Radio Jingles

Jingles or Commercials- An Introduction

A jingle is a radio or TV advertising slogan set to a (hopefully) memorable melody. Jingles are written explicitly about a product -- they can be original works designed to describe a product or service, or to help consumers remember information about a product. As long as the slogan is instantly catchy -- and hard to forget -- there's almost no limit to what advertisers can say in a jingle. It can be a slogan, a phone number, a radio or TV station's call letters, a business's name or even the benefits of a certain product.
The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television commercials; they can also be used in non-advertising contexts to establish or maintain a brand image. Jingles are a form of sound branding.
The jingle had no definitive status: its infiltration of the radio was more of an evolutionary process than a sudden innovation. Product advertisements with a musical tilt can be traced back to 1923,   around the same time commercial radio began in the United States. If one entity has the best claim to the first jingle it is General Mills, who aired the world’s first singing commercial. The seminal radio bite, entitled "Have You Tried Wheaties?" was first sung over the air on Christmas Eve of 1926 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul radio market.
The art of the jingle reached its peak around the economic boom of the 1950s. The jingle was used in the advertising of branded products such as breakfast cereals, candy, snacks, soda pop, tobacco, and beer. Various franchises and products aimed at the consumers' self-image, such as automobiles, personal hygiene products (including deodorants, mouthwash, shampoo, and toothpaste), and household cleaning products, especially detergent, also used  Jingles are also the vital part of Radio. As radio is only concerned with the voice so Jingles played important role in every program of radio, All most all the radio ads are based on jingles for their identification.
Most often the term Radio Jingles can be used to collectively describe all elements of radio station branding or identification. Accurately the term in the context of radio used to describe only those station branding elements which are musical, or sung. Sung jingles are the most common form of radio station branding otherwise known as imaging. A radio jingle therefore is created in a studio by session singers and includes a musical representation of the radio station name and frequency. Radio stations will sub contract to specialist radio jingle producers who will create the musical sound and melody along with the recording the session singers. The elements will be dispatched to the radio station in various time variations to be edited by local radio producers before being broadcast in between songs or into and out of commercial breaks.
Aided by simplicity, catchiness and repetition, they insidiously attach themselves to your cerebral cortex, and nothing can dislodge them, short of having another jingle catch your attention. An advertising jingle or commercial theme is much like the introduction to a television show or for radio ads. There are lots of reasons why, demographic, social, political factors influence on our buying behaviours and jingles are one of the reason which affect the customer preferences.
We always give least importance to radio advertising but from a research it has been proved that radio ads are among the strongest medium that can sell things. When this very personal medium is used well, it informs, stimulates emotions, and engenders trust, all the things that make us buy. I know this first hand.
The style of advertising -- of much visual media, in fact -- is changing as well, with a shift from linear storytelling to collages of images. Then there's the splintering and fragmentation of audiences and the media channels to reach them with a single musical signature. Your tune should be light and lively, set in an upbeat major key. The tempo should be quick and the rhythm snappy, like a march or a cheer. I tend to remember jingles that are witty or funny.

Jingles- A professional touch 

The jingles are usually composed by professionals. Since jingles are important components of the ad campaign, a lot of care is taken to ensure that only a very high quality advertising jingle is produced. Because they are so popular, and also given the wide reach of them, a lot of established musicians also lend their talents to it. As a result, it is often seen that the advertising jingles are of superior quality. This further goes on to boost the advertising efforts of the company as with a good jingle, the ad stands out, and quite obviously, it is every ad maker's desire to have an outstanding ad, quite literally so!

Writing advertising jingles is a great way to make money with your music. Many times a new song will be written instead of using an existing piece for an advertising campaign. Getting involved with an advertising agency is one way to put music dollars in your pockets and get your work noticed by the public.

Some tips for effective jingle writing


  • Know the product: What are you trying to sell? A service? A product? A company? What does it do, provide or offer? Familiarize yourself with its benefits, capabilities, and distinction. What makes it superior to others of its kind? 
  • Drill the name: The jingle must mention and repeat the specific name of the product or company and what it does. You want to ensure that the consumer remembers the name in conjunction with the type of product. If they repeat it, they are more likely to buy it. With a good jingle, the consumer may actually begin to call all products of that type by the trade name. 
  • Set your slogan to a tune: There is much evidence to show that we remember tunes better than mere words. That's why a jingle is generally much easier to remember than just a slogan. 
  • Use assonance (repetition of vowel sounds -- 'eat cheap') and alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds -- 'Lemon-lime'): This makes your jingle fun to sing! 
Great Jingles should be: 


