How to Write Lyrics for a Company Jingle
If you Google the top ten Jingles of all time, the following list will come up:
The top 10 advertising jingles of all time are:
Oscar Mayer “I Wish I Was an Oscar Mayer Weiner”
Subway “Five Dollar Foot Long”
Empire “800 Number”
State Farm “Like a Good Neighbor”
Lucky Charms “They're Magically Delicious”
Huggies “I'm a Big Kid Now”
Alka Seltzer “Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz”
Band-Aid “Stuck on Band-Aid”
You probably remember at least some of them. Some you will read and start singing the jingle music in your head as you read it – it will just pop in your brain. This means the composer/production team did their job. When my clients ask “what makes a good company jingle”?
I tell them there are a few constants:
1. The “hook” (catchy melodic, musical, line)
2. The “lyrics”
Basically, those are the two things that you need when creating a company jingle.
Melody, length, and style (genre) are important as well. Please check out our blog “How Long Should a Company Jingle Be” to find out more.
But let’s talk about the “hook” for a minute. The hook is a (slang) music industry term meaning a piece of music that is catchy, memorable, or just all around cool – it sticks with you. The hook is often in the chorus of songs or a melodic musical line that is memorable. But the hook could also be in the lyrics. If you are going by the information above (the top ten commercial jingles) every one of those jingles has words. Musical lyrics are memorable. Businesses want you to remember them when it comes time to shop and buy their products. Jingles have been used for a very long time and are still alive and well today. The length used to be about 30 seconds, (or longer) in expensive tv commercials. They are still expensive. But the internet has opened up a whole, new, shiny era for the old jingle. Now, it’s preferable for jingles to be any where from 10 seconds to 30 seconds long (30 is even too long now) to keep the potential clients’ attention while they scroll through their devices at 3,000 miles per hour.
Here are some steps to consider when writing lyrics for a company jingle:
1. Keep them short. Usually one line or about 6 – 12 syllables long.
2. Think of something catchy about the product/company.
3. Rhyming is not necessary. Check out the top 10 list above.
4. Make is memorable within a beat. In other words, get a beat going and talk it out or sing it out over that beat. Make sure it’s catchy, something that sticks in your head.
5. Try to stay away from using big words.
So, in closing… even though the jingle has not been used as much in media lately, with the resurgence of original music needed for YouTubers, Bloggers, local TV business commercials, digital videographers, weddings, etc. (the list grows all the time), it may just make a big come back. I wouldn’t bet on that. But there is a chance.
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Take it to the next level with a company jingle & commercial!
Three (3) - 15 second custom song productions (in 3 different genres) and two (2) commercial videos for each genre totaling six (6) commercial videos.
