Why you can't get that jingle out of your head

We all know jingles – those catchy tunes that have advertised products for decades from candy to car insurance. But how do they work, and more importantly, are they having a comeback?

Jon Aldrich, associate professor at the Berklee College of Music. He teaches a jingle writing course at Berklee and has written several jingles himself.

Steve Karmen, he wrote jingles for over 30 years including famous jingles such as Nationwide's “Nationwide is on your side” to Budweiser's "Here Comes the King" to the New York State song, "I Love New York."

Cary Reich, he’s been a jingle writer since 1985. Founder of Sound Branding Ideas.

Romeo Bingham, a jingle writer and content creator.

Written, Sung and Produced by Cary Scott Reich/ Sound Branding Ideas
Instrumental by Cody Doss.

The version of our broadcast available at the top of this page and via podcast apps is a condensed version of the full show. You can listen to the full, unedited broadcast here:

Part I

AMORY SIVERTSON: Last December, Romeo Bingham, a 26-year-old caregiver from Tacoma, Washington, posted a video on TikTok of a little song they came up with.

ROMEO BINGHAM [TikTok]: I have a theme song for Dr. Pepper, and it goes like this, Dr. Pepper baby is good and nice.

SIVERTSON: That's it. Five catchy seconds just for fun.

BINGHAM: But like I did put in the caption of that video, Dr. Pepper, please reach out to me. I have a proposition for you. We can make thousands.

SIVERTSON: That's Romeo who watched as their video racked up more than a hundred million views and tens of thousands of comments from people who thought Romeo's jingle was good and nice, including the folks at Dr. Pepper, baby.

BINGHAM: Oh my gosh, like the comment was like, cool enough, but to also see that they wanted to collaborate with me was awesome.

SIVERTSON: Fast forward a few weeks to January 19th, the night of the college football playoff National Championship, airing on ESPN, and what did viewers see during a commercial break?

(AD PLAYS)

SIVERTSON: They made the ad and the internet went berserk, particularly when a rumor started spreading online about how much Dr. Pepper paid Romeo for the song.

[VIDEO MONTAGE]

Romeo, you mean to tell me that you made $2 million off of a jingle jangle?

$2 million. $2 million for her Dr. Pepper jingle.

SIVERTSON: $2 million Romeo. Is it true?

BINGHAM: We can't go into specifics.

SIVERTSON: The we here is Romeo and their recently hired publicist because, yep. Romeo has since left their caregiving job and is pursuing jingle writing full time and they've already partnered with some of the big brands who reached out after the Dr. Pepper jingle went viral to say, Hey, do us next, including the coconut water brand, Vita Coco.

BINGHAM: Vita Coco. You go loco. Because it's so dang delicioso. Do you see?

SIVERTSON: And the car company Hyundai.

BINGHAM: The sun is on and I'm feeling okay. Have a good day with Hyundai. Ding.

SIVERTSON: Romeo's slingshot trajectory to Jingle stardom has also inspired thousands of others on social media to start coming up with jingles of their own.

(SOCIAL MEDIA USERS SINGING JINGLES)

SIVERTSON: A few weeks later at the Super Bowl of commercials and football, the jingles were singing. From TurboTax to Instacart.

(COMMERCIALS PLAY)

SIVERTSON: So jingles seem to be having a shiny new moment. Is Romeo Bingham to thank for that?

BINGHAM: Not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but like I wasn't seeing jingles before the Dr. Pepper thing happened, that many jingles. I'm not saying they didn't exist, of course, like I think I like resurged it, if that makes sense.

SIVERTSON: Or did the jingle never die in the first place? They haven't died in our minds, that's for sure.

We asked you about the jingles that live rent free in your head and in your heart, and oh boy, did you deliver.

I am Joan ... from Manakin Sabot, Virginia, and here is the jingle that I remember the most. And I sang it to my granddaughter just yesterday. 'I am the Frito Bandito. I like Frito. I love them. I do. I want Frito.'

