Plop, plop, fizz fizz.
Candy coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize.
What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs?
Once upon a time...there were jingles: catchy little sing-songy tunes that immediately embedded themselves in your brain, and then stayed there... forever. If radio created the jingle, then TV surely perfected it; matching the invasive earworm with irresistible eye candy to create the perfect pop culture confection: the much-maligned, yet still viable 30-second spot.
It is a tempting oversimplification to think that people weren't nearly as evolved or as pop-culture savvy back when there were only a handful of radio stations, three networks and some local TV stations. The truth is that consumers were captivated largely by a strangely compelling combination of novelty and repetition, and it worked like a charm... and still does today.
By creating irresistible melodies with clever messaging (and later actually co-opting pop songs to enhance a brand) marketers were able to tap into a very basic human behavior...the simple act of mimicry. This Pavlovian call/response pattern immediately burned new and lasting neuron pathways in the minds and hearts of consumers, with the true value of them yet to be even realized. Our pioneering Madison Ave predecessors had stumbled upon the marketing equivalent of the "Manchurian Candidate." Those simple jingles had and still have the lasting ability to reach across time to trigger what I like to call "dormant brand equity," activating vast legions of consumers at anytime, just like Laurence Harvey's programmed response to seeing the Queen of Hearts… except, of course, that the call to action here is to pull the trigger on a purchase instead of a politician.
In most cases, the jingle was not only catchy... it actually described the product, what it did, and why you need it, in a bite-sized mantra that was as fun as a Mother Goose rhyme, or as addictive as a schoolyard taunt.
Today, things are very different... or are they? We have at our command greater reach; the ability to micro-target; miles and miles of documented psychographic research and the cold, hard data to back up any campaign... so why is it still hit and miss to use a memorable tune to get consumers to dial into your brand?
In our never-ending quest to try the latest, greatest new technology and jump feet first into the ever-fragmenting consumer universe, we must not forget the lessons that Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, and the late Johnny Cochran taught us: keep it simple, make it memorable, and surgically attach it to the consumer like that pesky face-hugger stuck to John Hurt in "Alien."
Remember: "If it does not fit, you must acquit."
Nostalgia can only be understood in reverse
The tagline for the recent film, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is this: "Life is lived forwards, but can only be understood in reverse." As consumers and as humans, we are informed by a catalog of experiences that form our memory -- be they misty water-colored or blindingly high contrast. We are reminded of something we felt long ago, and then we are compelled to recreate the feeling. When a group of similarly aged people gather at a party, they often wind up singing TV theme songs, ad jingles and ultra-lame pop songs from their collective past. Is it a ritual catharsis, or is the ritual itself a demonstration of the true origin of the modern viral campaign... an ad jingle so annoying, so easy to remember and so easily passed along that it becomes immortalized in the minds of its target audience?
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