IN 2003, the Economist pronounced the jingle dead. Corny, dated and no longer considered effective, p-p-p-ppick up a penguin, just one cornetto, and the crumbliest, flakiest milk chocolate were packed up in their coffins and rolled away to the underworld. The consumer had become too sophisticated.

And perhaps only a few wept. Jingles, after all, are an easy target for derision: a 15 second soundbite for the most rudimentary form of modern capitalism whose writers have almost become totemic of the failed artist (think Two and a Half Men, Full House, Friends). Buy this toothpaste! Choose our insurance! Use this hoover! All packaged up in a tinkling, twinkling tra-la-la-la, that you won't be getting out of your head for years.

And that, of course, is the point. From learning the alphabet to music therapy for dementia patients, music can conjure up images with just a few notes.

My father for one can (and often does) reel off dozens of 70s jingles pitch perfect, despite the fact many of them haven't been aired now for going on 30 years - absolute gold from a marketing perspective. I'd like to think we were above it, but Club biscuits are a staple in the Moloney household, not only because we like a lot of chocolate on our biscuits, but we like singing that we do as we get them out the cupboard.

It's a phenomenon that advertisers would be crazy to let die, which is why they haven't. Welcome to 'sonic branding'. Max De Lucia, who heads up DLMDD, a creative audio branding agency based in London, tells me there's been a "huge shift" in the way sound has crept up the agendas of brands globally, with jingles making way for the 'sonic logo' (sometimes referred to as the 'sogo'). A sonic logo can be comprised from just a couple notes. Think the Netflix ta-DUM, for example, it's something that "defines the brand if you've got your eyes shut," De Lucia says.

And marketing executives are going in on it. In 2021 there was a 22 per cent increase in brands launching sonic identities, while a recent Ipsos study showed sonic branding cues were eight and a half times more powerful than visual logos. Mastercard's launch of its 'sonic DNA' in 2019 is considered the industry gold standard. 'Sonic at checkout' - the ditty that rings out accompanied with an orange checkmark animation when you tap a Mastercard - has been claimed by the brand to boost consumer trust by 3.4X.

So though the jingle as we knew it in the 70s may have gone, its central tenet - sound can sell - has gone nowhere. Just now, instead of big numbers sung by camp heroes and heroines, we've got ta-dums and doo-doos whirred out by computers.

For some, it's a sad scene. Charlie Spencer, who composed over 3,500 jingles in his 36-year stint as creative director at Candle Music, told me the standard of advertising in terms of artistic merit had become "incredibly low". Much of this, he said, can be attributed to the increased fragmentation of media, while it's also become far easier to license music.

But there's also a shame that shrouds the jingle. Freelance jingle writer Adam Blotner tells me those who work in sonic branding often "turn up their nose" at his campy songs for pet food and plumbing companies. "People think that the jingle is dead, it's not dead, it's just that it's become self-aware," he tells me. Instead of resisting their innate naffness, successful jingles now lean into the cheesiness in an ironic way.

The Go Compare adverts are a good example of this while last year's Whopper Whopper phenomenon, a jingle that Burger King developed for its ads aired during the NFL, demonstrates an even more updated form of this irony. The Burger King jingle (which goes whopper whopper whopper whopper) quickly became an internet sensation, with the track gaining over 10m listens on Spotify and memes heralding the song as a meta-commentary on the ultimate meaninglessness of sport. It's unlikely this was the intended reading, but I suspect Burger King, which afterwards reported a surge in whopper sales, cared not. And all while the consumer got to feel awfully clever about it.

So is the jingle dead? Of course not, industry veteran Spencer says, but, he admits, we "never took it very seriously".

Anna Moloney is deputy comment and features editor at City A.M.

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