'I have an annuity, but I need cash now, Call JG Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW'

I've never been able to spell this word even to this day without singing. My Bologna has a first name. It's O-S-C-A-R. My Bologna has a second name. It's an M-A-Y-E-R. I like to eat it every day, and if you ask me why, I'll say because Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A. Yep. Still sing it. Don't eat bologna much anymore, but I sure did as a kid.

Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener. That is what I truly like to be because if I were an Oscar Wiener, everyone would be in love with me.

H-O-F-F-M-A-N and spells Hoffman. Hoffman Furniture 413 on Dauphin Street.

Start your mornings with Hot Ralston. You surely will agree it's a bang-up healthy breakfast for cowboy.

The jingle went like this. Fall into the gap.

Things from the Garden in Valley of the Jolly Green Giant.

And like a good neighbor State Farm is there. I had State Farm at some point in my life, but I've always sung that song. Because I love it.  

SIVERTSON: Wow. We have some talent out there in the On Point audience. You just heard On Point listeners Joan, Christian, Linda, Carolyn, Cathy, Ed, Kitty, Steve, Jonathan, Jim, and Ruth… from Virgina, California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Iowa, Georgia, Oregon, Arizona, Massachusetts and New York. And we have some talent in here today because we are talking to jingle writers about the art of the jingle, why we love them or not.

Why, regardless, we can't get them out of our heads. And why the jingle just might be here to stay. Joining me now is Jon Aldrich. He's a composer, arranger, performer of TV and radio jingles and an associate professor in the songwriting department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he teaches a course on jingle writing.

A course that, fun fact, I took many years ago. And he has worked on jingles for McDonald's, Liberty Mutual, Tropicana, thousands of others. Jon Aldrich, welcome to On Point.

JON ALDRICH: Nice to see you, Amory.

SIVERTSON: It's so nice to have you here. And I want to start by just getting your thoughts on what we just heard, the story of Romeo Bingham and the Dr. Pepper jingle. What strikes you about that jingle and about this recent online wave of interest and love for jingles?

ALDRICH: I love hearing that there's a new wave coming because it seemed to die for a bit, didn't it? Especially for national institutions and businesses, to have Dr. Pepper all of a sudden say, I love it and we're going to go with this, is wonderful.

And that's all that needs to be. When you write a jingle for someone, you're simply trying to please them and what they think their business or product will best be represented by. And I'm not sure that Dr. Pepper is good and nice. I'm not sure that's a perfect word to put in there. But you know what?

If the Dr. Pepper company loved it, then it's what it should be. And go ahead.

SIVERTSON: Sorry. Oh, you have a guitar here, which is very tantalizing for me. And you've, because you've written and performed many a jingle, I'd love to hear the story behind one of your own jingles and maybe if you would sing it for us.

ALDRICH: Sure. Yeah, I'll do a couple for you. The story behind any jingle is the story behind all the jingles. And you might remember from the class Amory, that I tell people it's rare that the jingle writer gets to write what they want. That this uniqueness about the woman who did Dr. Pepper and good for her, my pat on the back. But this, that's a unique story in that she came up with something and they liked it, which is fantastic. But usually, a customer calls a jingle writer and says, look, I'm looking for something that does this, has this appeal. We need to add that to it. And don't forget to make this and make it this number of seconds long.

And so the jingle writer is usually at the whim and the wishes of the customer. And so they can't write what they want. They have to write what the customer needs. So it's been that way with every jingle I've ever written, they've never said, write what you want and we'll see if we like it. It's more here's what I need.

Can you get it to me as soon as possible? And I tried to do so, and it hasn't failed yet. So there's more of a rope around my hands. I'm semi tied in what I can do. So I try to, with the music and the arrangement and the delivery and even the lyrics, if I write them, come up with something that satisfies those necessities delivered to me by the customer. So if somebody wants something that is for their business, it's uptempo and exciting, and I try to give it to them. I'll give you a quick example of a jingle that actually I was just the vocalist on this one, but it went, sorry, it's early.

(JINGLE PLAYS) There's a little Grossman's in everyone. There's a little Grossman's in you.

