HOW TO WRITE COMMERCIAL JINGLES

Do you catch yourself humming a melody from a very popular advertisement either on the radio or on TV? Have you ever experienced LSS (last song syndrome), with a certain tune playing again and again in your head? Sometimes, some people find this annoying, but guess what, the melody and words served their purpose: TO STICK TO YOUR BRAIN.

These simple tunes that promote brands or services are what we call commercial jingles. And writing them is one way a songwriter can earn money from his or her songwriting talent. And I do mean serious money.

I would have to admit that writing jingles is not as easy as it sounds. But with determination, patience, and practice, it will become easier eventually.

I still remember the very first jingle that I made: Xtreme Magic Sing (NO not the one sung by Manny Pacquiao, it was done by Lito Camo; I did their FIRST radio jingle).

Back in 2005, an officemate asked me if I know someone who writes jingles because his client is looking for one. I told him without batting an eyelash, “you are looking at one”. He knows that I write songs so he entrusted me with the project.

At home, I asked myself: what did I get myself into? I write about courting girls, being heartbroken, and a lot of EMO stuff but come on, HOW THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT A MICROPHONE?!?

So without having someone to coach me, I started listening to OTHER JINGLES. I studied how they go, what the elements are. I also read about Xtreme Magic Sing, the features and the benefits, and called up my officemate to ask what his client wants to achieve through the jingle. I wrote all that I learned and I came up with TWO PAGES OF NOTES!

Now, the next challenge is: HOW IN THE WORLD AM I SUPPOSED TO FIT ALL OF MY NOTES IN 30 SECONDS?! Because that’s what they asked for, a 30-seconder jingle. More so, they requested for 2 versions! But I still went through it, revised, rewrote, until finally I was able to do the two versions of the jingle. I submitted them and had the client choose one.

How much did they pay me? Twenty thousand pesos, plus my own Xtreme Magic Sing! It was the start of a very profitable “hobby”. Until now, I still consider jingle writing as my bread and butter as a songwriter. And of course, I can charge higher now because of the experience I gained and the quality of the jingles I produce.

I believe that any songwriter can make money from writing jingles. Let me give you some hot tips how to. These are not hard rules but they can serve as guidelines that can help you turn your songwriting talent to a profitable venture.

Make Extensive Research on the Product/ Brand /Company

You should keep in mind that jingles are advertising materials. They are not your usual songs that you write for a girl or for yourself. You have to MOVE OUT OF YOURSELF and YOUR UNIVERSE. You will be SELLING the brand or the product through your music. In effect, in that span of time that you will be writing the jingle, you will be PART of the company. You should embrace their company philosophy, and put yourself in the shoes of their salespeople.

What is very special about the product or service? What do you get when you buy it? WHAT DOES THE COMPANY WANT TO PROMOTE AND ACCOMPLISH?

Know their target audience or the people they want to reach or sell to. Is it the working class? Or the upper bracket of society? Is the product for the youth? Or for the elderly? Answers to these questions will give you idea on WHICH WORDS TO USE for your lyrics. Ask if they already have a tagline or battle cry. Example: for Nike: JUST DO IT; for M&M: Melts in your mouth not in your hands, etc.

Write the message first and be clear about it!

The message is not to be mistaken for the lyrics. It is just your RESEARCH NOTES SIMPLIFIED. The message will guide you as you mold the lyrics and fit it to the melody you will make.

When you write the lyrics, rhyming is a very powerful device that you can make use of. It helps IMPRINT the message to the brain because it is easier to recall rhyming lines. Also, always add to your lyrics the call to action: e.g. TRY IT, BUY NOW, TASTE IT, GO NOW, PLEASE COME IN, etc. Subliminally, the listeners will experience a certain impetus to perform this call.

Likewise, the product name should also appear in the lyrics as frequent as possible to achieve recall. To some this will be annoying, but remember, YOUR CLIENTS WANT THE NAME OF THEIR PRODUCTS TO BE IMPRINTED in the brains of the listeners.

