2/28/09
Given I'm so miserable and on so many drugs that my mind is incapable of giving you the blog you so richly deserve, let's open it up to a CODE WORD question today, namely this: what is your favorite, and what do you think is the most effective advertising jingle, both past and present? Someone - jje? - mentioned jingles in the comments section last week, and I've been thinking about them.
For me...
- oddly the most lasting is the two word, three note "Byyyy Men-nen" jingle at the end of all the Mennen Speed Stick deodorant commercials from the '70s and '80s
- predictably, I loved the I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing Coke ad when I was a kid, although looking at it now... sheesh!
- currently, in a moderately jingle-free world, the little bell tingle at the end of the T-Mobile ads is actually fairly effective for "brand recognition", if you're turned on by that sort of thing
- and of course, there's always shit like the Heinz "Anticipation" commercial that still haunts me to this day
- still, nothing beats this:
I think the blog only allows one link per comment, so comment often - ed.
Posted by Ian Williams at March 1, 2009 11:26 PMHaha I love that video for "Log"!
It's lo-og, it's lo-og... it's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's lo-og, it's lo-og, it's better than bad, it's good!
I'm teased quite a bit about my interest in commercials, jingles from commercials, and actual music used in commercials. I actually have several CDs I've made that are comprised of songs from commercials. I'm not talking about instantly recognizable songs, songs that like, get the band/artist on the map due to the fact that it was in a commercial.
Anyway, jingles! It's the middle of the night (the snow woke me up and now I'm just watching everything get covered in white), so I can't remember a ton off the top of my head, but sometimes I hum/sing the jingle for Empire flooring to myself out of nowhere. Eight hundred five eight eight two three hundred.... EMPIIIIIIIIIIRE!
I'm only 2 years old, but thanks to YouTube I have a lot of favorite commercial jingles from olden times (when all of you were growing up). Here's one I like a lot right now:
A Canadian ad, admittedly, but Maple Leaf players Darryl Sittler and Norm Ullman flogging Wheetabix in the 70s is my favorite. The internet apparently is unaware of that moment in northern social history.
DUNKIN DONUTS! IT'S WORTH THE TRIP!
My favorite old school jingle is the Maxwell house sound of coffee brewing in the big old coffee pot. My new favorite is from a local car dealership. Cracks me up every time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGZxaDKmtwE
It seems Barnaby and I have similar taste in commercials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctNAs1K7nbo
...and I don't even eat beef or pork. Go figure.
Barry Manilow rocked the jingle space--he wrote the "stuck on band-aid" song, like a good neighbor state farm is there, and one of my favorites "I'm a pepper, he's a pepper..."
This one was burned into my brain in the UK---set to the tune of "Watch Them Grow" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFULex4fHq4
A non-jingle but good commercial can be found by searching "Madness Colgate" on youtube.
And then there was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soFXG2FaONw
...which also gets the dubious distinction of Most Disappointing Toy EVER....
I don't know about 'best' -- the most effective commercials are often the most irritating. E.g. Head On is perhaps the perfect product/commercial tuple -- the commercials give you a headache, which the product purports to cure.
I don't know if any recording of it exists, but Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre used to do an amazing bit that was a commercial for a cardboard box. A man, stammering with excitement, lists all the uses for a cardboard box, while the rest of the group chant "It's More Than A Box!"
They also had a wonderful mini-opera called "A Wistful Elvis" which was the Life of Elvis as told by His Dog Rags, but I digress.
Another fan of the badger commercials here.
It was me! :-) I mentioned my all-time favorite (I even owned it on a cheezy mix CD of "great" sports arena songs) - "Be Like Mike" for Gatorade.
Sometimes I dream
That he is me
You've got to see that's how I dream to be
I dream I move, I dream I groove
Like Mike
If I could Be Like Mike
Again I try
Just need to fly
For just one day if I could
Be that way
I dream I move
I dream I groove
Like Mike
If I could Be Like Mikehttp://www.authorviews.com/authors/rovell/rovell-obd.htm
Original BLM:
Updated version of BLM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06dQSwnxBbM
(Sorry for so many posts - would have put them on the same one!)