And so they wanted uptempo, happy. It's like a place where you're going to like Lowe's and Home Depot, but happier, friendlier. We're more friendly and less gigantic than them, so we can help you with your projects at home.

You'll have fun. So there's a little Grossman's in you. If you're coming, we'll help you out and make the customer feel like they're welcome here. So it hopefully that did it.

SIVERTSON: Yeah. It does do it. It's pithy, it's memorable, and I think something that sticks out to me is that a good jingle in my mind is singable.

Someone else has to be able to sing it back to you after hearing it once. Does that ring true to you?

ALDRICH: Absolutely. And all the ones we heard, even when the person was singing Hoffman's. That's probably a jingle he remembered from his childhood. But the melody is simple. It stays in one key.

It's easy to regurgitate and that's the real trick and satisfying thing about jingles is that it should be elegantly simple and deliver that message.

Part II

SIVERTSON: Jingles in a word to me are just delight. And my husband and I were talking about this recently.

He made the point that jingles might be the only way of being marketed to that we have positive associations with that. It feels like no matter what the product is, if it's a great jingle, we can go, that's fun.

ALDRICH: I agree. And I think the reason that happens is because music is, does that to us psychologically.

It cheers us up. It brings out our muse. So when we hear a message that might not be so elegant or romantic or meaningful coming through music, we remember it. Which is why jingles and advertising make such a wonderful marriage. People remember music all their lives. Again, back to the person that sang the Hoffman's commercial, he was probably five years old.

He remembers that from. Not because he studied it, it's because it stays in his brain. Because it's music. But he probably can't remember a soliloquy from Hamlet. Because that's spoken word. So somebody talks at you about something is one thing. When they sing about it, it makes that thing far more appealing and appetizing.

SIVERTSON: You're talking about this marriage of music and advertising. And so a big question here is do jingles work, as in do they get us to actually buy the product that they're singing about? And the answer according to some of our listeners is yes.

(MONTAGE PLAYS)

Jon Aldrich.

ALDRICH: Yes.

SIVERTSON: Does a great jingle sell more stuff?

ALDRICH: Oh, I think absolutely. Advertising in general can sell more stuff. Effective advertising is even more effective at selling more stuff. And music, again, that marriage of music to advertising works absolutely perfectly. And I can see why the jingle came about.

I heard that it came about in Boston. It was way before my time, but many years ago, obviously, when radio, one of the first radio stations in Boston was a hundred years old now for one of the first broadcasts, and they started doing advertising and decided to come up with the idea that a little music as opposed to just telling you about the bookstore or the candy shop, will help people remember the details and where they are and when they're open and if they have a phone number back then, what their phone number might be.

And so it was I believe born here. I may be wrong on that one, but I think that's true.

SIVERTSON: So as a jingle writer, are you, were you ever kept in the loop on whether sales of a product increased after your jingle hit the airwaves, or was it more of you deliver the jingle and then that's the end of the deal with the company?

ALDRICH: More or less the latter way, Amory, I deliver the jingle and good luck. I hope it works. But when I go back to some of these people, or they call me back a year later or their cousin calls me back and said, oh, you did a jingle for my Uncle Al and his store went crazy after that. So I want one for my store.

Can you do one for me? I certainly can. And so I think it does work.

SIVERTSON: And as you're writing the jingle, is this something that you're thinking about whether the product will actually sell? Are you thinking what lyric is going to make people actually want to go to this pizza place, or go to this waterpark?

Or are you thinking more I want this melody to be sung for generations to come.

ALDRICH: I'm thinking, what is the image of the company? What is the attitude of their product and the style? And I try to match that with everything that I can. For instance, I did a jingle for the Mass Council of Safety on Safe Driving and they said, our slogan is 'A little courtesy won't kill you.'

Which is harsh, but they said, we want, they didn't say this to me, but they said, we want something that makes people realize that you don't have to speed everywhere and cut people off. Be a courtesy driver. Be the first one to be courtesy on the road. Be courteous on the road and others will be courteous also.

So I wrote something that's a lilt, so it went like this.

(JINGLE PLAYS) A little courtesy won't kill you. It may even keep you alive. A little courtesy won't kill you when you drive.

Somebody talks for a bit, then it comes back with:

A little courtesy won't kill you when you drive.

Boom. Simple like that. And it featured a banjo and just laid-back music to hopefully drive home, slow down, be a good driver.

SIVERTSON: Oh, I love it.

ALDRICH: Oh, thanks.

SIVERTSON: I wish people could see the smiles on not only my face, but the people in the control room behind me just at the sound of these things.

And it makes me wonder if there's, on the one hand, sometimes we hear a bunch of jingles and we think is there like a formula for it? And I hear something like that and go, No, that's just sheer brilliance that poured out of him. But what would you say to that? Is there a formula to a good jingle or common ingredients or things, tools that you are reaching for when you sit down to write a jingle?

ALDRICH: Absolutely. All the tools come with the way the, I think, the jingle writer sculpts the melody, the lyric, the rhythms of those melodies, where they place them, what the underpinning music does at the same time. And the woman that wrote the Dr. Pepper commercial probably had no music and maybe an acapella, just her voice.

SIVERTSON: Yeah, it was just her.

ALDRICH: Exactly. But she stayed on pitch and they could now decipher what the music could or should be. And they probably had someone do a professional job at arranging the underpinning music, but a jingle writer typically does most of that. They don't just write a melody and say, okay, you guys put the music in there.

They have to do all the music and arrange it and produce it and make it sound, quote unquote, the way it should. So every jingle I've ever done, I think about those facets and try to match the type of instrumentation, the type of delivery in the vocal. Am I screaming or am I singing way down here in a lulling type of voice?

And so I even put my jingles in certain keys that will allow me to deliver that attitude. Because that's really what they're selling in many cases.

SIVERTSON: Okay. Jon, I want to bring another voice into this conversation.

ALDRICH: Sure.

SIVERTSON: We have someone who spent 30 years in the jingle writing business, wrote more than 2000 of them, including Budweiser's "When you say Bud" and "Here Comes the King," the New York State song "I love New York." And the jingle for Nationwide. Yes. That nationwide. The insurance company that professes to be on your side. So Steve Karmen, welcome to On Point.

STEVE KARMEN: Hi Amory, how are you doing?

SIVERTSON: I'm doing great, Steve. Thank you for being here.

KARMEN: And Jon, are you there?

ALDRICH: I certainly am, Steve. It's nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you. I've heard all about you.

KARMEN: Believe it all.

SIVERTSON: Steve, I heard that you once told NPR's All Things Considered that the difference between a symphony and a jingle is symphony writers use more paper.

KARMEN: That's the truth.

SIVERTSON: So say more about the craft and the care that goes into writing a good jingle.

KARMEN: Let me just throw a couple of comments. Jon, what you're talking about is 90% of what we all try to do when someone wants a jingle. But there are so many things out there today that are not jingles, not the way I consider it.

A jingle is either 30 or 60 seconds with no announcer. It doesn't need an announcer. The lyric tells the story, and you try to construct something that will, the kind of music that you feel the client, what was the word you used? The customer?

ALDRICH: Customer client. Yeah. Either one. Yeah, I use it both.

KARMEN: Client is the one, everybody said, what does the client think? The client. Someone is putting up money to put this stuff on the air, and that's the client who wants to deliver a message. And when you hear the munchkins these days going "Liberty," you're dealing with only a slogan and so many things today.

The Dr. Pepper was, what I heard of it is basically a one-liner. And that would be called a tag. Or, people want to have an announcer say, Open Friday night, free parking, bring the kids, toys for everybody. Something like that. And, so the jingle as I knew it and as I worked at it for a long time, was something musical that told the story that the advertiser wanted to say.

The jingle as I knew it and as I worked at it for a long time, was something musical that told the story that the advertiser wanted to say.

