O jingle, where art though?

Russell Scott through imedia has a sound a thoughtful essay on the history, fate and purpose of jingles. (We’ve written about music in advertising and culture earlier here.) As I was reading Mr. Scott’s piece, I thought of the jingle composers I’ve known and how their assignments for jingles have declined over the years. It’s so much easier for ad people to borrow or rent interest from existing songs or styles or to license an unknown or neglected artist for hipness cred than to produce an earwig.  Creatives, I think, might be reluctant to make jingles for fear of their work becoming ironically humorous and an embarrassment to their creative peers. In reality, I think that would be victory. Don’t make me hum “five-dollar foot-long.”

Regardless of the astounding creative tools we have today, there is still something solid and reassuring about a simple, sticky idea repeated often. It works. And we knew it in 1957 when the film “A Face in the Crowd” was made.