Dan Akers, friend of IQ Beats, independent radio producer, member of the Global Radio creative team and frequent contributor to this blog has done it again and come up with an op-ed piece that seems perfectly timed to coincide with the recent release of our stunning new instrumental package for LBC 97.3 FM, London’s Biggest Conversation. (more…)
You may remember that awhile back Dan Akers, friend of the blog and producer at London’s LBC 97.3, contributed a piece called Intel-ligent Branding that has gone on to be one of the most-read entries of all time on ye olde IQ Blog.
Well, he’s back and just in time for Christmas. While not straying far from the message shared in his previous piece, Dan ties in the theme of the season with an example that hits close to home.
‘Tis the Season to Sing Jingles
I could be cynical. I usually would be cynical. You know those jingle demos that feature some jock or PD going on about how “everyone remembers our jingles and sings them on the streets”? I always thought they were a little hokey. I mean, think about it. If you encountered someone wailing “L-oooo-n-don’s H-e-aaaaart. This is H-E-AAAAART!” into a pretend microphone, you’d put in an emergency call to the men in white coats.
Here in the UK there was a famous 1970s TV commercial advertising “Shake ‘n’ Vac”. A middle-aged housewife so thoroughly elated with her fresh-smelling carpet couldn’t resist trotting back and forth with the vacuum belting out “You do the Shake ‘n’ Vaaac and put the freshness baaaack… Do the Shake ‘n’ Vac and put the freshness baaaaack!” Decades later, she’s probably still receiving treatment. So can you really believe that real-life people sing radio jingles in public? No, I didn’t believe it either.
However, ’tis the season to be jolly and jingle bells were paired with jingle yells recently on Beckenham High Street. Nice woman: a little woozy after consuming more than a few Christmas drinks, stumbled off the bus and started asking the usual stranger-to-stranger questions. “What do you do for a living?” was the inevitable opener, and when I told her I’m a producer at London’s talk station LBC 97.3, she took to the stage for her performance of a lifetime. Here I am, quarter to midnight on a freezing cold night, talking to someone who could barely stand let alone speak, but with absolutely perfect timing and pitch, she belted out…
“Nick Fer-rar-iii at Break-faaast… Ell Bee Ceeee!”
So it does happen, and jingles still work as well now as they always did, back as far as when the famous tune for Brand Christmas was first sung:
“We wiish you a Merry Ch-riiii-stmas and a Haa-peee New Yeeeear!”
Over the years IQ Beats has made a few friends in the radio world that are very dear to us: Stuart Davies, Bill Schultz, Randy Chase, Francis Currie, and Rob Walker to name a few. Add to that a key member of the UK IQ Beats Street Team - Mr. Dan Akers. Dan works for Chrysalis Creative writing, voicing and producing commericals for radio stations across the UK as well as having produced several UK versions of IQ Beats demos (BBC Radio Manchester being the most recent). Being full-tilt in the radio industry and a huuuuge fan of radio in general, Dan thought he’d share his opinion on the importantance of branding. So, from Dan the man:
Intel-ligent Branding
I could blame my worrying radio obsessions on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I could blame sonic alchemist and all-round wireless genius Kenny Everett. Or the Electric Light Orchestra. Or Jeff Wayne for his musical version of The War of the Worlds. I could blame Orson Welles for scaring the world witless with his radio adaption. Or I could blame electronics giant Philips.
Or Phirrips, as they were known in a radio ad voiced and produced by comics Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. I’m not blaming them because of their ad, but because of their ingenious invention the Philips Cube.
This was pure genius. A box-shaped TV with an in-built AM/FM radio, a cassette recorder and a timer. This meant I could set it up to automatically record the jingles from Music Box, the satellite music channel rebroadcast overnight by Yorkshire Television. I could get it to record the IBA Engineering Announcements along with it’s accompanying introductory ditty before heading into the rarely-heard 3-minute version of the Good Morning Britain theme. However, my first love was radio jingles.
Whilst most kids were making illegal hits compilations by hacking Bruno Brookes out of the Radio 1 Top 40, I was chopping out the music. I was too impatient to listen to 3 minute songs, and that’s more or less the case today. Unless it’s a station song or a groovy traffic bed.
At 9 years old, I had no concept of the importance of these mini-songs from a branding or commercial perspective, but they’d nonetheless got me hooked, and thanks to their catchy logos, I’d always know what station I was listening to, even if the singers had their mouths taped up. What better a testimonial could the music imaging salesman need?