 Short
 Easy to Understand
 Recognizable
 Memorable

History of Jingles 

Jingles have been around since the advent of commercial radio in the early 1920s, when advertisers used musical, flowery language in their ads. But it was on Christmas Eve, 1926 in Minneapolis, Minn., that the modern commercial jingle was born when an a cappella group called the Wheaties Quartet sang out in praise of a General Mills breakfast cereal. Executives at General Mills were actually about to discontinue Wheaties when they noticed a spike in its popularity in the regions where the jingle aired. So the company decided to air the jingle nationally, and sales went through the roof. Eighty years later, Wheaties is a staple in kitchens across the globe.
There is some debate about this historical tidbit, though. Some point to a 1905 song called "In My Merry Oldsmobile," by Gus Edwards and Vincent Bryan, as the world's first jingle. But the song itself predates commercial radio -- Oldsmobile appropriated it for radio in the late 1920s. So, we could probably more accurately call it the world's first pop song licensed for advertising.
In the early 1930s radio was enjoying a golden age, but there were strict advertising rules. Direct advertising during prime-time hours was prohibited, so advertisers started using a clever loophole -- the jingle. Jingles could mention a company or product's name without explicitly shilling that product. For example, the introduction to "The Adventures of the Jenkins Family" program began with a sing-songy "Oh, my! It's Eskimo Pie!"
A good jingle can do wonders for business -- it can save a dying brand, introduce a new item to a broader audience and rejuvenate a lackluster product. The histories of the jingle and commercial radio are inextricably entwined. Prior to the popularization of radio, products were sold on a one-on-one basis (at the store, or by a traveling salesman), and advertisements from those days reflect that. They are very direct, matter-of-factly describing the benefits of their product over their competitor's. But as the radio audience grew, advertisers had to convince the public of the superiority of a product they couldn't see -- for this purpose, jingles were ideal.

In the 1950s, jingles reached their commercial and artistic peak. Famous songwriters penned slogans, and the copyrights were granted to jingle composers rather than the manufacturing company.

Why are jingles so catchy? 

Jingles are written to be as easy to remember as nursery rhymes. The shorter the better, the more repetition the better, the more rhymes the better. If you're being indecisive in the deodorant aisle and you suddenly hear a voice in your head singing "by … Mennen," you might drop a Speed Stick (manufactured by Mennen) into your basket without a second thought.
Jingles are designed to infiltrate your memory and stay there for years, sometimes popping up from out of nowhere. You probably fondly remember all of the words to the Oscar Mayer B- O-L-O-G-N-A song, the "plop plop fizz fizz" chorus of the Alka-Seltzer jingle, and countless other melodies from your childhood.
Psychologists and neurologists who study the effects of music on the brain have found that music with a strong emotional connection to the listener is difficult to forget. It was this discovery that led marketers to license pop songs for advertising instead of commissioning original jingles. It turns out that some pop songs contain earworms: pleasantly melodic, easy- to-remember "hooks" that have the attributes of a typical jingle.
Earworms, also known by their German name, "ohrwurm," are those tiny, 15- to 30-second pieces of music that you can't get out of your head no matter how hard you try (the phenomenon is also called Song Stuck Syndrome, repetuneitis, the Jukebox Virus and melodymania). The word "earworm" was popularized by James Kellaris, a marketing professor at the University of Cincinnati, who has done a great deal (for better or worse) to bring this phenomenon to the forefront of the study of advertising techniques.
We don't know much about what causes earworms, but it could be the repeating of the neural circuits that represent the melody in our brains. It might also have to do with some of the findings of researchers Alan Baddely and Graham Hitch, and the model of working memory, the part of the brain that practices and repeats verbal information [source: Models of Working Memory]. In 1974 Baddely and Hitch discovered what they called the phonological loop, which is composed of the phonological store (your "inner ear," which remembers sounds in chronological order) and the articulatory rehearsal system (your "inner voice," which repeats these sounds in order to remember them). This area of the brain is vital in early childhood for developing vocabulary and in adulthood for learning new languages.

Researchers have noted that the shorter and simpler the melody, the more likely it is to get stuck in your head -- this is why some of the most common earworms are jingles and the choruses of pop songs. Earworms tend to occur more often in musicians than nonmusicians and in women more than men. Those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder can be particularly irritated by earworms. Sometimes, actually hearing the offending refrain (or replacing it with something equally infectious) can clear an earworm from the mind, but, unfortunately, there is no surefire way to get rid of them.

The Future of Jingles 

Jingles were an advertiser's dream for the same reason the public can grow to hate them: You can't get them out of your head. But, as with most other stimuli, the more you experience them, the less of an effect they have on you. The widespread use of jingles on radio and TV has caused the newest generation of consumers to see them as hokey.
As we've mentioned, the commercial licensing of pop songs caused the decline of the jingle. In 1987, the Beatles tune "Revolution" was licensed for a Nike shoe campaign, which would prove to be the start of a revolution in advertising. As markets became increasingly clogged with indistinguishable products, it was no longer possible (or relevant) to tout the absolute supremacy of a product. To gain a loyal brand following, a good product was simply not enough -- a company now had to represent a lifestyle or an identity. Piggybacking on emotional and cultural experience became the most effective way to sell products. It's widely known that most humans have a deep emotional connection to music -- so instead of trying to form a new connection with consumers, why not let the Rolling Stones, Mike and the Mechanics, Fall Out Boy or Bob Seger do it for you?
Music purists derided the commercialization of their favorite tunes, and musicians who wanted to be considered "serious artists" vowed never to allow their songs to be used in a marketing campaign. In the 1980s, Sting famously rebuffed an offer to use the Police song "Don't Stand So Close To Me" in a deodorant commercial (but he and his music later went on to star in a Jaguar campaign in 2000). But for all the cries of ruination, these ad campaigns have significantly helped revive the music of several critically acclaimed but widely unknown musicians -- like Nick Drake, Stereolab and Spiritualized. In fact, marketers are quick to point out that much of the hype surrounding the licensing of pop songs for commercials comes from major record labels. Major labels are in crisis mode, desperately seeking new ways to promote their albums. Deals with advertisers -- and prime-time shows like "Grey's Anatomy" -- have helped record companies find new ways to promote their music and create additional revenue streams.
Product placement, the conspicuous inclusion of name-brand products in TV shows and movies, has also gained hold in recent years. With the invention of the digital video recorder (DVR), viewers can now fast-forward through commercials, forcing companies to find more clever ways to advertise their products.