Steve Karmen

There's a classic jingle that was done before I was born, and that's a long time ago, was the very first jingle for Pepsi-Cola. Coke was the big seller in those days. And Pepsi came up with a campaign. It was undoubtedly written by someone who worked at the advertising agency. They normally, in the old days, they never went out to freelance companies like mine or like Jon's.

And the lyric then was Pepsi Cola hits the spot. 12 full ounces, that's a lot. Twice as much for a nickel too, Pepsi Cola is the drink for you. And then Coke was a six-ounce bottle is what they first came out with, the classic Coca-Cola bottle. And here Pepsi said Pepsi-Cola hits the spot. 12 full ounces.

That's a lot. Twice as much for a nickel too. Pepsi Cola is the drink for you. And it put Pepsi on the map, and it told the story without an announcer. And it couched itself in a certain kind of sound. We, the composers, were always looking for a quote, sound, something that will attract your attention.

And the curse today. And I haven't been in the business for almost 20 years now. The curse today is that advertisers think that it's better to use a pop song. And even rewrite the lyric, just the sound of a pop song.

SIVERTSON: Yeah. We heard a lot of that in the Super Bowl recently. There were some new jingles, but there were also some remakes with new lyrics.

KARMEN: Yeah. And to me, the job is to attract attention and that's why it's gotta be original. To me, it's always been original. And I never did a rearrangement of anyone's work because to me that's a waste of money. But you can't tell that to an advertiser who wants to pay $5 million to the Rolling Stones.

SIVERTSON: Yeah. Steve I'm curious, everything that you're saying is making me wonder. Would you say that the jingle, as you knew it, in your heyday, you were writing jingles from, 1966 through the early 2000s.

KARMEN: Yep.

SIVERTSON: Do you feel like the jingle today is dead by your definition?

KARMEN: Yes.

SIVERTSON: You do.

KARMEN: And it's, yes, I do. And it's not that it's dead, but what has happened in the people at advertising agencies, in the music, some agencies are big enough to have music departments, but they think it's better to trade on a pop song or something like that. And they are not willing to risk having something original written for them.

And original, starting for the sound, starting with the instrumentation, what is the lyrics supposed to say? And stick to something. And commit, go for six months or a year or something like that. And this is where the other side of the business gets into it, because someone has to put up the money to buy a spot on the Super Bowl.

Very few companies can afford that. But when you have a campaign for a car campaigns these days. The same red car is coming around the curve with some bongos and conga drums and that kind of background, and everything sounds alike. And I personally believe in, and now I'm an official watcher and I watch commercials.

And I'm waiting for something to attract my attention, and that's got to be original music.

SIVERTSON: In talking about Romeo's jingle for Dr. Pepper.

KARMEN: By the way, is Romeo one person?

SIVERTSON: Romeo is one person. Yes. Romeo Bingham.

So in talking about that particular jingle, I take your point about the definition of a jingle, and yet that jingle was a total earworm for me. And I love all the jingles. I love the jingles that are just music that have verses to them. I am all in. And yet that song was so simple and it stuck in my head instantly, and it has stayed there pretty much ever since.

And so is there something that, does the virality of this moment, this jingle tell you that the state of the jingle industry is different now? That what consumers want from a jingle and what companies, clients in your case want from a jingle is just different.

KARMEN: Yeah, part of that is true. The thing about what you are liking about the Dr. Pepper is it's short and sweet, and that's not a jingle, that's a tag. And it's something that is a one-liner that someone came up with, and they said they want to use this for whatever the product is.

And they tried to do it originally, and America's attention span these days is down to the bottom, the people don't pay attention. You want to give them something short and sweet. My belief, anyway, was built on something where there is a slogan most of the time provided by an advertising agency.

The concept here that somebody put it out online, it's worked once. It's not gonna work again or might once, that kind of thing. That's not the basis of a business.

Part III

SIVERTSON: We're talking about jingles, the earworms, the strokes of lyrical genius. The ones that some of you told us resulted in you buying the product and others of you, not so much.

'I have type two diabetes, but I manage it, it's a little pill with a big story to tell. I take once daily.' I hate it, but I can't get it out of my head. I did not buy the product.

