Why brand jingles are making a comeback—whether you like them or not

Some people love them. Possibly more people hate them, sometimes vehemently. Either way, jingles are making a rebound in advertising, and for good reason. They appear to be working for brands. Two fast-growing drugs to treat Type 2 diabetes—Ozempic and Jardiance—have been fueled in part by jingles in recent years. While it may seem abnormal for a group of people to gather around an outdoor fountain or march down an office cube farm singing about a diabetes drug with a welcome weight-loss side effect, that hardly matters to marketers raking in cash. See Ad Age’s 2024 Breakout Brand Leaders and Work here Jardiance marketers are dancing to the tune of 31% revenue growth last year to $8 billion globally, according to Boehringer-Ingelheim, partner with Eli Lilly and Co. in marketing the drug. Ozempic, which has been growing to the tune of “O-o-o-Ozempic” since 2018, has helped its owner, Novo Nordisk, to a 69% share of the relevant market and growth of more than 20% in the first half of 2024 despite supply shortages, according to the company’s most recent financial results. Pharmaceuticals are relative newcomers to jingles, but packaged goods and beauty brands with much older jingles are bringing them back. Maybelline launched a campaign to revive its “Maybe It’s Maybelline” jingle from the 1990s earlier this month, starting with a surreal dancing lipstick case on TikTok. @maybelline Name a more catchy jingle, I’ll wait 🎧 💋 this song + Superstay Vinyl Ink? We’re obsessed 😍💄#maybeitsmaybelline ♬ original sound - Maybelline NY That follows Kenvue’s Band-Aid, which launched a revival of its nearly 50-year-old “I am stuck on Band-Aid” jingle in April. Both brands are betting on a nostalgia trend on TikTok that helped lift Estee Lauder Cos.-owned Clinique, hoping their vintage jingles will resonate with Gen Z consumers. What appears to be driving it all is a need for a device to break through growing ad clutter, the relatively attractive economics of brands making their own music—rather than buying someone else’s—and research showing jingles are very effective. Also read: Why nostalgia is a hit with Gen Z From Sure to Dude Wipes “As ads have gotten shorter and shorter, there’s so much to be confused by, because we see so many ads in one sitting, and so brands are looking for something to break through,” said Pete Carter, principal of the consultancy Creative Haystack and a 40-year veteran of advertising development at Procter & Gamble Co. “We’re kind of back to the 1950s, where jingles were prevalent, and they’re showing up in places you wouldn’t expect, such as health care. You know, that damn Jardiance commercial.” Carter noticed the trend last year, then helped fuel it further as a consultant working with Dude Wipes, a brand he connected with agency Curiosity in 2022. He served as a consultant in developing the “Drop Your Drawers” jingle for the brand’s campaign last year. Any resemblance between that jingle and the old “Raise Your Hand” jingle for P&G’s former Sure deodorant brand from the 1980s is purely intentional. So was having twins in the spot, in a nod to old jingle-intensive Doublemint gum ads, Carter said. “The idea was to have a campy, nostalgic feel to it, because we thought that would be distinctive and have some breakthrough quality,” he said. Using a jingle was one of the first ideas that came up when Curiosity developed the inaugural TV work for Dude Wipes, due to the memory factor, said Group Creative Director Matt Cragnolin and Creative Director Pam Fraser. “We just have fond memories of things like Mentos and Sure from the 1980s and ’90s,” Cragnolin said, “where you could sing about ridiculous stuff and it was OK. No one thought it was weird.” The memory effect was obvious, in part, because the creatives found themselves unable to get options presented by the music house they were working with out of their heads, Fraser said. Haters gonna hate but neuroscience wins Of course, that earworm effect can create backlash. Suffice it to say, the diabetes drugs haven’t been raking in creative awards despite the growth. The Jardiance jingle—and commercials in particular—get a fair amount of criticism on social media, Reddit and Glassdoor. Deanna Colon, the singer behind the original Jardiance spot, even has been the frequent target of hateful direct messages on her social channels, The Washington Post reported. The pharma industry’s love of song and dance music also spawned a “Saturday Night Live” parody last year, featuring a recording of a number for the mythical drug “Vagerted” to treat a female condition. And there are plenty of opportunities for people to catch real pharma music. Ozempic’s jingle-intensive advertising received $187 million in U.S. measured media last year and $70 million in the first half of 2024, per Vivvix with paid social data from Pathmatics. Jardiance received $164 million in paid media support last year, with $94 million in the first half of 2024. The creatives and marketers behind Big Pharma’s musical ads generally steer clear of publicity, with principals of the agencies and the pharmaceutical companies declining to comment. Evoke is the agency behind Jardiance’s ads and music, according to people familiar with the matter, with Cult360 handling Ozempic. Whatever slings and arrows jingle writers or singers dodge in social media or on SNL, the neuroscience behind the effectiveness of their work, even compared to music in ads generally, is quite positive, according to Pranav Yadav, CEO of Neuro-Insight U.S. In general, audio boosts memory creation in a visual ad, Yadav said. And when the audio is a jingle that’s repeated over time, that also leads to better and more detailed memory retrieval. Using music to drive the action of an ad—essentially what prominent jingles do—elicited more peaks of memory and emotional impact throughout ads than ads using no music or employing music only in the background, according to Neuro-Insight research released last year. A second study Neuro-Insight conducted regarding the Intel Inside chime had half the respondents view the original ad with the chime and another half view the same ad without it. The study found not only more right-brain memory encoding associated with the music but also more left-brain encoding related to words and details, so people were more likely to remember the message. Economics compelling too Owning a jingle also means you can revive it, even three decades later, as L’Oreal USA’s Maybelline is doing now. Brand ambassadors Gigi Hadid, Storm Reid, Peggy Gou and Shay Mitchell will be part of the campaign behind the jingle, which first aired in 1991. Sonic branding agency Sixieme Son and Interpublic’s creative agency Gotham are backing the effort. “Our jingle captures the essence of who we are as a brand, embodying self-confidence, authenticity and empowerment,” said Trisha Ayyagari, global brand president for Maybelline New York, in a statement. “It has transcended pop culture conversations, decade after decade, and we are thrilled to reintroduce a fun and modernized version to a new generation of cultural innovators.” Generally, jingles fell out of favor for most of this century, meaning hard times for jingle writers, noted Adam Pleiman, sonic strategist and creative director of the Play Audio agency, a Cincinnati shop that produces audio for commercials and handles sonic branding assignments. That doesn’t mean brands gave up on music, but often they instead licensed work from popular musicians or emerging indie artists. Also read: The top 5 music campaigns to know about Apple certainly pushed the trend of using songs from emerging artists, such as one featuring “1234” from Feist in 2012, “and other brands played follow the leader,” Pleiman said. “Things come in waves,” he said, and while jingles have bounced back, licensing of music for ads continues to have strength, too. The economics and other strategic aspects can favor using jingles, though, Pleiman said. “The big acts always come in at six figures” to license their music, he said. “We’ve had some come in surprisingly reasonable. But you’re still paying a substantial fine [to license music]. It’s more than double what you could pay if you’re smart about doing some original music.” Commissioning original work also means an investment in long-term equity that pays off beyond a single spot, Pleiman said. The middle ground, licensing the tune and adding branded lyrics, can work, but has its potential drawbacks. Pleiman witnessed that recently when noticing an Ozempic ad using the same tune from Pilot’s 1974 hit “Oh, It’s Magic” as Kroger did in the same commercial pod. “It’s made for some murky situations in the licensing world,” Pleiman said.

Why brand jingles are making a comeback—whether you like them or not

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