English, baby!

Jingles

Date: Feb 08 2010

Themes: Music

Grammar: Adjectives

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Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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Some commercials use famous athletes or actors to get your attention. Or they show images of beautiful, happy people to convince you that you can be beautiful and happy, too…as long as you drink Coke! And some advertisers try to hook you the old-fashioned way, with a catchy jingle.

Commercial jingles are short little songs that get stuck in your head and make you remember a product or business. Often they involve a catchy phrase like McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it.” Jingles were big in the 1950s, but these days, they aren’t as popular as they once were. But Mason still has a soft spot in his heart for the jingle. Listen to him and Marni discuss some of their favorites.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Mason

Marni

Mason: I’ve been thinking for a while that I miss the jingle.

Marni: The commercial jingle, I know. It was such a staple of like…of advertising. And now, where is it?

Mason: Yeah. I mean being as I work in advertising, I kind of had this goal for like a year to try to bring the jingle back into a higher kind of status arena.

Marni: Sure.

Mason: You know, it’s usually just like local businesses. They’re kinda carrying on the jingle.

Marni: Yeah, there’s some really catchy ones out there still, but you’re right, they’re few and far between. It seems like today, so many commercials just utilize popular music. I’ll be doing something and I’ll be like, “I know that song.” And here it is in a UPS commercial or…

Mason: It’s just that mnemonic device sort of thing, right? Like I worked for a company in town that had a really well-known jingle, and every time I would tell people where I worked, they would sing the jingle to me.

Marni: Ah.

Mason: “Izzy’s is pizza and a whole lot more!” I mean they’re all coming back to me now! It’s a flood, a flood of catchy jingles!

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

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Mason works in advertising and loves a good jingle. Once he starts thinking about his favorite jingles, he can’t get them out of his head. He once worked for a business that had a catchy jingle, and people would sometimes sing it to him when he told them where he worked.

Marni and Mason agree that jingles are less popular now than they used to be. Maybe that’s because many advertisers just use songs that are already popular in their commercials. Some people consider jingles a little cheesy or old-fashioned. But when a jingle gets stuck in your head, you never forget the product it’s advertising, even though you might wish you could!

Do you have a favorite jingle? Do you find it annoying when jingles get stuck in your head?

Comments

ScienceBoy

Turkey

There is a jingle stuck in my head. It’s Turkish Airlines’ jingle.It goes like this..” We are Turkish Airlines, we are globally yours”. It’s a catchy one. After flying with Turkish Airlines, I kept repeating this jingle. It was fun at first but annoying afrer a while.

ttsuka

Japan

I don’t have much to say about the jingle. So, instead, I want to comment on today’s dialogue. I like it a lot because it contains many useful words/phrases, goes naturally (not theatrical), and gives me a reasonable challenge for listening comprehension. I particularly like the part where Jason recalls about his old work and the jingle that connected him and the people in the community. I find it humorous, vivid and also useful – I mean I can well imagine situations where I would want to talk about what happened to me in the past in a similar manner. So, I memorized that section and repeated aloud to myself as a practice.

fab_blithe21

Philippines

Definetly, jingles are fun. Here in the Philippines its still existing especially in schools during foundation day. When I was a student, jingles were very popular especilly when we had cheering competitions. Each department was very creative in composing jingles. I've missed it..

Marcelolic

Brazil

Oh yeah,I guess here in Brazil we don't have that habit to enjoy a jingle…However in the past we have have some cool jingle about some brazilian products…It was cool in that time :)

afufu

China

There isn't jingle stucked in my head,but I think some jingles are really good.

sima z

Egypt

i love jingles, it brings me back to my childhood because i used to hear it when i was a kid.

i like when jingles get stuck in my head.i like singing it all the time.i like a jingle about Coca.

John Saldanha

Brazil

Jingles are really useful… but when they get stuck in my head…!!

i hate it!!

Pusander

Ukraine

Which one is correct? <!~~- User got it wrong, but show them that this was the correct answer. -~~>I have a handsome husbnad.

oh really? who's husbnad?

rose moon

Malta

jingle is good to remind people of the products especially if it is new especially when they use such entertaining and atractive show.

medine_az

Azerbaijan

yea, i have one favorite jingle ,it is about BEKO =) i like it,and i think that jingles must be utilize ,it is for commerce and will be going on… oooooo BEKOOOO ))))))

fedorame

China

Jingles are the way to go for commercials and they're tried and true, even though sometimes they really weird me out. When you're watching your fav programmes, they pop up again and again, and at times they're even repeated for dozens of times, can you believe it , it really annoys me!