MEGABLOG: MANIC MONDAY: Free Credit Jingles

The catchy, sometimes grating jingles which are repetitively proliferating our media outlets, especially those created for Free Credit Report Dot Com are causing quite a stir in the field of advertising. The Martin Agency is responsible for the ads while Senior Copywriter David Muhlenfeld is gaining sort of an iconic notoriety in the field of subconscious musical marketing.

Muhlenfeld who's education includes a B.A. in English from Amherst College and was involved in the Glee Club there says the Free Credit campaign was the first musical job he'd ever done. Muhlenfeld, who says he ”went away with my guitar and some cheap Chianti” to find inspiration. He also said of the spots, ”Repetition alone will make something stick in a listener’s head. The question is, once your song is in their head, will they want to stick that head in an oven?” "The client didn't ask for music but that was just where it went," said Muhlenfeld.

The original demos were created on Apple's user friendly Garage Band, they were then played for company employees who were asked to choose their favorites and the finalists were used in the first three ads for F.C.R., who initially chose The Martin Agency because of their Geico Caveman Campaign. Since then Muhlenfeld has worked on The Subway $5 Dollar Foot-long jingle and is currently working on campaigns for Discover Card, Wal-Mart and The Coca-Cola Corporation.

The effectiveness of the commercials’ quirky songs was evident right from the get-go. “The numbers were very good,” Muhlenfeld says of the increase in visitors to freecreditreport.com. In addition, the commercials became "viral video" hits. “Somebody leaked the spots onto YouTube,” he said. “At first we got 600 hits, and then 1200 hits, and then we checked back in a week or so and it was 20,000 hits. And now it’s up to 600,000 or 700,000 for each of them.” Capturing lightning-in-a-bottle and becoming a successful viral video is not something that’s easily recreate-able. “Without really even trying to create a viral-type success, we did and now of course we’re going to try and convince people we meant to do that all along.”

Muhlendfeld says he hopes the success of the commercials will wake people up to what music can do for advertisers. “I think jingles had gone quite out of fashion, it was nice to reignite some interest in singing.” He thinks the spots worked so well because the band in the commercials [led by French-Canadian actor Eric Violette] think of themselves as a real band. “They’re real ballads about this guy’s sad ass life,” he said. Though the songs didn’t necessarily come easy to Muhlenfeld, he said jingles are often easier to write than traditional pop songs. “You’ve got a list of three of four things you must say in order to paid by your client, and you know that you have 30 seconds, which is good since it gives you parameters to work from.”

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