I'm not sure if this counts as a jingle, considering it doesn't have any human lyrics. But every single time I feed my cat, I get the meow mix jingle in my head. I was a kid when that was on TV, so never bought the product, but it just, every single day, as soon as my cat needs breakfast, there it is in my head.

'Make your day a little bit brighter. Eat a little pickled herring by Vita.' And it just amused me that such a product would get a radio jingle.

15 to 20 years ago, TJ Maxx had this jingle that went something like TJ Maxx, you should go. And for whatever reason, I absolutely loved it. Don't if it was the pitch or what it was about it that I just loved that note at the end. It would make me so happy. I would stay up late listening, like looking for the commercial on certain channels, and I just loved this jingle. I would even have my mom take me to TJ Maxx.

I was like 30 minutes away. I didn't care about TJ Maxx, but I was like, you know what? I got to support this place because their jingle is fire. Then one day it just stopped. They just went, 'TJ Maxx.' Stop. Talk about value. TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx. And to this day, I'm still upset about it. My husband knows how I feel about this, and I met him 10 years later.

I still talk about it all the time. Why did TJ Maxx change their jingle? Anyway, still a mystery to me, but I've boycotted TJ Maxx ever since.

You asked whether the jingles were effective or not. So the question on this one, is the company still in business? 'Beacons men are careful, quick and kind. Beacons takes the road off of your mind. Beacons brings the moving prices down. Beacons has the lowest cost in time.'

I don't know why the jingle stuck in my head, but it's $20, $30, 40 or more insurance, and I did not buy the product insurance.

SIVERTSON: That was On Point listeners Bill, Chloe, Jim, Alexa, Carol, and Allan from Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Washington state, and Michigan.

And I've been talking with Jon Aldrich, who teaches Jingle Writing at Berklee College of Music. And Jon. Now I want to bring in Cary Reich. He's been writing jingles for 40 years and counting, and he's the founder of Sound Branding Ideas. Cary Reich, welcome to On Point.

CARY REICH: Thanks for having me, Amory.

SIVERTSON: Yes. Thanks for being here. So first I wonder, does it surprise you to hear that some of our listeners sing jingles for products and services they've never bought?

REICH: No, honestly, I guess because not everybody is in the market for the product that you're writing for. When you're on a mass media, whether it's radio or TV, or obviously trying to pick programming that has the highest likelihood of people that would be in your demo looking for your product.

But not everybody is, so I'd like to think the ones that are getting that brand in their heads so that they think of them when they're ready to buy.

SIVERTSON: I want to play, there's a local jingle from this neck of the woods, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. That is another example of this, that members of our team have been singing this all week, practically.

So this is for Water Country, a waterpark in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Let's listen.

When the sun is blazing, and the summer gets hot, water country's a very cool spot. There's no better place to feel and be young, Water Country have some fun.

SIVERTSON: The whole control room just sang along to that song behind us here, Jon.

One of our, the producer Paige for this show today mentioned I can sing that song in my sleep, and I've never been to Water Country. So it just goes to show sometimes the song sticks and the place doesn't seem to matter to us. But I want to get into the business side here, because we heard Romeo Bingham earlier in the show say that they couldn't go into the specifics about how much they were paid by Dr. Pepper for their jingle, but they did tell us that they were also paid for the licensing of the jingle. Cary Reich, what does that mean?

REICH: There's I guess a couple of different ways that in the jingle world, if you are through the union if you will, and on what they call the cue sheet where, and Steve and Jon probably lived more in this world than I ever did, where your pay was based on frequency of use, how, where it ran, how many times it ran, et cetera. And so that was how people often the big money was actually in the performance versus the actual writing. And then there's other companies that are pretty much work for hires where they pay a flat rate for a campaign or production.

I was literally just on the phone this morning speaking of songs versus jingles, I tend to agree with Steve. And there's actually some research that bore out the fact that having your own original song is really more effective than using a popular song. But this particular client in one city paid over $40,000 just for the rights to record their own version of a song for one year.

