“Gimme a break…Gimme a break…”
“Five dollar…Five dollar…Five dollar footlong”
“Ch-ch-ch-chia!”
Many of us can still recall these classic jingles at any given moment, as if they’ve lived rent-free in our minds for decades. There’s a reason for that—these tunes were engineered to be memorable.
The Jingle: A Formula to Catfish Your Audience
The Jingle was extremely successful in the 1950s and 1960s with the approach templated by Robert Swanson: get your message across quickly, put words together in a rhyming pattern, and create a simple and memorable melody.
However, with the rise of mostly sound-off social media platforms in the mid-2000s, the jingle faded into obscurity.
A Shift From Sound-Off to Sound-Centric
Consumer behavior in the digital space has shifted over the last 15 years from a mostly sound-off experience to one where now music and sound are a central part of storytelling. This has been accelerated by the rise of TikTok.
TikTok not only changed consumer behavior but also influenced cultural trends and drove music discovery. In fact, 75% of users say they discovered new artists through TikTok. It’s no coincidence that today’s top artists like Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, and Olivia Rodrigo skyrocketed to the top of the Billboard and Spotify charts once their songs went viral on the platform.
At Song Candy, we see music as a “white space” opportunity for brands to catapult their message to the masses, especially on platforms like TikTok.
The Power Of Sticky Music
Music is five times more memorable than visuals and according to Harvard Medical School, 98% of people experience getting a song stuck in their head and is referred to as an earworm, or as we like to call it at Song Candy, sticky music.
At Song Candy, we’re helping brands harness the power of sticky music to create a billboard in the minds of our consumers (where it lives rent free, of course).
Sticky music bridges the digital world to the offline world—consumers can scroll on their phones, hear a brand’s song, then later, that song pops into their head when doing a completely different task. This creates endless opportunities for brands to drive additional ad recall and have their consumers remembering the brand story over and over again.
How TikTok Is Reinventing The Jingle
TikTok allows brands and audiences to connect directly, thus fostering an authentic connection through music instead of simply catfishing with a catchy jingle. Brands are able to entertain the consumer versus interrupt their experience.
Recent research has shown that 65% of TikTokers prefer the original sound from brands, with custom branded music helping capture attention, create brand affinity, and increase purchase intent.
Song Candy’s Best Practices for a Music-Driven Approach TikTok
Lean into trend-driven campaign ideas.
Root your campaign idea in a consumer insight that’s relatable to your audience. Do this by emulating trends that are native to the platform to produce highly shareable content (e.g. challenges, life hacks, tutorials).
Take a sound-centric approach to storytelling.
At Song Candy, we leverage music science and music trend data to engineer a song to become memorable and on-trend for your audience.
Stand out with high-quality music production. Investing in professionally recorded and produced sound ensures your song has a crisp, loud sound that’s a staple among professional musical artists.
This is a crucial music production step we provide at Song Candy to help capture the listeners’ attention. It makes the song more listenable and allows the brand’s message to stick.
Launch with a creator-led strategy.
Tap into content creators to create engaging, authentic TikToks, instead of using traditional ads. This will amplify your brand message and spark a social trend. Maximize reach by boosting influencer content with paid in-feed ads, in addition to reposting UGC to continuously refresh content.
Amplify your message to create virality.
For brands to have a shot at virality, you must have a solid go-to-market strategy across paid, owned and earned challenges, as well as budgeting to keep the momentum going during the campaign.
Check out some of the original custom music by Song Candy:
