The last two days’ posts were all about phobias and crisis, so maybe it’s time to brighten things up.
Being that I’m one of the few people left on the planet who doesn’t DVR, I still see a fair number of television commercials, or at least hear the jingles in the background. Then I hear the jingles while I’m trying to fall asleep at night.
There was a time when jingles used to be clever and snappy. It didn’t matter if they got stuck in your head. Advertisers ensured the ditties equaled product appeal. We remember that Choo Choo Charlie was an engineer. Good & Plenty candies made his train run. I’m betting you can remember the intervening rhymes. We also knew that if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, everyone would be in love with me.
In an 2010 interview for Forbes.com, Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO and chief creative officer of advertising agency Kaplan Thaler Group, said, “A jingle is not successful if you listen to it once and like it. You have to listen to it and want to sing it. Essentially you become the advertiser for the brand.” She’s right.
Lately, though, it seems that ad jingles are spectacularly annoying. I’d bet they clank in the average consumer’s head more persistently than the clever ones. And the fact that the quality of the singing is so much worse makes us want to dig Melanie’s “Brand New Key” out of our record crypts, just so we can find a more grating song to replace the obnoxious jingles echoing in our brains. By the way, “Brand New Key” has always been my nomination for the song most likely to power a psychological warfare campaign to induce surrender by the most stubborn of enemies. But the U.S. military doesn’t consult me on such matters.
I’ll nominate four modern-day jingles for your consideration and you can decide for yourself which would win the Most-Worthy-of-Psycho-Warfare award.
Cast your vote today:
- Bisquick
- Xfinity
- Truvia
- NAPA
- Other; please specify.
Word Nymph 