I was talking on the ol’ Facebook with my old childhood chum Paisley Park. (That is not her real name, but since that’s how she prefers to be named on Facebook, that’s how I identify her here.)
I posted a photo of me with Chuck McCann, a comic actor who did a series of Right Guard television commercials in the 70s. In 1978 I met Chuck McCann at Knotts Berry Farm in Anaheim, CA. (We went to Knotts because Disneyland was closed. Yes, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” was based on a true story.)
Anyway, Paisley brought up a commercial that she can still remember to this day, from a Syracuse, NY automotive business called Cole Muffler. The jingle, if I remember it correctly, goes like this:
Come on down to Cole Muffler, their service can’t be beat…
Come on down ro Cole Muffler and give your car a treat!
Wait a minute…this doesn’t do it justice…
Now, that Cole Muffler jingle has probably not been used since 1980-something. Yet Paisley and I still remember it, word for word!
This, you see, is the incredible power of a jingle. We as human beings have this love of music…and the ability to memorize music and lyrics. Right now you can sit and hear a song in your head without any external noise. In fact, music “sticks” with people like nothing else. Take Potsie for example! He was having difficulty in his biology class until the Fonz helped him use the power of music to remember all the facts about the circulatory system:
Good luck getting that out of your head.
A well-done jingle, used properly, will have an astonishing shelf life. This is also why good jingles are extremely expensive. That said, I’ve seen mediocre jingles have the same kind of longevity.
Most of the time, when a business gets a jingle, they are provided with a multitude of different cuts. One is a “full sing”, there might be a couple of “donuts” (singing at the beginning and end, instrumental music in the middle), and some tags (a short singing section either at the beginning or the end of the cut). I think sometimes this works against the success of the jingle, because the client might be overwhelmed by all the options. One client of ours got the full schmear, something like 10 different cuts…and for the better part of 15 years they’ve only used the instrumental.
Sometimes a jingle’s lifespan is cut short by exterior forces….businesses change slogans, chance the name of their business, or change their business entirely. We had a client who did both internet service and home appliances….until they stopped doing the appliances. I was asked by the salesperson if I could maybe edit the appliances out. Which…no, not so much. It’s a piece of music, and without the individual elements to play with, edits stick out like a sore thumb.
I’ve also been asked to “make” a jingle. The right answer is “No, I can’t do that.” A couple of times I said “Well, I can try”…but the no answer is always the right one. I can write straight voice commercials, I can write multi-voice commercials, I can write sound effect-laden extravanganza type commercials. But Irving Berlin I ain’t.
So, for the fun of it….here are my Top 10 jingles….in no particular order, except the first one is the best.