“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”
– Frederic Chopin
Some music is difficult to remember, and some is difficult to forget. While you might recognize parts of Pachelbel’s “Cannon” or Vivaldi’s “Spring” it would be difficult for most people to hum either in its entirety strictly from memory. But if you were thinking about changing car insurance or were driving past a McDonald’s I would bet some tunes popped into your head without invitation and probably stayed there longer than you wanted.
To be fair, a significant part of this familiarity is due to repetition. I think we would be a lot more familiar with Pachelbel and Vivaldi if their music was played during every TV time out at the Superbowl. But even with that kind of exposure I think there are things working against them – such as length and complex thematic development – that would make their music more difficult to instantly recall in detail.
That’s what makes jingles cool. Structurally, they are usually pretty simple – not more than a few notes, not longer than 15 seconds. I like to think of it as the “Mary Had A Little Lamb” effect – simple and singable melody that is in an easy sonic range, matched with easily remembered lyrics and repetition. We have dug deep into the mechanics of why jingles work HERE and it’s worth a read if you want to understand the “how and why” in depth.
Unfortunately, many businesses and brands overlook how powerful and effective a good jingle can be. This is so shortsighted. As a device for getting something to stick in your brain, jingles are difficult to beat, and with the intense focus on brand awareness and brand recall at the point of a purchasing decision, we are honestly surprised more businesses and brands aren’t tapping into the power of jingles.
So with all that said, here’s 5 examples of jingles I like that are working on you right now (or about to be) to show how brands use music to make their messages memorable:
5. Liberty Mutual
We are starting off with a killer example. Ascending melody followed by descending resolution and repetition. That rest before that last “Liberty” is like audio italics. Created in 2019 by Elias Music, this jingle is quickly becoming iconic and demonstrates how something simple and sticky can be used across multiple campaigns or advertisements. Basically what I’m saying is that I have a lot of respect for something that sounds like it was created on the way to the pitch meeting
4. Farmer's
What’s up with insurance companies and jingles? This one is really clever though – they put the “bum ba dum dum……” that you would use to describe the melody to someone if you didn’t remember the words right in the song! As a musician who has sent numerous band mates into fits of laughter trying to sing melodies with nonsense syllables I can appreciate the subtlety of what they are doing here.
Created by RPA nearly fifteen years ago, this also sounds like someone couldn’t think of any more lyrics and just left in the placeholder, which is a really cool way of bypassing a lot of cognitive filters and burning it into your brain like a sonic Trojan horse.
3. McDonald's
Who knew so few notes could cause such a shitstorm? This one was created and produced by a literal all-star team including Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams and Pusha T, so I guess it should have been no surprise that it would be successful. Apparently it was a surprise to Pusha T though, and he is NOT happy about it.
As usual, it comes down to the money. He was paid a one-time fee and gets no royalties (as opposed to Justin Timberlake who has made about $6 million from the ad) because he was “young and didn’t understand ownership.” In fact, he has released a diss track in the form of an Arby’s commercial, so safe to say Pusha T and Micky D are really beefing (I’m sorry). I have no comment because I am not about to get involved in all that. Big picture, try to own the rights to your stuff, best way to avoid these types of things.
2. O'Reilly Auto Parts
They got their groove on for this one, what a smooth bass line. A little more produced and a little more complex than previous examples, but in this case that’s part of why it works – they blasted this all over the radio, and it fit right in with the sound and feel of “radio station” music.
This one always makes me think of Thanksgiving. Not because the song itself has anything to do with the holiday, but one Thanksgiving when my kids were little we were traveling and I had a headlight go out. I pulled in to an O’Reilly’s and BOTH kids started singing the jingle from the back seat. Enjoy those moments folks, they grow up fast.
1. Kars4Kids
This one. This is an ass whipping of a jingle. It’s slow, it’s repetitive, sounds a lot like “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and is instantly recognizable as what many have called the most irritating song in the world. I would tell you who is responsible for unleashing this monster on us all but they have been forced to remain anonymous due to death threats. That’s right – people reacted so strongly to this jingle they wanted to kill someone. Not bad, anonymous agent of chaos, not bad at all.
Want to talk about a jingle for your business? Or perhaps there is another type of audio content you are interested in? Feel free to contact us and let’s make some noise together!