THE ADNEWS NGEN BLOG: Jingles and the changing media landscape

Having worked in the music and entertainment industry before my recent entry into media, I have more than a passing interest in how music is used by marketers.

The dropping of Qantas’ jingle for Daniel Johns’ penned theme has sparked me to wonder why they are being used less by advertisers.

Since the beginning of electronic communication, jingles have been a way of getting brands to the top of consumers' minds, often due to what is referred to as earworms. Catchy pieces of music that get into your head and you just can’t get rid of them. For many years advertisers have used this phenomenon to their advantage. Because of jingles, a generation of consumers can recite the ingredients of a Big Mac, the phone number of a pizza delivery business or tell what mamma is making for dinner.

This form of advertising has helped to make brands. I would like to think a catchy as hell jingle is the reason why Adelaide based Snappy Tom was the second most popular cat food in Australia.

Some jingles have even gone on to be money-making hit singles in their own right, such as the recently dropped Peter Allen tune I Still Call Australia Home or C’mon Aussie, C’mon, which still gets sung at cricket matches today. That is some pretty impressive reach and frequency if songs become so popular that people are playing those tunes and paying for the privilege.

So why are advertisers such as Qantas shying away from this advertising form?

Is it a media issue? Jingles transfer brilliantly from TV to radio but are harder to translate to digital display, print and outdoor. It is not ideal that a big idea is not transferable to all mediums. There is however, potential to use jingles in the not so popular auto play digital advertising. But is there a better online activation?

Is it the difficulty of finding the right composer to write these ditties? Hit songs don’t come easily to people. If they did, everyone would do it. However, there are so many incredible songwriters and producers in this country who are on the edge of the radar who could be utilised.

For example, Gotye released two semi-popular albums before he had a number one hit, as did The Presets and hoard of other electronic acts. Imagine if a forward thinking advertiser hired Gotye to pen a tune about sausages he used to know.

Is it an issue of expense? I’m sure Daniel Johns didn’t write the Qantas song because he had nothing better to do that day. If you consider the amount spent on testing creative concepts, surely some amount could be spent on pre-testing songwriters’ tunes?

Jingles still have a way of entering popular culture. Last year uber cool DJ Sampology used Coles' Down Down ads in his audio visual DJ show. This was viewed by thousands around Australia and thousands more on YouTube, by those very hard to reach light TV viewing Gen Y types.

Many prominent creatives warn against the use of jingles in advertising as they feel them to be in poor taste. I challenge those authors to tell that to the Wu Tang Clan. Their hit song Gravel Pit was one big jingle.

While there are many good and bad factors to jingles, I find myself singing "down, down, prices are down", and I don’t necessarily think that is such a bad thing for a brand.

Daniel Novacco
Media Assistant
UM Brisbane