I'd like the Bologna on rye hold the Jingles Please

McDonalds, Kit Kat, and Dr. Pepper are some of the best examples of brands that have dropped their catchy jingles in recent history. These are also brand have been around for a long time, and creating new appeal to old brands is always a challenge. McDonald's has brought the jingle on a number of occasions, the latest is a User Generated Content(UGC) experiment where the most avid brand owners were encouraged to submit their own personal rendition of their All beef patty jingle. It just shows when a brand drops the jingle it's struggling with appeal and trying to reach a new audience. However, good jingles never die and sometimes establish an iconic status. When something becomes kitsch it's got a nostalgic quality that every one knows. That needs to be embraced. A jingle is part of the brand's identity, and sure it's annoying when it gets stuck in your head, but there's an experience that lives with.

The experience that immediately pops into my head is lunch as a child watching my mother make my sandwiches. And yes, they often were bologna sandwiches. And of course, the Oscar Mayer jingle would be sung. With the exception of the snobby kids who didn't like bologna, I'm sure every one in my generation associates that jingle with a positive experience. Maybe we should call this kind of nostalgia the "Ice Cream Man effect". Now that Oscar Mayer and McGarryBowen have decided to move beyond the jingle I think it's time to re-examine it's worth.



It's almost a badge of honor that it's earner through generations of school lunches and family outings. Hillshire farms has done some good advertising lately and I'm sure it's cut into Oscar Mayers market share a bit. There is a need to re-estblish the brand into the hearts of consumers and that often creates a need to zag. So I'm urging the creatives at McGarryBowen not to kill it completely. It may need to be re-contextualized, but it is part of an identity that is 125 years old that spans generations. That's a powerful thing. Just remember, it's bologna. It's supposed to be hokey.