Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Sounds That Sell

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Every once in a while, we drop an interesting show into our feed that we think you’ll like.This week, it’s “Twenty Thousand Hertz” - a show about the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.The show’s title comes from the highest frequency that can be perceived within the human hearing range.In this episode, host Dallas Taylor explores the world of advertising jingles.They used to be an advertising staple, but these days, most have disappeared.Except - for insurance company commercials - that are bucking the trend.It’s an interesting sonic journey - and Under The Influence host Terry O'Reilly makes a special appearance.Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. This week, we thought we'd send you a bonus podcast. This is a podcast that we all listen to here at Under the Influence. It's called 20,000 Hertz, and it's a show that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. Enjoy. You're listening to 20,000 Hertz. American Family Insurance. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.

Nationwide is on your side. Here in America, insurance jingles are everywhere. We are farmers. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. You might be totally sick of them. Or you might think they're actually pretty fun. Dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, 21st. Some of these jingles have been around for over 50 years. A man from nationwide is on your side. And new ones are still being created today. U-S-A-A. And new ones are still being created today.

Somehow, insurance jingles survived when other jingles faded away. Like many things in advertising, jingles came from the radio. That's producer and sonic branding expert Gina Isham. In the early 1920s, when commercial radio was first starting out, advertisers were skeptical of this new medium. For years, the main type of advertising had been print ads in newspapers and magazines. And companies thought, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But a few brands saw an opportunity in this new format and decided to give it a try.

The very first audio commercial came out in 1922. It was an ad for an apartment building in New York called the Hawthorne Court Apartments. Unfortunately, the original audio is lost. but the ad probably sounded something like this. So come live at the dazzling Hawthorne Court Apartments, where you'll enjoy state-of-the-art amenities like pilot light stoves, cast-iron radiator heating, telephone service, and many more. Pretty boring, right? It didn't take long for companies to realize how much better ads would be with music.

Enter Weedies cereal. In 1926, Weedies dropped the mic with this banger. They're crispy and crunchy the whole year through. dropped the mic with this banger. After that, the jingle just kept getting better. In 1939, Pepsi spiced things up with this jazzy tune. Pepsi-Cola, it's the spot. 12-0 ounces, that's a lot. First price is much more nickel, too.

Pepsi-Cola is a drink for you. By the 1950s, Americans were watching television. A lot of it. And that gave jingles a whole new world to thrive in. In 1958, Mr. Clean spruced up our TV screens with this little ditty. In the swingin' 60s, Nancy Sinatra gave us this song about RC Cola. Come on over to Royal Crown Cola. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad cola.

By then, the insurance industry was ready for its turn in the spotlight. In the mid-60s, American Family Insurance introduced their iconic melody. American Family Insurance introduced their iconic melody. With that, the insurance jingle train had left the station, and pretty soon, many other companies hopped on board. Because the future is back The rock, the prudential Above and beyond Nationwide is on your side Through the 80s and 90s, the jingles just kept coming. Eventually, it felt like there was one in almost every commercial.

Yahoo! 800-588-2300 Empire Light up a room with a dollop A dollop A dollop Five dollops a dollop Mommy, wow! I'm a big kid now Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum

I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener. Give me a break, give me a break. Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar. But then, something strange happened. In the 2010s, advertisers cut way back on using jingles. Suddenly, many of those melodic earworms were replaced with spoken word slogans. Subway. Fresh is what we do. Huggies. We got you, baby. Have a break. Have a Kit Kat. But insurance companies were like, nah, let's keep those jingles jingling.

We are insurance. We are farmers. But before we can figure out how insurance jingles survived the Great Jingle Massacre, we have to understand why that massacre happened in the first place. The jingle died as commercials got shorter and shorter. That's Colleen Fahey, co-author of a book called Audio Branding, Using Sound to Build Your Brand. It was great for a 60-second commercial when you could do verse, chorus, verse, chorus. It was okay for a 30-second commercial, but not great. These days, some commercials have gotten really short, thanks to platforms like Spotify and YouTube. Now that your commercials are 15 seconds and six seconds,

and there's so many more mediums, you really can't develop a song the way they used to develop songs. So if you're a company that wants to keep your ads consistent, you might not invest in making a long old-fashioned jingle because it's just not going to fit into these micro ads. You can see that evolution pretty clearly

in the State Farm jingle. The State Farm jingle was written by Barry Manilow over 50 years ago, and they have had a lot of success in keeping this music going. For those of you who don't know, Barry Manilow is a singer-songwriter who was huge in the 70s and 80s. in keeping this music going. For those of you who don't know, Barry Manilow is a singer-songwriter who was huge in the 70s and 80s.

But before he was melting hearts on stage, Barry was working as a jingle writer. In the 1960s, he composed several jingles that would end up becoming classics. I am stuck on Band-Aid brand cause Band-Aid's stuck on me. I am stuck on Band-Aid cause Band-Aid's stuck on me. But Barry's jingle masterpiece has to be... That's like a good neighbor.

State Farm is there. State Farm is there. State Farm is there. Barry's original composition had several verses, a bridge, and that sweet sticky chorus, but the commercials typically just used the main line from the chorus. And like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. More recently, State Farm decided to ditch the singing, but keep the melody playing underneath the slogan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Sometimes they'll leave the slogan out entirely and just play the melody.

Other times, they'll even chop off the second half, so it's just the first five notes. At this point, the sound is really more of a sonic logo than a full-on jingle. Without any lyrics, it's closer to something like Intel. But that makes it perfect for this digital age of short ads and sonic logos that are hyper-distilled. This transformation just proves how brilliant and flexible Barry's original melody was. And no one's as surprised as he is that it's still around. Nobody expected a commercial to last that long. Same thing with Band-Aids.

In an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Berry explained that you don't usually get royalties for composing the music and lyrics for a jingle. To get that, you'd have to actually perform on the recording or appear in the ad. But as a composer, you just get a flat fee. And for that State Farm insurance commercial, I got $500. And it's been going for 45 years.

Shorter ads can help explain why so many companies ditched the jingle, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. Well before the internet, there was another advertising trend that spelled trouble for the jingle, which was putting real pop songs in commercials. For decades, almost every pop tune you heard in a commercial was either a cover or a totally reworked version with branded lyrics. For instance, in the late 70s, Sunkist redid the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations with lyrics about bubbly orange jubilation. Sunkist is giving off good vibrations, bubbly orange jubilation. But a decade later, Nike pulled away from the cheesy covers and decided to pony up for the real thing. In an ad for their new Air sneakers, they played the Beatles song

Revolution. The ad features both professional and amateur athletes running, training, and generally kicking butt wearing Nike shoes. It turns out Nike didn't actually get full permission to use the song, and they ended up getting sued. Still, the campaign was a hit, and it kicked off a new trend in advertising. Pretty soon, popular music was showing up in more and more commercials. In the early 90s, Chevy proved how rugged it was with Bob Seger's Like a Rock. America is still the land of rugged individualists. Bob Seger's Like a Rock. Songs by the Black Keys have appeared in commercials for Subaru, Cadillac, AT&T, American Express, and Victoria's Secret.

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies. Victoria's Secret has reinvented the bra again. In the late 2000s, the ASPCA pulled at our heartstrings with the help of Sarah McLachlan. They ran a campaign that featured her song Angel, set to slow-motion videos of very sad-looking animals. And the trend continues to this day, with both classic and modern songs showing up in all kinds of commercials. Here's a recent Toyota commercial featuring Peter Gabriel's Salisbury Hill. It's a world of endless possibilities and adventures you can't even imagine. Now, of course, licensing hit songs for commercials is expensive. So why did so many brands start doing it?

Part of the pressure came directly from the music industry. Music companies that publish all the music hired people to start pushing their songs. Steve Carman created lots of famous jingles, including the one for Nationwide, which he wrote in 1969. Call the man from Nationwide, he's on your side.

Steve also wrote a book called Who Killed the Jingle? In an interview with CUNY TV, he explained how companies use popular music to entice us. There is this belief out there that if you associate your product with a hit song, then you're hip, you're with it. If a song becomes popular, it's because a lot of people have positive feelings about it. And if you're a company, you want to borrow that feeling and attach it to your product. So if the song is exciting, the product is exciting. If the song is romantic, then the product is romantic.

And that strategy can be really effective. According to a Nielsen study, popular songs can increase a viewer's attention, emotion, and memory of a commercial by 20%. With all of this in mind, it's no wonder why brands started choosing pop songs over branded jingles. In Who Killed the Jingle, Steve writes, and I quote, Jingles sounded old-fashioned to a younger audience, and the young audience is what the advertisers want. A jingle wasn't subtle. It tried too hard. The opposite of cool. But using pop songs in commercials can backfire because sometimes those positive feelings

end up going to the artist rather than the brand. So if you see a credit card commercial with a Katy Perry song in it, your first thought might not be, I should sign up for that credit card. It might be, Katy's the best. I should check out her new album. The Citi Thank You Preferred card. Now earn two times the points on entertainment and dining out with no annual fee. To apply, go to Citi.com slash thank you cards. Another issue is that people bring their own associations to the music.

