CBS has decided to pick up the Mark Burnett game show Jingles, during which contestants will be required to write songs showcasing the various sponsors of the program in a positive light, then have those tunes judged by an “expert panel” and Americans. Winning songs will get used in the featured products’ commercials, a fact that should make any indie musician hoping to pay his rent by selling his track to a soap company quiver in his boots. The designed-for-evading-TiVoers show will likely appear on the network’s schedule come summertime, and casting is apparently going on right now! Here’s a suggestion for CBS: How about cueing up a “marginal indie celebrity” version of the show to bring down your network’s average viewing age–perhaps Feist vs. Wilco vs. Stephin Merritt? A preview of that potential throwdown is after the jump.
Jingle Writing Goes The “American Idol” Route
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Actually, all I can think of here is “How do I audition?”.
I give Merritt the slight edge in this roundup. The edge would be less slight if it was that marvelous Wrigley gum commercial instead.
Whenever I see the Wrigley’s ad, I feel like Stephen has captured my personal essence, spoken to a place deep within my soul…he may have even secretly been going grocery shopping with me because otherwise how would he know I chew not on chocolate, chili or chips?
I think CBS has misinterpreted the popularity of Charlie Sheen’s jingle-writer character in “2 And A Half Men” as America’s bottomless appetite for more glimpses into the sexy, sexy world of that character’s profession.
Oooh, I hope Joey and Uncle Jesse are on!
Writing jingles? How many pop trend pieces have been broadcast about the death of jingles as a viable ad strategy. Everybody is licensing these days — it’s way too easy to just insert a Yael Naim song than to have the boys at Sterling Cooper wrack their brains for a ditty.
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@GeorgeLang: As much as I appreciate the revenue that “indie bands” can pull by licensing one of their songs (since “kids these days” just download the music rather than paying for it), I do think that the world is a less enjoyable place given the current lack of commerical jingles. And TV theme songs for that matter. Oh, the halcyon days of yore…