Why don’t we do more jingles these days? When I was a kid, in the ’70s, jingles ruled consumer marketing as well as PSAs.
For some reason, advertisers and agencies started taking themselves so seriously that jingles fell to the wayside. Even beer ads stopped having a fun, singable, branded song with a built-in ad message in favour of the pop culture borrowed interest of a licensed hit song. (Which may get attention, but does it promote the brand, or the song?)
But jingles work. Music is one of the greatest mnemonics ever invented by the human imagination.
Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fizz! Oh, what a relief it is…
Me and the boys and our 50…
By MENNEN!
If you’re of a certain age, and from a certain part of the world (as in 42 and Canadian) these vintage jingles will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
We don’t often “get” to do jingles, because of the nature of our Social Issues Marketing clients and their brand relationships with audiences. But every once in a while, a more whimsical campaign comes along.
Our new campaign for Metro Transit in Halifax, Do It On The Bus, is one of those opportunities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1W7a24RFss
Even the process was fun. After writing the branded lyrics, we crowdsourced the music to creative music students in Halifax. The winning entry came from Leanne Hoffman, whose MP3 demo gave the jingle a warm indie feel that fit perfectly with the Halifax vibe.
“Do It On The Bus” was recorded by Robert Crewe at Halifax’s Stillwater Studios, and Leanne was accompanied on guitar by Scott MacLean. The video was produced by Halifax Regional Municipality, for their social media feeds.
See the rest of the Metro Transit campaign here, and visit the campaign microsite.
Want help writing a jingle for your company?