And even though we only eat organic chicken dogs around here, I often catch myself singing "My baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R..."
And as the granddaughter of a guy who was one of Milton Hershey's eary workers (both on his farm for boys and his factory - foreman of the Kiss line), I am know to sing about "The Great American Chocolate Bar."
Sheesh, need sleep! Please ignore typos like early workers and known to sing...
You might as well ask me to list my favorite pathogens.
I hate jingles. I hate crap that is intended to give me the irrational urge to shell out money for something I don't need and shouldn't want. I especially hate the ones that do what they're supposed to do and won't get out of my head. If I have a favorite one, it's my favorite because I've FORGOTTEN it and so it doesn't annoy me any more.
Oh, all right...here's one:
Spatula City, we sell spatulas...and that's all!". Weird Al Yankovic.
Bud, what's so disappointing about Lite Bright? It is what it is! It was annoying to run out of that black paper though. We should list fave childhood toys/fads another day. I remember the holiday season in the early '80s when there were two competing dominoes sets for sale.
Anyway...How about David Naughton singing that Dr. Pepper commercial? He also had that short-lived TV show. Definitely a '70s moment.
I have to give a shout-out (as well as proper credit) to my friend Doug Katsaros, who wrote "By Mennen." He also wrote "Just for the taste of it....Diet Coke!" as well as many other classics.
Sad that I cannot think of one memorable jingle from the last 10 years. I wish melody would make a comeback!
My head started filling up with lots o' jingles from the 70s. But when I looked at the hilarious badger car dealer spots linked above, that reminded me of this:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/roost/11.html
This is the link directly to the TV spot, but if you haven't seen it before, do yourself a favor and take the full tour on this web site, by clicking "home" at the bottom of the page. I first stumbled across it 7 or 8 years ago, and it's just as awesome now as it was then.
I second the Oscar Mayer weiner jingle. Somehow we have acquired an Oscar Mayer-mobile Christmas ornament that plays the song. This bizarre object fascinates my daughter -- so now the jingle is infecting another generation.
Jon - I spent an embarrassingly long time on the Gobbler site. Thanks for posting. Awesome doesn't do it justice. It is stunning.
"Sail with the Pilot, all the way" -- during ACC basketball games -- Jefferson Pilot jingle.
Kelly in NC - Glad you liked it! It's a lot of material, but oh-so-worth-it. By the time I get to the page about dancing in The Royal Roost with Baldy Squareback, Arthur C. Clarke in drag and the child who has been hurled into the room, I'm beside myself with glee. Also, among too many to list, I love the description of the bar looking like "The War Room from Dr. Strangelove if the movie had been directed by Prince."
Jon - The description of the Cupid's Hideaway room is hard to beat: "Anyone who wishes to stay here must have his sideburns matched against a chart at the front desk. You must be this groovy to ride."
As a complete aside, my grandparents owned a nightclub in the seventies called "The Groovy Club". Clearly a spiritual cousin to the Gobbler. A poor, semi-rural, Southern cousin but a cousin nonetheless.
"Gillette, the best a man can get..."
Always inspired my UNC boyfriend to say, "I've got to meet this Gillette girl!"
I have actually spent a lot of time with the guy who wrote "by Mennen." It was one of about 12 or 15 or 30 different versions of that--all three notes in a row, all different variations on the theme, and that happened to be the one that they chose.
During the 80's he made a shitload of money writing jingles for products, and somewhere in the early 90's the entire market dried up. Ask any studio musician in NYC, and you'll hear of how the jingles world fueled their existence then, and how it vanished mysteriously, due to a number of things: the rise of do-it-all-in-one-box keyboards like the Korg M1, the strange and sudden desire to have no singing in commercials...
I think this guy also wrote the Gillette jingle, too.