Fashion is cyclical, though, and advertising is no exception to the rule. The ubiquity that led to the demise of jingles and the rise of licensed music is causing the pendulum to swing the other way. The cost of licensing music is getting higher as it becomes more popular, and jingles are being rediscovered for their promotional value in small and local markets. There may never be another "I'm stuck on Band-Aid, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me," but the jingle has proven itself as a tried-and-true technique for advertisers trying to worm their way into our brains. 

Some Popular Jingles

 Bajaj Bulb Jingle  

Jab main chhota ladka tha, Badi shararat karta tha, Meri chori pakdi jaati… Jab roshan hota Bajaj. Ab main bilkul buddha hoon, Goli khake jeeta hoon, Lekin aaj bhi ghar ke andar.. Roshni deta Bajaj.  

 Washing Powder Nirma Ad Jingle  

Washing powder Nirma, Washing Powder Nirma, Thoda sa powder aur jhaag dher saara.. Hema..Rekha..Jaya aur Sushma.. Sabki pasand Nirma… Washing powder Nirma NIRMA!!!  

 Vicco Turmeric Ad Jingle  

Bade naazon se paali hamaari banno, tujhe dulhan banaaye ree pyaari banno, Tujhko haldi ka ubtan lagaayein sakhiyaan, Teri kaaya ko kanchan banaayein sakhiyaan, Roop kundan sa chamke hamaari banno, tujhe dulhan banaaye ree pyaari banno… Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream, Tvacha ki raksha karey, antiseptic cream. Roop ko sanvarey, nikharey har dam, Haldi aur chandan ka anokha sangam. Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream, Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream..!  

 Hero Motocorp Ad Jingle  

Dil dheere dhadke hai aaj Hone ko hai aaghaaz Safar pe Chalne ka badhne ka 
Itna hai Hausla Mitna faasla Manzil ne mil hi jaana hai O.. Khwabon se aage jaana hai Humi se toh ummeedein hain Humi se toh dilasa hai Hami pe hain nigaahe bhi Hami pe to Bharosa hai Hum mein hai hero Hum Mein hai Hero Dil se kaho, hey, hai Hum Mein Hai Hero Milke kaho, hey, hai Hum Mein Hai Hero Hum mein hai hero Hum mein hai hero… 

 Nima Sandal Ad Jingle 

Sunehra badan, Haldi Chandan, Mai hoon Nima Sandal Girl, 21st Century Girl, Mera Hai ye sara world, Dinbhar taazgi, Chandan Haldi, Mai hoon Nima Sandal Girl, 21st Century Girl, Mera Hai ye sara world, Nima Sandal Girl..!! 

 Airtel Ad Jingle 

Chai ke Liye jaise toast hota hai, Waise har ek friend zaroori hota hai, Aise har ek friend zaroori hota hai. Koi subah paanch baje neend se jagaye, Koi raat ko teen baje jaan bachaye. Ek teri kadki mein sharing kare, Aur Ek tere budget mein sneak in kare. Koi nature se guest koi host hota hai, Par har ek friend zaroori hota hai. Ek ghadi ghadi kaam aaye par kabhi kabhi call kare, Ek kabhi kabhi kaam aaye aur ghadi ghadi call kare. Gossip ka koi ghoomta phirta satellite, Koi sath rahe toh kar de sab alright. Koi effortless koi forced hota hai, Lekin har ek friend zaroori hota hai. Chat Room friend koi classroom friend, Koi bike pe race wala vroom vroom friend. Shopping mall wala shopping friend, Koi Exam hall wala copying friend. Movie buddy, groovy buddy, Hi buddy, Bye buddy, Joke buddy, Poke buddy, Gaana Buddy, Shaana buddy, Chaddi Buddy, Yaar Buddy. Kutte..Kameeney..Everybody, Sab buddy. A to Z Gin din ke naam bheja Roast hota hai, Par har ek friend zaroori hota hai, Lekin har ek friend zaroori hota hai. 

References 

 TVParty.com: Classic TV Commercial Jingles 
 E-Learn Magazine: Music Lessons 
 NPR Music: Jingles Fade in a Hipper Ad Climate 
 Seattle Times: Plop, Plop; Jingles Drop Out of Favor 
 The Guardian: Can't Get it Out of My Head 
 Mass Communication: Seema Hassan 

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