Jingle all the way: why in-house is better

December 2011 - Paul Williams

Can you name the products from the following jingles and straplines?

1. For _____ Get Smash.
2. _____ made to make your mouth water.
3. Any time any place any where, that’s _____
4. A  _____ a day helps you work, rest and play
5. A finger of _____ is just enough to give your kids a treat
6. The _____ _____ are on me
7. _____, it’s the real thing
8. I’m a secret lemonade drinker, _____

(Post your answers in the comments below)

If you grew up in the 1970′s and 1980′s you may be able to recall some of the products that used these lines in their ads. The TV adverts of that era, the stories they told, the straplines, and especially the jingles made life so simple! These days with all the visual metaphors in play, sometimes it’s hard to be sure what the advertiser is trying to say.

We can often enjoy the creativity of the ad, the beautiful way it has been filmed and the humour, but fail to recall what the actual product was. Is this the outcome of ads no longer being directed by copy writers, but by brand specialists?

In the early 90′s I began my career as a marketing executive at a travel company; looking back I can see that client-agency relationships have changed.

The travel company had three agencies only, one that looked after the creative, marketing, advertising, one for sales promotion and one for PR.

Jump forward 15 years and I was working as a consultant for a large Health and Beauty company where in a pan agency meeting I found myself surrounded by representatives from our Creative Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Web Design Agency, SEO Marketing Agency, PR Agency, Media Buying Agency and Online Media Agency.

This is reflective of what has happened throughout the 90′s and noughties with the emergence and growth of specialist agencies, most recently around digital media.

But that’s where diva is different to a lot of other agencies, as all of our services are in-house. Over the last 12 months we have delivered fully integrated social marketing programmes, using a combination of creativity, social media and community engagement.

Being able to offer our clients a full service approach, a bespoke package of services or an individual service provides them with both flexibility and control.

This approach has been recognised and rewarded by our peers at the 2011 How-Do Public Service Awards. We were fortunate enough to win awards for both complete marketing programmes as well as specialist services:

• Best Agency
• Best use of Social Marketing
• Highly Commended for use of Social Media

We feel very proud of these achievements and it has inspired us to continue doing what we do best; to be responsive to our clients’ needs and be adaptable enough to meet them.

Now if we could only get an award for our jingle writing my marketing life would be complete!