So if someone has negative feelings about a song, this strategy doesn't work at all. For instance, maybe you're not crazy about My Milkshake by Kelly's. Or maybe you do like it, but you don't think the undertone is a great fit for a paper towel commercial. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and their life is better than yours. Spilled your milkshake? Quick, the quicker, quicker helper. Bounty picks up spills quicker. Or maybe you think the lyrics to Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones have aged really poorly. If so, you probably wouldn't be very impressed with this Pepsi commercial,

where the song is sung by a squeaky soda-loving fly. Brown Sugar! How can you taste sugar? Oh yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! soda-loving fly. Popular music is something that many people use, but we've seen research that shows that branded music is much more effective in drawing attention. One benefit of original branded music is that the brand owns the music rights forever. But pop songs can usually only be licensed for a few years. Then they move on to someone else's licensed music that happens to be popular and they don't build equity.

When you buy a house or invest in the stock market, you're building equity. Ideally, those investments will increase in value over time. The same is true for building a brand. You want people's memories and feelings about your brand to strengthen as the years go by. The most important thing about your Sonic brand is it's building a very important type of equity that will be there forever. A jingle that lasts years or even decades is a great way to do that. When I'm in my 70s, I probably won't remember which pop song Apple used in their commercials 30 years ago.

But I can almost guarantee that I'll remember the Kit Kat jingle, even if I haven't heard it in decades. But that doesn't mean there's no room for famous musicians in ad campaigns. Instead of just throwing a hit song onto their commercials, some companies pay celebrities to speak or sing their jingles. That way, the message stays focused on the brand, while the company still gets some of that celebrity star power. Nationwide is especially good at this. Recently, they ran a campaign where each commercial featured a new branded song sung by a different performer.

But all of these songs ended in Steve Carman's iconic melody. Here's a version by singer-songwriter Tori Kelly. Big things are happening every day And you need some help along the way. That's why Nationwide is on your side. Another version featured Leslie Odom Jr., who played Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Gotta plan today and match the key. So tomorrow you can get where you want to be. That's why Nationwide is on your side. Here's a third version by Jill Scott. With so much to protect each day, caring goes a long, long way.

Nationwide is on your side. While a fourth version featured Gabriella Wilson, also known as Her. State Farm did something similar, but instead of a new song, it ended up being a return to the original. Around 2010, State Farm commissioned Weezer to sing their jingle. The band asked if there were any recordings of the song that hadn't been cut down for a commercial. But all State Farm could find was Barry Manilow's original sheet music and lyrics. It seemed like no one had ever actually recorded the entire thing. So Weezer went into the studio and recorded the full three-minute song.

Here's a century. They have a lot of brand recognition. And for any up-and-coming insurance companies, it's a tough act to follow. If they want to compete with these jingle juggernauts, And for any up-and-coming insurance companies, it's a tough act to follow. If they want to compete with these jingle juggernauts, they have to make something that's super catchy and flexible enough to last for years. That's coming up after the break. Congratulations to Arlie Nutzel for correctly guessing last episode's mystery sound. That's the character Nian Num from Star Wars Return of the Jedi.

He co-pilots the Millennium Falcon with Lando during the attack on the Death Star. While many people assume the character is speaking an invented alien language, he's actually speaking a real Kenyan language called Kikuyu. He was voiced by Bill Kipsang Rotish, a Kenyan film student who happened to be on set during production. And here's this episode's mystery sound. Freezing cold in Ansonite, Tuzel. You're the cold maids to save on

freezing cold in Ansonite, Tuzel. All right! If you know what that sound is, submit your guess at the web address mystery.20k.org. Anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win a super soft 20,000 hertz t-shirt. For over 50 years, most commercials were between 30 and 60 seconds long. This made them a natural fit for extended jingles with full verses and a catchy chorus. But as ads went digital, they got shorter and shorter. At the same time, many companies dropped their melodic jingles in favor of spoken word slogans.

