The power of music in making you memorable

There are many ways of making you memorable, and a powerful one is the catchy riff.

Did anyone say Just Eat?

Branding is all about creating an image of your company and having that image stick in customer’s minds.

Jingles are a form of sound branding. And if you’re not singing something after reading this, then I have failed.

Usually, a jingle reinforces a branding message. But they can become so powerful they act alone.

In my branding workshops, I often attempt the five-note whistle that everyone recognises.

Ba da ba ba ba – that, my friends, is impeccable brand recall.

Memorable

Listening to music reactivates areas of the brain associated with memory, reasoning, speech, emotion, and reward.

And tripping back through the decades, my personal association with adverts and music makes this abundantly clear.

I mean, the 1970s were quite classy, advert-wise. Fry’s Turkish Delight? And who doesn’t remember Coca-cola amassing people on a hillside to teach the world to sing?

Well, everyone under 40. But others will still know that for mash, you get Smash. And they also know exactly what doing the shake and vac will put back – answers on a postcard with sticky-back plastic but make sure your aunties are out of the room.

“Mu-ri-sons” will appeal to a certain North-east audience who watched Grampian telly back in the 1970s. They are a great garage in Aberdeen, with warm and friendly service. But don’t try singing the tune back to them in the showroom. Apparently, it doesn’t resonate.

The 1980s bring back memories of the health benefits of Mars bars – although these assertions were first made in 1959 – in helping you to work, rest and play.

Go compare

It all slides downhill after this. The “Just One Cornetto” campaign started in 1982, and I place the entire blame for Gio Compario nearly three decades later firmly at their gondola berth.

Similarly, late night shifts in a Forfar newsroom in the late 1990s listening to Radio Tay mean I can still recall how Ceramic Tile Warehouse stacks ‘em high and sells ‘em low. All from Clepington Road – see what I mean about the association?

For a less region and time-specific version, I’d direct you to I Feel Like Chicken Tonight for sheer earworminess in the 1990s, which I seem to recall was accompanied by an equally annoying poultry dance.

Fortunately for my sonic sanity, there has been a shift from jingles to brands appropriating “proper” songs. It might mean wispy wistful voices destroying classic tunes – yes John Lewis, I’m looking at you – but at least when I sing it back later, I can sing the original.

The Snoop Dogg version of Just Eat shows just how much weight brands place on the power of music. The weight of five million pound coins, it is rumoured, but arguably worth it.

When it comes to making you memorable, it is all about hitting the right note. And sometimes that is literally.

Hoolet is a strategic communications consultancy. Come say hello on Twitter at @hoolet_hoots, or follow us on LinkedIn. You can read more blogs here.