Make the lyrics simple. Imagine your jingle to be a poster or a billboard. The more details you add, the more your audience will get distracted hence, muddling your message.

Make a lilting melody

Lilting melody means the jingle should sound jolly. Just imagine if you sing about JOLLIBEE to the tune of MY IMMORTAL of Evanescence?! It won’t fit! Normally, jingles are upbeat and use MAJOR KEYS or chords. As much as possible, avoid MINOR chords because these sound gloomy and might kill the joyous mood that your client wants to project. Your melody should have a rhythmical swing, flows beautifully and has cadence. I suggest you make a list of all the jingles that you remember, listen and study them. Believe me one reason why you remember them is because they HAVE LILTING MELODIES.

Another powerful way to make your jingle easy to recall is to make a MELODIC LOGO. It is the signature tune that contains the brand name and/or the tagline. Example, I’m sure most of you can sing this line: Sa Jollibee, bida ang saya! Or how about this: Here at SM, we’ve got it all for you! THAT is the melodic logo of the jingle.

Test your jingle by having it listened to by someone objective. PLEASE, don’t use your mother as the barometer. She loves you and everything that you do, NO MATTER WHAT. So get objective opinion.

Record your jingle roughly to achieve the desired length

The standard lengths of jingles are 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, or a Full Song, depending on the requirement of the clients. Of course, the longer the jingle, the higher the pay!

While writing the jingle, you cannot expect to get the desired length right away, it is actually a test and see thing. Usually for a 30 seconder jingle, I use 4 to 6 lines, much like a chorus of a song. For a 1-minute jingle, I normally write a verse and a chorus. It will be a big help if you can record your raw jingle using the recorder function in your cellphone so you will have a rough estimate of how long it will run.

Produce the Jingle

If you are just a greenhorn songwriter and is not adept with music production, I suggest that you collaborate with people who are good at it. I started that way, I paid someone to help me with the instrumentation and recording. Not only was I able to share what I earned, I also gained VALUABLE inputs from that person and eventually learned from him the process of recording and mixing.

Now I can do all those things on my own. But since I am doing a lot of things, I went back to working with people whom I trust: they are my superstar teammates. I wrote about this in another blog (click here).

Some more tips

If you are just starting out and you don’t have any connections yet, I suggest you do some practicing. Go to a supermarket near you and look at all the brands around. Some of them are potential clients! Write jingles about them, get their contact numbers and ask them if they are interested to have a jingle written for them.

Since they don’t know you yet and you still don’t have a portfolio, what you can do is this: write a jingle and submit it to them, without charging anything (YET). You want to earn from your talent right? Then you should INVEST first. Ask them what they think. If they like it then that is the time to talk about money. Many jingle writers get frowned upon by potential clients because they center on the COST first before SHOWING THE CUSTOMERS THE VALUE THEY WILL GET IN RETURN by transacting with you.

If they didn’t like your demo jingle then FINE! It’s their LOSS, go to another prospect and make another one. While you may get rejection after rejection, trust me, you WILL GAIN more experience and you will be improving your songwriting skills in the process.

Now, when you get your first approval, then congratulations! While there are industry standards in the prices of jingles, you may want to ask your client “what is your budget”? If you are just starting out, maybe you can charge a few thousand pesos to cover your production cost and make you a little profit as you build your portfolio (i.e. your resume as a jingle writer). Or, you may want to look for marketing savvy individuals to do the “money talks” on your behalf and split the profit with them.

Lastly, use the bird dog strategy. Was your client happy with the jingle that you made for them? Then ask for their help to REFER YOU TO OTHER COMPANIES! That way, you will be able to build your portfolio that you can use to offer your services to BIGGER COMPANIES. Let me show you mine:

So start earning from your songwriting talent! 

  

May you be successful in your musical venture,

Robster Evangelista

P.S.

Get my Ebook THE SECRETS OF RADIO HIT SONGS AND 10 TIPS ON HOW YOU CAN USE THEM WHEN WRITING YOUR OWN SONGS for FREE!!! Just sign up on the upper left corner of this blog or below and you will receive an email with instructions on how you can download my FREE EBOOK.