At London’s Chrysalis Radio, I write and produce commercials for clients big and small. Some of them thrive on powerful language; others on memorable music. My musical pitch almost inevitably makes some mention of Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”). Apart from IT geeks, how many people actually know what a Centrino, Core Duo, Pentium M, Pentium D with Viiv technology or even a plain old processor is? Exactly. But they all know what Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”) is… They make your computer! HP don’t make your PC. Dell don’t make it. Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”) do. Why do we think Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”) have their own jingle and are therefore clearly bigger and more important than unassuming HP (pause) and Dell (quiet please). One could argue that the phenomenal success of Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”) can be attributed to their catchy little 5 note melody, and Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”) won’t let us forget it.
It’s the same with the radio ident. WNBC, Z100, BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, WABC, Heart 106.2, LBC, WPLJ; stations with memorable logos that we can’t get our of heads. The list is really endless (to coin a phrase)! What really impresses me with music imaging is its ability to take a simple musical phrase and make it do so much in a huge variety of styles and situations. One logo could equal 10 themes plus 10 ramps, 20 stagers, 30 shots, 10 super-shots, plus traffic, weather, headlines, news, top of hour, what’s on, community action and sports cut. By my reckoning, that’s 88 different ways in which to use one quirky little tune, and that’s without the alts, the subs, the a cappellas and the instrumental mix-outs. Even Intel (”DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!”), with their one solitary jingle, have adapted it over the years.
Driving around the UK, you’ll hear so many stations playing the same music, with similar formats and the usual happy-go-lucky, enthusiastic presenters. Outside breakfast, on-air talent is often stifled, so what do you have left to make one station stand out from the next one along the dial?
Some years ago, the anti-jingle arrived on these shores. Sweepers were the order of the day as programmers tired of quirky 5-part Dallas harmonies. After all, why progress and expirement with a station’s sound when a bunch of zip, zap, (deep voice goes here) sweepers will do the trick for a fraction of the budget?
Thankfully we seem to have turned the corner, but there are still a few stations that continue to go jingle-naked. Apart from those where musical idents aren’t appropriate, these are the stations I choose to tune away from; not because I’m a jingle anorak, but because I like to feel confident in the station I listen to. I want it to be confident in itself. I want it to scream at me how utterly brilliant it is, so that when a crap tune is playing, I can feel confident that a great one is coming next.
If a personality-devoid manufacturer of computer precessors can get you to notice them, there’s really no excuse why the greatest entertainment medium in the world can’t. So to those jingle-opposed programmers, I just have one thing to say to convince you to spend on some top-notch musical (now sit up and take notice of this key word) branding: DINGGGGGG… dum dum dum dum!
© 2007 Daniel Akers
IQ Beats was recently approached by a member of X-trax magazine for a little Q&A session with Michael Berlin, CEO of IQ Beats. X-trax is the radio industry’s free glossy monthly magazine for the UK radio industry that includes weekly entertainment and lifestyle audio features presented by Virgin Radio’s Andrew Bailey, has an association with commercial radio’s leading news provider, IRN, is a Patron of the Radio Academy and an Associate Member of the RadioCentre. And since 2001, they have been running the X-trax British Radio Awards honoring the best in on and off-air talent across the UK.
Justin, Robbie, Christina and Beyoncé… Superstars made famous by both their music and image. Getting a song played on the radio can make you a celeb, but having your jingle package on the air will likely only gain notice with a few radio programmers! For as long as there have been radio stations, there have been talented musicians, producers and vocalists dedicating their lives to ‘those bits in between the records’ while missing out on the fame.
Jingles have come a long way over the past 30 years; the early 80’s saw companies like Alfasound and David Arnold ruling the airwaves, while the latter part of the decade played witness to mainstream radio’s introduction to the big Jam/TM Dallas sound. Trends spread in radio and so it seemed jingles were dead in the early 90’s. Long live the sweeper… Or so the world thought. In the mid-90’s jingles were reinvented under the name ‘music-imaging’ by companies such as Killer Music and Vibe. Today’s programmers see music-imaging as more than adding a nice sparkle to their station - They see it as building a branded identity their listeners know and return to.
