From Jingle to Sonic Branding
Fashion and advertising have one major point in common – trends are cyclical. If you have been in either industry long enough you will see various looks, techniques and theories reappear.
I first joined an agency in 1983 (Masius) and whilst jingle companies weren’t on every street corner, they were relatively common – far more so than during the past 20 odd years. And not just in Sydney and Melbourne, also in all mainland capitals, as well as some larger regional areas.
One large agency I worked for in the mid to late 80s, commissioned a jingle which they eventually sold to the 3rd client it was presented to (music the same, the lyrics changed.). This approach happens, not just with jingles, but good ideas in general. If one client doesn’t buy it, the idea is not binned. It is “repackaged” and presented to another client (though no agency would ever admit to doing this).
From the year 2000 on jingles, whilst still used in advertising, had nowhere near the profile or perceived importance they did during the 80’s. A fair assumption is this was due to the fixation with digital. In the early 2000s, digital was de rigueur, supplanting virtually every other topic in marketing and advertising.
Digital still dominates today, even with the broad prevalence and acceptance of integrated advertising, the title of digital marketer is still common (the question often asked in response, what the hell does a non-digital marketer do?).
You are hard pushed to find anything now that is not “digital” e.g. Google and News Limited have joined forces for a “Digital News Academy” (considering journalism has been both desecrated and dumbed down by digital, it is long overdue).
After 2 decades of digital obsession, many marketers are now noting music is a very strong branding device. Hadley an earth-shattering, or new, observation. Music is an integral part of everyone’s life – I dare say everyone has at least one song they associate with a major event in their life. Not just one major event, people’s lives are filled with music. No other creative endeavor has such a broad, common presence and emotive impact on peoples’ lives. Right back to the stone age, every civilization had some form of music. Even if just 2 rocks knocked together in a rhythmic manner (classic example of being cyclical – now called Rap music).
Not the first to use the term, my introduction to Sonic Branding was by Mastercard. Their great “Priceless” campaign was so strong they could do a “Nike”, i.e. two intersecting orange and red circles alone identified the brand. Noting sight was only 1 of the 5 human senses, they wanted to now use sound. In a UK Marketing Week issue, they spoke of also using smell and taste for branding. Hard to know if they were serious – “hmm, smells like a Mastercard to me”.
Though music has the ability to communicate and stir emotions more than any colour, the Mastercard’s Sonic Branding, said to have taken 2 years to develop, conjured being in an elevator (great work if you can get it).
In the 20th century, sonic was used in association with speed i.e.
Sonic boom. Explosive sound made when something breaks the speed of sound. (Usually a jet fighter).
Supersonic planes. Flew faster than the speed of sound.
And now frighteningly, hyper sonic missiles. They fly 4, 5 and even more times the speed of sound.
It seems the reprise of music has brought the need for a new name, one that implies modernity, something in keeping with the 21st century. 20 years or so years ago, the term “jingoistic” was used to describe pre-digital jingle-based advertising. It certainly was not a complementary name.
Far more brands today are using music as a key element of their advertising than 20 years ago. When using music, there are only 2 options:
1 - An existing song. If possible, a song which is relevant to the brand/product/service, by name or what it does. A good example is “I Still Call Australia Home” and QANTAS. There has been a gravitation to older, classic rock songs. McDonalds is currently using Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a Prayer”, though I fail to see any relevance. One scene has a young Kiwi lad saying he needs a “whiz”. His mates crying out “not again”. (He uses it as an excuse to go into a McDonalds. Could also be subtle nod to the need for men’s prostrate examinations.? If so a rubber glove, though less subtle, would have been effective).
And here-in is the challenge with using a well-known song with broad appeal. Will it be associated with the brand, is there any relevance? “Livin on a Prayer” will always been known as one of Bon Jovi’s biggest hits.
Compared to the 1979 OTC (prior to telecommunications market deregulation), using Barbra Streisand singing “Memories”. Comes from the 6 Oscar winning movie “The Way We Were”. Yet the song had such strong emotional relevance for people who had family and close friends overseas, its connection to OTC was immediate and strong. (Ironic OTC was a monopoly). Many respondents in focus groups I ran in the 1980s referenced this song (and knew the advertiser). Only TVC have ever had so many respondents claim they cried when seeing it - link
Can be as difficult selecting an existing piece of music that has both strong appeal and relevance to the advertiser as it is creating a bespoke jingle (Sonic Brand).
2 - A jingle. (Or bespoke Sonic Branding piece for those who feel jingle is so “20th century”). Mo and Jo (Alan Morris & Alan Johnston) were jingle writing geniuses. I have heard some people almost sneer at their work – jingoistic being the derogatory term used, as previously noted. Though this was nearly always by people without a creative or musical bone in their bodies and absolutely no idea how difficult it is to continually pump out jingles which not only are spot on in creative execution, but also melodies people not only could recall, but like so much they often sang along.
In the 80’s there was a pub called The Rest in Kirribilli. One Friday night, the live entertainment was only a guy with an acoustic guitar. He did one complete set of MoJo jingles. He made some of the lyrics far more ribald, but the choruses were the same. To witness 250 to 300 people all singing along with:
How do you feel
A week without the weekly
You outta be congratulated (the only word, Mo said, he could find to rhyme with “polyunsaturated”).
Come on Aussie.
Hit home how great Mo & Jo were. I have not experienced anything like it before or since. How many “bespoke sonic branding pieces” could elicit that response today?
The 2 greatest challenges in deciding to develop a piece of original music for a brand, product, or service are the same as selecting an existing piece of music, i.e.?
Is it on brief creatively, do the lyrics convey the desired message?
Most challenging is, will people like it?
The term “is it campaignable?”, is not frequently used today. The MoJo Tooheys campaign, “How do you feel”, had different executions, all sporting of course, for:
Rugby League
Cricket
Sailing
Rugby Union
AFL
Surfing
Soccer
Cycling
Even today, ask someone over 50 “How do you feel?” and often the answer will be “”I feel like a Tooheys”.
I have read much of Professor Mark Ritson’s work and have a lot of respect for him. He does not go in for “fads” and “fashions”, unafraid to call a spade a fucking shovel, such as describing NFTs as “marketing’s latest idiot magnets.”.
In a recent edition of the UK publication “Marketing Week” (it is published daily, does that make it Irish?), he rated, what he believed to be, the UK’s “Top 10 Sonic Brands”. This is a sure indication that jingles, (did refer to them so), are back in vogue. There was a fair amount of puffery (bullshit), in how the list is determined. Using “complex research” each jingle/sonic branding was scored equally on the below attributes and then totaled.
Appeal/Melody
Personality (match the brand personality)
Value (induce consumers to pay more
Salience. (remind consumers of the brand)
Jingles are not simplistic, dumbed-down music. It is a specialist area. A great technical musician is not necessarily a great composer. And vice versa – a great composer may not be a great technician. Many of Australia’s great musicians have played on ads, they just very rarely wrote them.
And writing lyrics for a song differs greatly from copywriting, Phrasing is all important – the writer cannot just blurt out a sentence. Without getting too technical, most people would have heard the term “4 beats in a bar”? Plus the number of “beats per minutes” determines how fast or slow the piece is. The lyrics have to fit the flow of the song (and many lyrics have been written in bars, hotel bars). Some write the music first and the put lyrics to it. Others (or at other times), lyrics are first written and then the music.
Whilst Mo and Jo were obviously confined only to clients of MoJo, jingle companies were and are not so constrained. With music/jingles/sonic branding making a comeback, the need for jingle companies is rapidly increasing.
In the 80’s if considering a jingle in Sydney, there were 5 outstanding choices. MoJo by far the most and impactful of jingle composers. There were 2 issues with wanting MoJo to compose a jingle :
They were only available to clients of the MoJo agency. They did not “freelance” to any brand/product/service outside of agency clients.
Personality. Their work was incredibly distinctive, though this was a double- edged sword. Their style was applicable to beer, even margarine, but questionable for products such as high-end cosmetics, fashion etc.
This is not a criticism; they were without peer. No jingle composer has consistently produced work as outstanding as MoJo.
WAM. Jeff and Jenny Ayling. They have written over 15,000 jingles and music pieces since 1967 (60 Minutes did a feature on them). Had the pleasure of working with them. Had people such as Tommy Emanuel, Doug Parkinson, Rick Price – most of Australia’s top artists, performing on them.
Original Music. Rod Tamlyn (Grahame Bond called him “Boy Genius”). A child prodigy guitarist, playing on stage at 9, dueling with Kevin Borich. Rod also utilised Australia’s top musical talent - Jimmy Barnes, the Emanuel brothers as well as producing for a myriad of overseas stars such as Elton John. He had the only Euphonix mixing console in Sydney (Abbey Road and Sun Studios also had them). Brilliant IT person and a fanatic on perfection. His studio took 2 years to build and was the best in the county (even had it run off DC current – eliminated the tiny “blips” caused by AC).
Grahame Bond, Fortunate to be my founding partner. A creative genius - writer, musician, comedian, actor, director, composer. His “Aunty Jack” show on the ABC has gone down in history having the impact and influence that National Lampoon did in the USA and Monty Python in the UK (as with National Lampoon and Monty Python, people who today are household names got their start on the show).
Les Gock, from glam rock band Hush. Didn’t have the pleasure of working with Les, but his reputation was/is superb.
There were others, very good, though not quite as brilliant as the above 5, but superior to many of the offerings today. In any industry, quality competition lifts your game.
Jingles/Sonic Branding have gone the full circle. Let’s just hope that flares don’t become fashionable again
