I miss jingles

The old advertising jingle. I do miss it--really. Think about some of those great old jingles of your youth, and how they still stick in your mind: "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way." (Burger King) "Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Meyer wiener." Even short one-liners set to music have an impact: if I were to say "Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?" I'm certain many folks could sing it back to me with the right melody.


What is the power of the jingle? It started in the pre-television days of radio advertising. Without a visual medium to demonstrate the attributes of a brand that you just had to have in your home, jingles played on another key sense - sound - and the lasting impression that sound can make.


One of my favorite-ever episodes of "Cheers" was the one where Rebecca decides to start up an advertising program because their cross-town competitors, Gary's Olde Towne Tavern, has been advertising heavily. She goes to an advertising agency and tells them of her need, and they bring in a heavy-hitting music composer. She advises that she only has $200 to spend, so they roll in Sy Flembeck, a past-his-prime bar-room piano player who composes every ad jingle to the tune of "Old MacDonald (E-I-E-I-O)".


When you think of the other ways in which music impacts our mood and our memory, it makes a great case for re-incorporating this into advertising. The music each of us tends to gravitate to  is whatever we listened to in late high school and college. A given song can evoke a certain feeling and perhaps even a specific time, place and person. Think also about movie and television show soundtracks:  the producers of "Forrest Gump" chose some songs that were spot on with the time and situations of the movie's scenes.


The television show "ER" was known for its music selection: one of the songs that has always struck a deep emotional chord with me is Santana's "Samba Pa Ti". In the first episode in which the character Lucy Knight appears, she has to inform a wife of her husband's terminal condition, and as she walks away, that song comes on in the background. On the episode in which Lucy is stabbed to death by a schizophrenic patient, Chuny goes across to the diner to inform her colleagues that Lucy has died, and that song is playing once again. I think it is a brilliant piece of music mastery, even if not original composition, and is one thing that made "ER" stand out for me and for many.


What advertising jingles are etched on your memory? Do you still play them back in your mind when you think of a certain brand?