So something like this... The Quilty Quicker Picker Upper Bounty turned into... Bounty, the Quicker Picker Upper. Some brands leaned into popular music, like this Gatorade commercial featuring Welcome to the Jungle. Gatorade Beasts, more bold, intense flavor. jungle. But by and large, insurance companies kept using their trusty old jingles. That's not to say they didn't change with the times. Some insurance companies started speaking their slogan while the jingle played in the background. While others hired big-name celebrities to sing their jingles.

For example, Nationwide built a whole campaign around Peyton Manning. In one commercial, he can't get their jingle out of his head. Fifty Omaha, set hut. Nothing beats that new car smell. Chicken parm, you taste so good. In another, Peyton coaches Brad Paisley on how to sing the jingle. Nationwide is on your side. What'd you think?

We're almost there. On the jingle, though, Brad, I want to feel it right here. Like here in the chest? No, your heart. Heart. In your heart. By the way, Peyton, if you're listening, Steve Carman would appreciate a call. Here he is again on CUNY TV. Do you know that I

have never received a phone call from Peyton Manning saying, Steve, I love your song. Thanks for writing that great song for me. Nothing. Not a postcard, a letter, a fax, nothing. So why did insurance companies cling so tightly to their jingles? I don't even know if I would even consciously think about an insurance company if there wasn't a jingle or some sort of shtick like Geico. I've traveled all over the country talking about saving with Geico. When it comes to insurance, to me, it's very much who's top of mind. Yeah, you know, when you think about Coca-Cola, they have amazing sonic branding. They have great music, but they also have packaging and they have taste and there's a touch.

The glass, they actually trademarked the shape of it because it fits in your hand. So they have so many more ways that they can become top of mind than just an insurance company that you don't fully understand. People aren't really sure what happens to their money, where it goes. It's very vague. Sonic branding needs to be solving a problem. Insurance jingles in general are very much trying to solve the problem of this is not a memorable service for anyone. It's something that people make one decision, maybe one out of the course of five to 10 years,

and that's it. Then you forget about it. Depending on the situation, insurance is either painfully boring or deadly serious. Because the whole point of insurance is to help out in bad situations. I think the reason that we don't think about them is because it's associated with negative vibes, negative energy. Like our car just broke down or our house just caught on fire. It's not happy memories that you think about for insurance. And so by attributing music, which is such a strong, powerful connection, putting a

light spin on insurance before you have to deal with insurance, I think they're kind of like beating us to the punch. Insurance King actually made a jingle about that exact idea. Nobody wants it till they need it, then they can't even get it. We're talking about car insurance. Breaking the law can really ruin your life if you let it, if you don't have car insurance. Most insurance commercials go out of their way to give you a feeling of comfort and support. Think about the slogans. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Nationwide is on your side.

Are you in good hands? When you watch these ads, you're supposed to forget about co-pays and deductibles and premiums. Instead, you're supposed to feel like choosing this company means they're personally going to have your back. One way to do that is through a reassuring jingle. Another is through a warm, friendly mascot, whether it's the Geico Gecko, Flo from Progressive, or Jake from State Farm. Because this is such a non-tangible service, personalization helps. So bringing a human or even a duck into the picture can help it become more concrete and tangible. Most jingles are aimed at a broad, general audience. But occasionally, a jingle is designed

to get the attention of a particular group. USAA is an insurance company that's open to military members and their families. So when they decided to make their own jingle, that was their target audience. The USAA jingle came about by some research that USAA had done. Colleen is also the U.S. managing Director for a sonic branding agency called Cesium Son. They uncovered that their awareness was extremely low in the key growth market of the military people. So USAA asked Colleen's team to craft a sonic brand that would help them connect with this group. I'm not even quite sure we knew a jingle would come from it.

That's Sergio Trujillo, the former lead brand strategy manager at USAA. We just knew that there was an opportunity to utilize audio and music in a more intentional way. During that time, I had seen examples by brands such as Visa and MasterCard, and I really turned to those as inspiration. Their goal was to unify the sound of their advertising, both now and in the future. So it was through our discussions with CZM Zone that we really peeled back the onion and identified the various places where we could build out a cohesive universe of sounds and music. The first thing they had to figure out was what they wanted these sounds to communicate.

There were several things they wished we would capture. One was this humanity, warmth, and camaraderie. Then another bucket was sort of their integrity and rigor. And another was their authenticity and groundedness. In one of their brainstorms, someone brought up the idea of a call-and-response chant, like you might hear at a soccer game. And the room got so excited. They began to talk about memories they had of their time in the military when they felt like they were doing some horrible job cleaning the barracks. But they were all chanting together with this call and response.

