and create the musical branding for the very first jingle is reported to have been for Wheaties that ran on radio in Minneapolis in 1929. General Mills was about to discontinue the brand due to poor sales, but the jingle dramatically increased sales in the Twin Cities, so much so, that the jingle was used nationally for Wheaties with great the next 60 years jingles were a ubiquitous part of commercial radio and television, creating many memorable marketing impressions. In 1970, even the Carpenters hit song “We’ve Only Just Begun” had been a jingle at one time for Crocker Bank in California. By the early 1990s though, jingles became less popular with advertisers and were viewed as being “old-fashioned”. Commercials at that time began featuring more underscore music without lyrics, and later advertisers began to license pop music and use either the original recordings or re-recorded versions in their , jingles can still be heard on radio, television, and the web today, because they build an emotional connection between the brand and the consumer. As self-professed “King of Jingles” Steve Karmen once said, “Nobody hums the announcer.”
