The Jingle and Sonic Logo
Jingles and sonic logos have often been confused. So let’s start with definitions for both.
A jingle is a short slogan, verse, or tune designed to be easily remembered, especially as used in advertising and marketing campaigns.
A sonic logo, also known as a mnemonic or “earworm”, is a short auditory phrase of branded sound. Although most associate this with music, sonic means waveforms. Therefore, a sonic logo is any auditory phrase of branded sound.
When you say the words sound identity, sonic logo, or sonic branding, a lot of people’s heads just fill up with a bunch of question marks. “I have no idea what that is.” “That sounds too complicated”. “That’s more extensive (or expensive) than what I need.” “Let’s just create a jingle for right now and talk about sound identities later on down the line.”
All of these are reasonable thoughts and there are plenty of stand alone jingles that are fun and product recalling. However, without considering the whole brand BEFORE creating a “fun and catchy jingle”, the chances of a jingle recalling your brand specifically are just that; chances.
Creating a fun and catchy jingle is relatively easy. Creating a brand recalling sound identity is harder but more profitable.
Jingles From The Past
Meow Mix
Consider the 1970’s Meow Mix jingle. It just repeats, “meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow” over and over while the little ball dances across the subtitles of the screen of the lyrics. Lyrics that are never actually sung.
If you aren’t familiar with Meow Mix, google “Meow Mix song”. If your little kids are around wait because you will get nothing else done for the rest of the evening (still getting requests from my 5 year old to watch it and it’s been years since I first showed her!).
That jingle was made specifically on brand. Not only did they repeat the brand name over and over again, but it was also the sound of their consumer; a cat. Silly, annoying, and memorable. After watching and/or hearing that ad once…you will always remember Meow Mix. It says it in the jingle. In fact, that’s all that it says in the jingle.
Although the lyrics (and there are actual lyrics) tell the ingredients and the justification for buying the product, it doesn’t matter. All we really need is to see the cute cat video dubbing their mouths to appear as if they’re talking (fancy CG back in the day). We as humans are very simple in that way. It’s like a viral video classic…before viral videos.
Kit Kat
Here’s another good example. Kit Kat…”Give me a break, give me a break. Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat Bar”.
It not only mentions the product in the jingle, but it tells you how to eat it! It even makes you move.
Try to sing this to yourself without moving at all or snapping your fingers or tapping your foot….I dare you.
Dah Dah Dah
But not all jingles are like that. For instance, do you remember the “dah dah dah” commercial? VERY catchy. Simple to remember, toe tapping, and silly. It was something you’d talk about around the water cooler. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was for. All I could remember was some easy chair showing up randomly around town. And for the sake of this argument, I resisted the urge to Google it until after I wrote this paragraph. It was for Volkswagen in the mid 90’s.
Great commercial but I would argue not really a great branding thing.
If people remember your video but can’t recall the name of your brand, then you’ve wasted your marketing dollars.
Sonic Logo Evolution
10 or 15 years ago, a concept like sonic branding was only available to those big brands that could afford a network TV spot. For those not so big brands, it was irrelevant as it was:
A) Far over budget and…
B) Completely useless when the main source of attainable marketing was print and word of mouth.
Websites were just babies at that point. Myspace was there but….well it was Myspace. It was a brand new thought that no one really knew what to do with or how to actually use it effectively.
Digital was nothing compared to what it is today. However, today you can do pretty much anything. And that is where the birth of sonic branding and sound marketing really took off.
The Caterpillar Vs. the Butterfly
This article brought up some excellent thoughts on jingles. Although the writer saw jingles as “dead”, I see them as being “reborn”.
The traditional jingle is gone, but a new more curated version of a “jingle” is rising. I believe that that is what the age of sonic identities and sound branding is all about.
Sonic identities are the new jingle.
I’ll start with this writer’s argument about jingles going away. Advertisers now-a-days are hiring and/or commissioning popular artists rather than commissioning jingle writers to write the campy and very catchy jingles of the past. The market of everything is over saturated. There are hardly any “king of industry” products.
Because of all of this industry “noise”, brands now must rely on representing a certain lifestyle and a more relatable and personal brand identity. This makes total sense as we have entered the age of the social media influencer and the concept of “you are your own brand”. If you haven’t heard that term yet, don’t worry…you will.
Jingles and Sonic Logos in Influencer Marketing
In the age of social media influencers, brands must rely on representing a certain lifestyle and a more relatable and personal brand identity.
What marketers did was to explore what could most effectively attribute to a person’s emotional and cultural experience. So, of course, they tapped into music.
Music is one of the most visceral commodities we have. Everyone has a strong tie to something musical at one point or another in their life.
So marketers started licensing popular artists to either record an original (McDonald’s I’m Lovin’ It), or took a non original tune and tied it to their brand or campaign (Apple iPod Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Nike Revolution). These are most definitely not bad ideas but, the danger in this is you are branding two brands together (the artist/band and your own brand).
If that artist you’ve chosen to represent your brand does something that is off brand from your product in some way, your brand will be misrepresented in their actions.
Take Jared from Subway for example. His actions most definitely did not help the company.
The Jingle Comeback?
Jingle’s have a stigma of being corny. Case in point…most of my examples. But corny or dated doesn’t have to be negative. Most of the success of past jingles were that they had easily accessible tunes and lyrics. A lot of times this comes off as corny.
By having tunes and lyrics that are more simplistic, you create a massively successful recall track record. I can still sing (most of) the Toys ‘R Us theme song and I haven’t heard it in a very long time. And although sadly Toys ‘R Us is no more, I will forever know that song went with that store.
There’s power in that corn.
By having tunes and lyrics that are more simplistic, you create a massively successful recall track record.
Predictions
So with all that being said, my prediction is that sound identity IS the new jingle.
Sonic branding is a hybrid of something old and something new. It caters to that high recall connection that the jingles from yesteryear created while adopting the importance of cultural significance and social media branding and identity that is prevalent today.
Related Articles on Sonic Branding
For more articles on Sonic Branding, check out:
How Dove Succeeded Creating a Massive Sensorial Experience
Seinfeld; Building an Iconic Sound
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