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Wed 22 Dec, 2004 04:28 pm
Has the jingle given way to the catchphrase?
My brain is clogged with the jingles of yesteryear. I will occasionally find myself singing or humming some old jingle.
Honestly, that was some damn fine marketing.
Half of the ads I see on TV today are instantly forgetable. Meanwhile, I can sing Dr. Pepper jingles (I'm a pepper, he's a pepper, lots of folks you know are peppers), Ken-L-Ration (my dog's better than your dog, my dog's better than yours), Alka-Seltzer (plop, plop, fizz, fizz oh what a relief it is), and many, many other jingles.
I guess Oscar Mayer still uses a jingle but I can't think of anyone else.
Can you?
What jingles do you recall from back in the olden days?
How did such effective marketing become obsolete?
Does it have something to do with shortened attention spans?
Shorter commercials?
What?
"Pepsi, for those who think young!"
I also could recite entire beer jingles, but I'll spare you...
Is the Pepsi one a catchphrase of a jingle, D'Artagnan? I'm not familiar with it.
With some of them its hard to tell because they kind of sing the catchphrase. For example McDonalds kind of sings "I'm lovin' it."; Chevy does "Like a rock". I really consider that more of a catchphrase.
Wow, Phoenix!
You prove my point about how jingles stick with you.
The oldest jingle I remember part of went:
I'm Prudence Pots the pan inspector
Prudence Pots the spot detector
It was for Ajax or something like that. I remember it so well because when my mom was worn out from all of us kids driving her batty she would stop being our mom and pretend to be Prudence Pots. Eventually we'd give up on whatever we were nagging her about and leave her alone.
Boomerang--yes, part of a jingle. I believe Polly Bergen sang it. That was the catch phrase:
"Pepsi--for those who think young!"
Another jingle
When the values go up, up, up,
And the prices go down, down, down,
Robert Hall, this season, will show you the reason:
Low overhead. Low overhead.
And:
Singing in the bathtub, singing for joy
Something or other, something-boy (brand name of soap)
And the other soap commercial ending with a very low bass voice singing down the scale:B-e-e-e-O
who needs jingles when horses are farting on girls in sleighs?
You'll wonder where the yellow went
When you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.
roto rooter that's the name
flush your troubles down the drain
plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is.
Our piano player's kid called him speedy applesaucer.
I reckon a lot of it has to do with the visuals that tv can do now vs anything audio. A customer tried to tell me about a Pepsi ad she saw involving a kid somehow pulling (sucking) on a Pepsi bottle so hard that he swallowed it. I don't watch tv much so I looked at her rather blankly.
Go back a long, long time. Johnboy was a kid, riding in the backseat of the Chevy as we drove forever and forever from Virginia to Wisconsin every summer with my older brother periodically punching me. And I'd see the Burma Shave signs.
My first introduction to poetry and, I guess, to advertising. When I was 6.
Oddly, when I was ten years older and began to shave, the Burma Shave brand didn't register with me. Burma? What's a Burma?
Sorry for the long post; I tend to do that.
Burma shave? Love it, John of Virginia.
My dad loved 'em:
He saw a speeding railroad train,
And thought he'd try to duck it.
He kicked his foot upon the gas,
And then he kicked the bucket.
On one of the drives my family made between Point A and Point B during the '40's there was an early attempt to make religion relevant:
Death ahead
For Everyone
Get Prepared
Accept God's son.
Church of whateveritwas.
***************************************
Over the radio:
Rinso White
Rinso Blue
Brings the color
Home to you.
**********************************
And from the funny papers, the repetitious, ignominous end of Sink Smog.
Here's a local one. You won't know it unless you're from the area where it was used, but if you ARE from that area and grew up there in the 60s or 70s like I did, i guarentee you'll remember the tune when you see the lyrics (or vice versa):
I'm Slim Chipley the guy you see
On the Paramount potato chip bright red sack
I'm the flavor deputy
Protecting crispness in every pack
They're delicious
And so nutricious
Yessiree, they're pips
Paramount potato chips
The jingles have been replaced by rock and roll music. I cringe every time I hear The Kinks or Led Zep or The Who shilling some overpriced piece of corporate shite.
I think you've got it, Swimpy. Advertisers would rather pay millions for the rights to 'rent' a big hit, immediate recognition, than hire a jingle writer and produce an original ditty for their product. I knew several jingle writers in Chicago back in the 70's. Even the 80's. But today? Can't name one.
Swimpy--
Drawing myself up to my full height and speaking as a woman who was born before WW II, I declaim that product jingles replaced nursery rhymes and I'm willing to go back to "Rinso White, Rinso Blue..."
@Dartagnan,
Pepsi for those who think young - Joanie Sommers (not Polly Bergen)
@boomerang,
I remember Prudence Pots!! and it was an ad for brillo pads
@boomerang,
"Ya gotta get Wild Root Creme Oil, Charlie". When I was about 15, after school us girls would sit on our front porch and wait for Charlie to walk by, then we'd scream this ditty at him. (he had wild hair).
"When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer". I lived in the same sub here in Texas several years ago as the guy who wrote that, or heard it from someone who said it after his bartender told him he had run clean out of Schlitz.
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