That's a lot of money. Yeah.

SIVERTSON: Wow. Jon, I want to turn this to you because I do remember you saying all those years ago in your class that you would try to sing as many of your jingles as you could.

ALDRICH: Oh, yeah. I enjoyed it immensely. As a matter of fact, lucky for me, a lot of the competing jingle writers in the area, and even as far as, as far away as New York City would call me and say, Will you come sing for me? Certainly, I'd be glad to, but I'm a competitor, they would say to me and I would say, I don't care. You're gonna pay me, right? They said, yeah, I'll be there. Let me know when, and I'd show up and sight sing and do the job and add harmony parts if necessary, if they wanted, and walked out with a smile with little headaches.

I knew, I didn't have to worry about if the client was going to love it. I got hired by somebody that said, I want you to do it. Do it. Here's your money. Goodbye, Jon. And as Cary just said, it was just quick and easy and I loved it. So yes, I love singing them.

SIVERTSON: Did you ever perform on some jingles that resulted in some mighty fine residuals for singing on them?

ALDRICH: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I did the: 'It's the tastiest shake that McDonald's can make, as cool as a lake. ... Makes any day taste as St. Patty's Day.' I forget how the lyrics went, but that was for the Shamrock shakes. And it paid a lot in royalties, residuals.

REICH: We shouldn't call Steve out, but I was mentioning the other day that in his book, so I'm not actually calling him out, he talks about people would go in the room, some of them actually lip-syncing so they could get on the cue sheet.

ALDRICH: Oh, I've seen that happen actually.

SIVERTSON: Wow. Wow. Okay. The truth comes out. Yeah. So why, and how has the business side of things changed for jingle writers over the years?

ALDRICH: You asking me?

SIVERTSON: Yeah.

ALDRICH: I think the whole thing has changed because much of society has changed, it's a quicker society, and that's why perhaps they don't want to listen to an entire 60 second song about the candy store.

A few seconds to let you know that candy store has a flavor and an image, and a market and a feel and a taste to it. And then boom, details, candy store is open this, it's located here. Here's our number. We do takeout and delivery, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you, as Steve used the term, you tag it out.

With a reminder that sticks in your ear like an earworm.

SIVERTSON: Yeah, we've gone from full songs to just, yes, the tag and I think it was maybe a State Farm commercial that I heard the other day that now the lyrics are gone from the, 'Like a good neighbor State Farm is there' and it's just the little, the melody.

Just the melody underneath. Cary, what do you think about this idea that the jingle or the jingle of Steve Karmen's heyday is dead.

Is the jingle dead or is the jingle just evolving?

REICH: I do not think it's dead. 40 years, now I live in a different world mainly, I work, I do get a chance to work with some national companies, but the majority of my business is local businesses in their local communities.

In fact, I was listening all show long waiting to see if one of mine might have popped up, but --

SIVERTSON: Oh, we've got one, Cary, stand by. I do want to play one of yours. This is for Yum Yum Sauce. Let's listen.

(YUM YUM SAUCE JINGLE PLAYS)

SIVERTSON: Amazing. What more do you need than that?

ALDRICH: Wait, Cary, did you write those lyrics? No, I actually love it. I really do. How can you forget that?

REICH: You can't forget it. By the way, there are 30 second full sing lyrics and that was written, believe it or not, Terry Ho, go to your grocery store, you'll see that sauce.

He wanted his grandkids to eat vegetables and decided if he made it something fun and catchy that you couldn't get outta your head, they would dip their broccoli in Yum Yum. Sauce. That's why, speaking of what does a customer, not the listener, but the client want. And that's really where that was born out of.

ALDRICH: I think you did that perfectly. That's a perfect jingle for that, Cary.

REICH: I'm honored to hear that. And it's funny, I'm gonna steal one other little thing out of Steve's book that I just cracked me up because I'm sure as a producer, when the client starts saying, Hey, can you add this guitar?

Can you add this more, these strings? Or whatever, and it's like one of the things in the book I remember is he was so excited to hear his score and he stopped and said, they're talking all over my masterpiece. Because --

SIVERTSON: Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Cary.

