eBusiness Weekly
Leslie Mupeti
The quality of Zimbabwean adverts has slowly deteriorated over the years.
The adverts back in the day oozed with creativity and viewers back then actually looked forward to the ads in between the shows on primetime TV (they had no choice really).
There was just something special about playing games with a rhino that made every kid demand a pair of toughees school shoes from their parents.
Who else doesn’t remember the iconic Sun Jam advert, which had hardly any dialog involved, or the Perfection soap advert which featured legendary actor Lawrence “Bhonzo” Simbarashe.
You could tell there was a script, which was well complimented with the charisma and effortless charm of the actors. Like they say, “matakadya kare haanyaradzi mwana,” let’s fast forward to today.
The Jingle
The first commercial radio jingle was produced by Wheaties, an American company under General-Mills, in 1926. Wheaties was on the brink of extinction, a combination of poor advertising and low sales. The Wheaties jingle worked like magic and it saved the brand from being killed off by General-Mills.
Since then, the jingle has always been a sure bet for advertisers all around the globe. Just get the hottest artist of the moment to create a catchy song about your company then distribute it to radio and TV. Easy, right? Nope. Zimbabweans are now tired of this lazy, copy and paste strategy from Advertisers.
Zimbabwean ad men are failing to adapt to the new way people consume media content. People are no longer couch potatoes who spend the majority of their time on TV screens. People don’t even listen to radio that much – they would rather listen to an ad free podcasts.
Local ad men, however, are just throwing money at the hottest influencers and musicians much to the dissatisfaction of local viewers who are demanding that more creativity be poured into adverts. Let’s go back a bit and look at what a jingle is and why our advertisers love them.
What is a jingle?
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of rhyme. It includes a slogan and a product name and includes repeating these two over and over again.
If done right, advertising jingles often become a pop culture phenomenon that gets a company hundreds of hours of free advertising through other media picking it up – virality is one metric most advertisers look for especially after the rise of short form social media platforms such as TikTok.
Why do ad men love jingles?
- Repetition
One of the reasons jingles are so effective is because of repetition. Hearing a jingle repeatedly throughout the day, week after week, year after year, tends to get lodged in people’s brains. Jingles take repetition a step further.
After hearing a jingle several times as part of a marketing campaign, consumers will often create their own repetition, humming the tune or singing the words in their head.
Sometimes the mere sight of the product can trigger the words of the corresponding jingle. Jingles can take on a life of their own, showing up in popular media such as songs, movies and in online social networks.
Effective jingles, especially those on the unpleasant end of the range, act as an “earbug.” If the listener cannot get the jingle out of their heads, the primary aim has been met. Even more “serious” businesses, such as law firms, benefit from jingles.
- Memory
The main reason jingles are used to market items is that advertisers understand that jingles help people recall the advertising. This premise is supported by research.
According to a 1991 paper in “Advances in Consumer Research”, experts regularly find that music boosts recollection unless the music itself is difficult to remember. Simple songs and simple sentences almost often ensure that the buyer remembers the commercial, sometimes for years.
- Safe bet
Jingles work. It’s proven. While ad agencies are continuously experimenting with various styles of advertising, history suggests that ads using jingles are frequently effective. According to experts, consumers not only remember the jingles, but they are also more inclined to pick the marketed goods over rival products.
- They contribute to your company’s brand
Branding is all about developing an image of your organisation and making that picture stick in the minds of your customers.
When it comes to building a brand, jingles are an efficient supplement to visual advertising. People who are unable to associate a brilliant logo to your company may recall a memorable music. Put your company’s or product’s name in the jingle, and your firm will be eternally connected with the accompanying words, as long as listeners hear the jingle enough times.
The disadvantages of jingles
Even if your jingle becomes a major hit, its impact will fade when customers become tired of repeated airing (the case in Zimbabwe) or replace it with a new favourite melody. Alternatively, customers may dislike the jingle so much that it becomes a joke, or the advertisement may fail to deliver its intended message. People will tend to remember the jingle but not the company it represents.
You have to run them a lot — you have to play that song a lot to get it into people’s minds. Most corporations that operate effective jingle campaigns have huge advertising expenditures. There are plenty of additional jingles that never become well-known.
That suggests they weren’t very excellent or weren’t played enough to get ingrained in the public’s mind. I usually maintain that any message repeated enough times will be effective.
However, a better message broadcast fewer frequently will function better and cost less. Again, the majority of corporations with successful jingle campaigns have huge expenditures.
Why are we producing
low quality adverts?
- Micromanagement from the client side
Most Zimbabwean clients who engage a creative firm to do some ad work for them also want to take creative control of the work being produced even though they paid a professional to do it! They leave the creative firm with no room to explore and experiment. The result? Uninspired Shoddy work.
- Brain drain
Most iconic ads being produced in South Africa/all over the world have a Zimbo in the mix as part of the creative team. The talented people are leaving for better opportunities abroad. I won’t say more.
- Gatekeeping
The key decision makers in the advertising space are usually old conservative “mandalas” who wouldn’t understand the way modern advertising works.
- Lack of mentorship
The old guys who produced the iconic ads I mentioned above are not doing much when it comes to nurturing new talent. This creates a gap in the market.
Leslie Mupeti is a graphic designer and brand strategy expert. He can be contacted on +263 785 324 230 and [email protected] for feedback.
