Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Jingles and Radio Ads

Jingles are simply advertisements. Simple songs about a product. This is one area that a musician will shy away from - until they find out how much money they can make writing jingles. I can hear someone out there right now yelling "Sell out!" If you want to make money with music then writing radio ads jingles, tv commercial jingles, and other forms of advertising jingles are a gem. You don't even have to tell your friends. You can be a closet jingle writer!

If an advertising agency determines that new music will be required, they will work up the budget, and consult with the client for ideas, and then, if they have their own in-house music development team, that team will develop the jingle for the new ad. If they don’t have such a department, then they will outsource to a jingle production company. This company will write a song and produce a demo for the commercial. Once the client accepts the work, then full production is done of the commercial.

Sometimes, however the advertising agency goes a different route. They’ll contact a songwriter, working independently, and hire him or her to write the jingle. This normally only works out well for the songwriter if he has had success for writing hit songs or if has already obtained a reputation in the jingle business.

Often the songwriter is hard pressed to produce a high quality demo because he doesn’t have his own production facility. If his track record or his ability to resolve that issue can be overcome, then he may be able to give the advertising agency what they want.