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Hey guys,
This is my first forum discussion. The vital info I receive on here is definitely worth the subscription. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone has, or knows how to pitch a custom jingle to a specific company. Anyone had any experience with this?
-Tony
I actually tried the jingle business when I was fresh out of music school, 15 years ago. From my experiences, I highly DON’T recommend this business haha!
In the US, jingles are mostly considered old fashioned and cheesy. However – other countries, like NZ and Australia, still LOVE them.
In the US, you’ll hear most jingles airing on AM radio, and some FM. There are a few on TV, but usually it’s smaller companies, playing local ads.My strategy was to listen to the radio, and make note of all the companies using background music in their ads, but without a jingle. Even better was if they had a slogan. I would then track them down and offer to write a custom jingle and see if they like it.
Your best bet is car dealerships, they still seem to like jingles the most. Second is trade companies like electricians etc.
I literally sold my first one, then went nuts and wrote a dozen more for various companies, and though they all liked what I did, I got strung along until they turned it down.
The problem is, who do you go through? The two obvious paths are:
1) the company directly. Figuring out who is in charge of marketing is a bit of a mine field – one manager might like your jingle but then the owner hates jingles… d’oh! Also, you’re very likely dealing with complete non-musicians, they’re possibly tight with money and tough to even discuss marketing with.2) local, small time advertising agencies. They often buy out the air time on radio in bulk, so it’s highly likely that you’ll have to deal with them at some point. They guard communication with the client fiercely (could make things difficult as a middle man), and might want a cut of your jingle writing fee.
After all that, how much can you charge for a local business’s custom jingle? While a nationally airing jingle for a large company could get you a five figure fee and potentially mega bucks in royalties, a local one is in the realm of $1500 – $3000.
My advice… stick to working with libraries : )
I did hundreds of radio jingles in Italy from the early 90’s until a few years ago but the market now is dead, radio stations just get some intro from songs and sing the jingle over it… Sad… I have no idea how it works in other countries, you probably should check if there is still a market for those. Then there are jingles for ads but they’re totally different, you probably have to go through libraries or ad agencies for bigger stuff, build a relationship, get some commissions…
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