With ever changing music tastes and developments in new technology, the world of music imaging is moving again. XYZ spoke via several emails with Michael Berlin from industry newcomer IQ Beats, one of a new breed of imaging companies, to find out if jingles are going the way of the buffalo.
What makes today’s Music Imaging different from yesterday’s Jingles?
Yesterday’s jingle was produced to jump out of your radio as an instantly identifiable tune with a simple, yet catchy melody. That is good, therefore nothing has changed in that department. But often the jingles of yesteryear sounded awkwardly different stylistically than the programming they were supposed to integrate with. How many hit songs have you heard over the years with a seven-part harmony group singing in the style of that Dallas jingle sound? Um, that would be nil. This gap between the way in which a station was trying to image itself and the content it played led to a lull in the popularity and use of jingles in the radio industry.As music styles evolved and advertising became increasingly innovative, jingles with over-the-top vocal production began to sound extremely dated and out of place on contemporary radio. Also lending to the demise of the traditional jingle was the epidemic of sending out sub-par syndication packages that featured ill-fitting lyrics and some very dubious mixing. It’s my opinion that the few players in the jingle business in those days could not cope with the workload of producing both custom packages and walking the fine line it takes to re-sing and mix a syndicated package into a result that sounds nothing short of custom.
Of course there are instances when the giant group vocal sound is appropriate, but IQ Beats are finding that the current trend is to use a wide variety of singers that sound more like the artists a station is playing. Radio is spending big money on testing songs in focus groups to refine their playlists and learn more about their listeners. These focus groups have showed programmers the importance of music-imaging that sounds authentic and fresh. Stations now look for much more flexibility in their packages. With that in mind, every piece of music that we at IQ Beats produce has been made so the production guys can reinvent the pieces/parts for months or years to come. Be it thinner mixes, versions for long talk-overs, or isolated work parts, we provide everything a client will need to image their station with flexibility and distinction.
It seems that the objective with jingle production companies these days is to make each jingle sound just like the hits of today by writing pieces that emulate the same production techniques, sounds, and styles. Until recently this type of ‘sound-alike’ imaging was in vogue. IQ Beats have discovered that our clients need more than that. Because of heavy rotations and limited play lists, songs in a station’s programming burn quickly. If a station’s music-imaging sounds exactly like the songs, then it burns quickly too. I know of a station that opted to put a sound-alike music-imaging package on the air… Six months later all the songs the jingles were emulating had burned their way off of the playlist. This instantly dated the package and in turn, the station.
Most people only buy jingles every other year or so. How do they keep it sounding fresh?
By providing music of quality and substance with production elements that allows a station’s production department the power and flexibility they need to continue developing their station’s sound month after month and year after year.The strength of IQ Beats is steeped in the talent and creativity of our writers and producers. Beyond that, IQ Beats is committed to learning as much about a client and their needs as possible before we ever set foot into the production studio. Our first step is to obtain a station’s playlist of their biggest songs. And with today’s broadband internet, we spend days online listening to our client’s stream to really get a feel for its personality and existing imaging. During this period we usually have at least one round of conversations with the head of programming, and production engineers too if possible, about the direction they’d like their new music imaging to go. Only then is it finally time to start writing.
Producing music-imaging is surely easier said than done. That’s why I feel it’s important to always use a writing team that is diversified in their interests and experiences. In addition to contributing to IQ Beats, our writers play live in local clubs, produce records, and are plugged in to a thriving local music scene that exposes them to the latest trends long before they are homogenized on CHR radio. Having several writers with different styles and skill sets is what keeps our tracks sounding fresh. It’s nice for one writer to bounce an idea off another, or even to contribute tracks to another for additional dimensionality and flavor. And a little healthy competition between them only benefits our clients.
Our writers and producers also have a genuine hunger for composing great tracks. We know that it involves much more than assembling thirty seconds of contemporary beats only to stick a poorly realized vocal on the end. A killer melody is a must and most of the time you’ve got about 7 seconds in which to fully develop it. Once that’s achieved we focus on showcasing a contemporary arrangement by using elements inspired by, but not plagiarizing current songs.
The sign of a truly brilliant music-imaging producer is to create a piece of music that feels immediately familiar to the listener, but without being able to easily identify its origin. Loads of hit songs ruling the charts at the moment feature real instrumentation: strings, drums, brass and more. IQ Beats have stepped up and invested in using live musicians whenever possible. Without these live elements, one cannot expect to have their songs match up with the songs they are integrating with, or they will always fall flat.