I'm a steamroller, baby. I'm a steamroller, baby. Just a-rolling down the line. Just a could just feel the whole mood of the room lifted. And that told us, aha, this is something that harks back to their military experience and is a good part of their military experience and a great good part of their military experience and a great thing to attach a brand to. They knew they didn't want the jingle to be too smooth or melodic. They didn't want to be polished. They didn't want to be professional singers, precise musicians. The creative director would say, put more mud on those boots. And that gave us a lot of guidance too, because that made us make it sort of real and rugged.

With these ideas in mind, Colleen's team crafted the jingle. Since it's so short, it could easily be called a Sonic logo. Next, they wove that logo into something called the Sonic DNA. So the Sonic DNA helps establish the rhythm, the energy, the instrumentation, the melody, and many, many pieces of music will be built out of that. It's kind of like a Sonic Style Guide. And of course, the logo is a motif that runs through it and becomes the ending and then goes off to live its own life. With the Sonic Style Guide in place, they made unique versions for different types of ads.

What we decided to do was create many variations on our own theme so that it could be used for celebrations. It could be used for sports. It could be jazzy. One version was very patriotic. What we tried to do was give them a huge toolkit that they could use to always bring people back into this world of the USAA camaraderie. Here are a few examples of that sonic branding at work. USAA insurance is made just the way Martin's family needs it. With hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor. At USAA, we've been called too exclusive,

because we only serve those who honorably serve. Like other insurance companies, they sometimes leave out the vocals and just play the melody beneath their slogan. USAA, what you're made of, we're made for. Get a quote today. USAA, what you're made of, we're made for. Get a quote today. USAA, it's still only for the military community. They even use their sonic branding in their on-hold music. So here we are more than three or four years later, and it's still being used across a variety of different TV commercials, digital radio, terrestrial radio, Pandora, etc. Clearly, writing a good insurance jingle means checking a lot of boxes.

It should be catchy, unique, and reassuring. It should tell the listener something about the company itself and what it stands for. And it should be flexible enough to work in a wide variety of ads. The upshot is, when it's done well, that jingle can form the basis of an entire Sonic brand. It can be a through line that ties all of a company's advertising together for years to come. I wonder if all of a sudden insurance agencies, the next ones that came out, they decided, you know what, we're not doing this. We're going to skip the silly jingle and we're going to focus on just our product. Would they be successful?

Would we go, well, they don't have a jingle. They don't have a sound, but Nationwide's got a sound. Why don't they have a sound? I think nowadays there's so many different jingles and schticks for insurance that in order to be successful as an insurance company, if you didn't have a jingle, that would have to be your marketing campaign. It'd be like, we're not spending tons of money on a jingle to get you to notice us. We pass those savings on to you. Here's no jingle. It turns out several brands

have started doing exactly that. For instance, the company NJM put out a commercial about a man who just can't escape the jingle of a fictional insurance brand called Top Insurance. Today's forecast is brought to you by... We are the tippy top, we're Top Insurance. We are the tippy top, we're Top Insurance. Some insurance companies are known for their jingles.

Top Insurance, please hold. NJM is known for what matters, outstanding service you can actually count on. No jingles or mascots, just great insurance. AAA took the meta-jingle commercial a step further. So you've written a jingle about how we don't do jingles. Who needs a catchy jingle? Cause AAA has coverage confidence. So you've written a jingle about how we don't do jingles. Outsmart jingles and choose coverage confidence from AAA. Maybe someday insurance jingles will fade away. But for now, it seems like they're here to stay. Well, these jingles and the lighthearted tone, it's been going since the 60s.

So if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Thank you. And Casey Emmerling. With help from Grace East. It was sound edited by Soren Bejan. It was sound designed and mixed by Joel Boyder. And Brandon Pratt. With original music by Wesley Slover. Thanks to our guests, Colleen Fahey and Sergio Trujillo. To learn more about these topics, check out Colleen's book, Audio Branding, Using Sound to Build Your Brand. You can also subscribe to Gina's podcast, which is called Sound and Marketing. It's available right here in your podcast player. I'm Dallas Taylor.

Thanks for listening. That story came from 20,000 Hertz, a podcast that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. They've explored everything from the classic Windows startup sounds to the sound design secrets of blockbuster films

to the marketing genius behind I'm Lovin' It. Every episode is full of ear candy and surprising twists and turns. Subscribe to 20,000 Hertz right here in your podcast player.