Technique
Jingles and music
Ads in which music does the persuading: a jingle, a song or a sung slogan that becomes inseparable from the brand.
2020s
2010s
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2018Welcome Home
A single song, requested from the speaker, drives the dance and every transformation, so the music becomes the visible proof of room-filling sound.
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2016Super Bowl Babies Choir
A rewritten pop hit, sung by Seal with a choir of real fans, carries the message and leans on the word 'baby'.
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20166 Pack Band
The band's songs, starting with a cover of Pharrell Williams's 'Happy', spread across YouTube, radio, streaming and caller tunes with the brand as sponsor.
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2016Kenzo World (My Mutant Brain)
An original track powers the frantic dance from start to finish, so the music carries the film's uninhibited mood.
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2013The Scarecrow
A haunting cover of a song from Willy Wonka scores the film, giving the story its melancholy mood across film, game and song.
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2012Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway
A rousing charity-single song carries the satire, borrowing the format of famous fundraising records to make the critique catchy and shareable.
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2012Dumb Ways to Die
A genuinely catchy pop song lists a string of dumb deaths, with train accidents saved as the dumbest, so the safety message sticks as an earworm.
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2011Back to the Start
Willie Nelson's cover of a Coldplay song carries the film's emotion so strongly that the recording tops the iTunes country chart in its own right.
2000s
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2008Coke Studio Pakistan
Lets music do the selling, recording pop and rock acts live with qawwali, folk and classical singers on a show the brand hosts.
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2007Gorilla
The drum fill of Phil Collins' song is the film's climax, so the music itself delivers the emotional charge the brand wants.
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UniqlockUniqlo2007
Uniqlock
Original time-signal music and short dance routines showing the clothing mark the time, a wordless format that reads the same in any language.
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2005Big Ad
Sets self-mocking lyrics about the ad's size and expense to O Fortuna, making the sung joke the centrepiece of the spot.
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2004Grrr ("Hate Something, Change Something")
A crooned song built on the line about hating something and changing something carries the message through a candy-coloured animated wonderland.
1990s
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1999Flat Eric (Sta-Prest)
Sets the puppet to a techno bassline that goes on to top the UK singles chart, making the music inseparable from the campaign.
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1996Mamíferos
A slow, sung line declaring that the elephant is a fan of the brand carries the name into memory.
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1994Cricket (Kuch Khaas Hai)
A Hindi song carrying the line about the real taste of life does as much of the persuading as the pictures.
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1993Tested for the Unexpected
A brooding Velvet Underground track sets the pace and menace, selling the engineering as atmosphere rather than argument.
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1991Uh-Huh (You Got the Right One, Baby)
A new sung slogan, answered by backing singers' knowing 'uh-huh', becomes a national catchphrase that people can sing back.
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1991Be Like Mike
A catchy song wishing to be like Mike carries the whole aspiration, popular enough that listeners request it on the radio.
1980s
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1989Hamara Bajaj
A swelling raga-based chorus ending on the brand line is hummed nationwide, carrying the patriotic message into memory.
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1989Jeong
A jingle insisting nothing needs saying because the feeling comes from the heart turns the brand's emotional claim into a song.
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1988Mile Sur Mera Tumhara
One melody passes through fourteen languages and many voices, letting the song itself carry the idea that India's differences make one tune.
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1987Photo Booth ("Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet")
The Bach theme marks the moment of consolation, a sound signature that stands in for the brand while the pack never appears.
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1986The California Raisins ("I Heard It Through the Grapevine")
Dancing raisins perform I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a song whose title neatly puns on where raisins come from.
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1985Launderette
A Marvin Gaye soundtrack sets the mood and climbs the charts, starting a habit of ads that launch hit records.
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1981Slip! Slop! Slap! (Sid the Seagull)
Three sung verbs, slip, slop and slap, turn sun protection into a chant children can repeat, letting the rhythm do the remembering.
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1981Be All You Can Be
A sung slogan carries the line so well that a whole generation can still sing it.
1970s
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1976Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars
A chanting crowd sings a list of national loves ending with the cars, slotting the brand among the things Australians cherish.
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1975Liril Girl (Waterfall)
A wordless la-la-la jingle carries the carefree mood that links the waterfall to an ordinary bathroom shower.
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Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii (Kentucky for Christmas)KFC Japan1974
Kentucky for Christmas
Runs the same Christmas jingle for two decades, so the music becomes part of the seasonal habit.
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Let Noxzema cream your face.Noxzema1973
Let Noxzema Cream Your Face
A strutting jingle sings the slogan so the suggestive phrase sticks and gets repeated the next morning.
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1971Hilltop ("I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke")
The song is the commercial, a jingle about buying the world a Coke that radio listeners request and that goes on to become a pop hit.
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1971You Deserve a Break Today
A melody telling families they deserve a break and urging them to get away becomes one of America's most recognised pieces of commercial music.
1950s
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1959You're Never Alone with a Strand (The Lonely Man)
A mournful theme carries the line and becomes the first jingle to chart as a pop record.
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1957Louie the Fly
A long-running jingle and the same gravel voice for decades make the villain instantly recognisable.
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1953The Hamm's Bear
A tom-tom beat and chorus singing of sky blue waters sell the purity of the lakes, a sound as recognisable as the bear.
1920s
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Within this vale / of toil / and sin / your head grows bald / but not your chin — Burma-ShaveBurma-Shave1925
Burma-Shave Roadside Verses
Rhyming jingles become so familiar that families recite them and newspapers report each new one.
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Nowhere else but Mossel'prom!Mossel'prom1923
Mossel'prom Cooking Oil: Nowhere Else but Mossel'prom
A catchy rhymed refrain insisting it is sold nowhere else but Mossel'prom fixes the brand in memory.
Jingles and music: how it works
Music is one of advertising's most powerful memory devices. A jingle can lodge a brand name in your head for life, and a well-chosen song can define how a whole generation feels about a product. Some ad songs became hit records in their own right.
How to spot it
- A sung slogan or a melody that carries the brand name.
- A soundtrack so central that the ad wouldn't work without it.
- A tune people hum or sing back years later.
Why it works
Melody and rhythm make words easier to remember and repeat. Music also carries emotion faster than images, which is why the most memorable ad songs often work as pathos and repetition at once.