REICH: No, I was going to say, so we, to Jon and Steve's point, our job is to get you to, as I like to say, get their attention so they'll pay attention.

And one of the things I think that has changed, especially in the digital world, the online streaming, the skippable ad world, I'm a big believer and it came as a suggestion from a client, actually. Yes, the tagout is important, but sing it at the beginning. Because if you're one of those advertisers that's buying an ad and it's before we all sit there and we're just anxiously waiting to press the skip ad button.

But if I can sing your name and slogan before they skip the ad, I've already made the impression in your brain and that's priceless.

SIVERTSON: Cary, we have an example of that. A very special example of that in fact, because you happen to write a jingle for On Point over the past couple of days, and I wanna listen to a bit of that right now.

Always On Point. We're always On Point. When questions are On Point, the answers tend to be, they get you ready for those 'A-ha' moments, pique your curiosity, when it comes to on point topics, we never asked whether. So let's make sense of the world together. Always On Point.'

SIVERTSON: There it is. That tag Always On Point that you start. Yes, we're clapping in here, that you start with at the very top. So thank you for that. I can't wait to play that for Meghna when she's back on Monday.

REICH: And I have to tell you, I'm really a little angry because I have been singing it nonstop now.

I'm sure Jon can relate to the bane of a jingle writer is the song you're working on is stuck in your head all day long. All times of day. And our goal, I think ultimately our goal is to make sure that happens for our clients. That's the goal.

SIVERTSON: You have no one to blame but yourself for getting that stuff in your head.

Cary, I do wanna mention that you can hear the full version of that jingle, the On Point jingle at our website On Point Radio.

ALDRICH: You're singing the high G in there too, Cary, good for you.

REICH: Hey and by the way I made it very clear that was the sample.

SIVERTSON: That's right. This is the demo.

REICH: Should this go to studio, I will, that's not my wheelhouse to sing, but I present all my jingles to people live so they can hear it and the melody, and then we go into production with, to your point, what's the style, what's the feel and something you said, and I'm gonna highlight.

We don't, I shouldn't say we don't care, but my focus in questioning is not, What do you Mr. Client like? It's what's gonna resonate with your client? Because that's who we're trying to reach.

SIVERTSON: So I'm thinking, I'm sitting here talking to, Cary Reich, Jon Aldrich, Steve Karmen was here.

These are huge names in the jingle writing industry, and yet jingle writing is, it's such an invisible art. A person can write a jingle that's heard all over the country, all over the world in some cases, and you might not ever know the name of the person who wrote it. And as someone who loves to make up songs myself, I think I see AI creeping in, I see people playing songs for me that AI wrote about their pets just by plugging in some lyrics.

And Cary, you were talking about a client saying, oh, can I get more horns? Can you do another version like that? And in some ways, AI tools might make that more efficient. But I also, you hear these jingles today who were made by humans and there's something undeniable about just how human a jingle is.

Jon, as we look to the future of the jingle writing industry, what do you tell your students to keep in mind? What is it that you want them to carry forward?

ALDRICH: I think you've already intimated at this, but I'll say it in verbiage. I tell my students I don't, yes, AI's coming and it could be very harmful for us, but I don't think AI has the humanity. Would AI ever write? Yum, yum, yum, yum. I highly doubt that. And Cary did a great job at that. Just bringing out the fun in it. And who would wanna sing along with that? AI probably would not do that, no matter how much you told it  to do it.

I'm guessing at some point in the future it might. I'm sorry, Cary.

REICH: No, I was gonna say it's getting scary. It really is.

SIVERTSON: Oh, it is. But I have hope with people like you and with the jingle writers of the future that you're educating, Jon, I have hope we have to leave it there for today. Although we could talk forever about this.

The first draft of this transcript was created by Descript, an AI transcription tool. An On Point producer then thoroughly reviewed, corrected, and reformatted the transcript before publication. The use of this AI tool creates the capacity to provide these transcripts.