The hook in the jingle —the phrase people remember— must be simple, according to Ben McCampbell, owner of Dune Tunes.  He writes music and lyrics for advertising jingles and knows the elements that make a commercial immediately memorable.  “The catch phrase needs to be simple:  eight words is too verbose.”  Merging words and music has been McCampbell’s forte for almost 30 years.

A 30-second commercial should not be a list of products or services, or, worse yet, a company’s mission statement, McCampbell said.  “The commercial’s job is to catch people’s interest and get them into the store or to the website.  It’s a vehicle to create interest, not to sell product.  A lot of people don’t get that. But it’s silly to try and put everything into a 30-second spot.  People can get the details when they go to the store.” The sole exception to that, he added, may be the local car market where the main selling point is the monthly payment.

Ben McCampbell developed Dune Tunes: Music and Other Stuff for Advertising from a short-lived partnership with a session musician that began in 1982.  Today, in his studio overlooking the Laguna Madre, McCampbell creates jingles, writes scripts for commercials, does voice-over work, lines up singers and produces commercials.

While the songwriter is steeped in music, one of his indispensable instruments is a calculator. “It boils down to mathematics,” McCampbell said.  “When I get the tempos and phrasing, usually set in 4/4 time, I sit down with a calculator.  We have 29 seconds, so how many beats do I have at this tempo? how many measures? If it’s an odd number, I really have to massage the song.” He has modified existing slogans to make them work in a jingle. He adds more beats to speed up the tempo. But whatever he does, he has to make a complete song in 29 seconds.

When writing slogans that become catchy jingles, McCampbell prefers to emphasize what people are looking for in a product, whether it’s safety or convenience or fun.  He is often given a list of the company products and services as a starting point. Your company does not have to be the only one with this feature, he explained. “But it’s more effective if you are the first one to say it.”  One of his jingles, “We’re on your way,” is used statewide by Speedy Stop convenience stores.

Lyrics form the image that remains after the visual and audio has clicked off. Lyrics make a jingle stand out.  The term earworm denotes a catchy phrase that keeps popping into your head.

For more on this story by Eileen Mattei, pick up a copy of the February edition of Valley Business Report, on news stands now, or visit the “Current & Past Issues” tab on this Web site.