How complicated is it commissioning a new music-imaging package? Do you need to be really musical?
I would say that it is indeed complicated because of the lengths IQ Beats goes to completely service the needs of our client and exceed their expectations. Each project we do is unique with its own demands and challenges. We also leave the door open for our clients to be as involved in the process as they desire; we can follow a tightly written brief step for step or we can take a few vague ideas and run with it. Most stations commissioning us do so on the basis of our previous work and often want us to create a custom package for them in style of something we’ve done before.Some stations like to have a representative present at their vocal sessions while others choose to trust to realize their vision. This past year has seen several visitors; Francis Currie, PD at Heart 106.2, was very involved with his package from its conception to being in Seattle for a week during the vocal production phase. John Ryan and Chris Harris came out for the BBC project we have just completed for Leeds, Kent and Stoke. John Evington of The Wireless Group joined us here in Seattle for a week of singing and instrumentation sessions on his monster 13 station custom package!
Being musical while providing cutting-edge production is what we do. Often our clients are speaking their own dialect of the musical language. Our writers and producers have become experts in decoding a PD’s desire to have a track sound a bit more ‘purple’. Terms like: wonky, sleek, fuddy, upbeat, clever and flexible aren’t in the lexicon of musical terms, but translated every day by our team to realize a client’s vision.
How many people does it take to do this kind of thing?
We have a team of four hard-working and creative individuals directly involved in writing, producing, mixing the packages, and delivering all the content to our clients. For direct client liaison we have a project manager in the UK as well as reps in other parts of the world too. Outside of this core team is a wide selection of vocalists and musicians here in Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas and Nashville.What makes a perfect jingle?
Well, everybody working in radio will be able to tell you their favorite ID from the past, with some sticking in the mind more than others. The most important thing when producing music-imaging is for it to work for a station’s format. A good AC jingle is quite tuneful with some really nice instrumentation and a catchy vocal. On the other hand, a hip CHR package will feature cutting-edge production styles both in the music and with edgier vocal treatments. All good IDs should provide the presenters a flexible toolkit to enhance the flow of the station. The one thing that all great jingles have in common is an undeniably catchy hook. The hook is a simple melody that comes in instrumental form, but is most often found in the form of the station’s name as sung on the end of a cut. This is where the body is buried! If this part sticks in your head after a few listens, then it is a winner. The most satisfying compliment we can get from a station is for them to tell us that they can’t get the sing out of their heads. This recognition is exactly what we are both trying to achieve so that their listeners can immediately identify our client’s station. We did our job if you get up in the morning still humming our melodies.Where do you see jingles and music-imaging going?
The radio industry as a whole has seen a lot of changes over the past 10 years. The advances in technology and the availability of reasonably priced recording equipment have had a lot to do with this. The result has been that the door has opened for talented writers and producers who not long ago didn’t have access or couldn’t afford the type of equipment needed to produce music. In essence, the playing field has been leveled. It is now far more about talent and the creative process than it was about pole position. The two or three major players that had a monopoly over the industry are finding themselves challenged by much smaller, agile, and creative companies that now have the ability to produce world-class product. This is great because it gives more options to clients looking to change their sound and it keeps the industry from stagnating. I feel very positive about the future of music-imaging. As with everything, there will certainly be ups and downs but I think the industry is healthier and more creative than ever.Although it sounds a bit cliché, it really is a roller coaster ride. Remember that in the early 90’s most programmers thought this kind of thing was dead. What had in fact happened was that the industry had caught a ‘creative cold’ and slipped into a sausage factory approach. Let’s face it… If the only pack of sausages you could buy at the store were low-grade and nasty tasting, you would just stop buying them - I believe this is what happened in our industry.
Many companies continued to turn out serviceable packages exactly as they had done for many years. This of course, being the problem since music and production styles had changed while the jingles had not. I believe the key to writing great material is to be constantly aware of what is happening in the music world and to embrace what is new. Not living in the past is very important. No matter how programmers have tried to reinvent their branding tools, history always comes back to a jingle that reflects the style and image of the station, whether sung or solely musical. Music-imaging evolves side-by-side with the market. Today’s packages may sound dated in ten years, like many songs do today, but it’s not a problem as long as packages produced in 2015 seamlessly integrate into tomorrow’s radio. It appears as if both music-imaging and radio have a healthy future ahead.
