Write What You Mean.

At some point you’ve probably read, heard, or seen many “marketing  experts” say something to the effect of “…these words are over used!  They don’t mean anything!  Everybody is saying this!  Stop using these words in your ads!”  To which I say:  All True.  Kind of.  But the intent, the meanings of these specific words have great value by themselves.  The trick is how to get that meaning across in a creative, exciting, MEMORABLE way.  You WANT to communicate that what you’re selling has depth, value, sustainability (QUALITY).  You WANT to communicate that what you’re selling is supported by honest to goodness, real life human interaction, help when needed (SERVICE).  You WANT to communicate that what you’re selling is available at a variety of prices, or in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors (SELECTION).  The trick is doing it in a fresh, ear-grabbing way, which is challenging. That’s why Jingles can be so useful…you can get that message across more easily with some snappy, creative lyrics and a great musical hook.  If everybody could write great commercial scripts, everybody would be doing it.  It takes years of reps.  Stay away from worn out catch phrases.  Instead….write what you mean.  Literally.      

You Just Need Three

Ahhh…so many companies.  So many products to sell.  So many advertising and media choices.  It’s enough to make one’s head explode!  So here’s a sure fire way to simplify the whole deal:  Let’s assume you want to create an effective 30 second TV, Radio or Web spot.  Maybe you want to produce all three.  A lot of clients will come to us with an absolute laundry list of “items” that they really want to include in the various scripts.  Oh boy.  Thing is, your average viewer/listener (including me) will not process and remember more than 3 important selling points during the course of a 30 second commercial. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many.  So when we have a client fill out our production prep sheet, we ask them to give us a maximum of three (3) important selling points to be included in their commercial.   This way, instead of ending up with a commercial that features a talking head endlessly rattling off prices and factoids (you’ve heard these ads), we can come up with something that pulls the listener/viewer in using a conversational approach, maybe some clever dialogue or a Jingle “Sing In”.  There are a whole lot of ways to make a commercial compelling…as long as we’re not bogged down with endless copy point lists. So remember: Use no more than three (3) selling points.  We call them The Big Three.         

Musicians: What to do about Covid

It came, it saw, and it’s kicking our ass in the general form of death, sickness, bickering, politics, and confusion.  The only truth for Musicians who work regularly, or for that matter, anyone involved in the music industry is this:  They are being financially crushed by this monster.  It’s blowing up dreams, careers, you name it.  So what are they to do about it?   

I’ve been working in this industry since I was 16 years old. Along the way, I’ve watched my 28-year-old son Charlie John and his 10,000 hours of gigging come to a screeching halt.  Aside from playing live, he’s a prolific Singer, Songwriter, and Producer.  I mean… Dude’s a triple threat.  Now? Nothing.  Zero income.  My advice to him and any others who have some means and the heart to push through this...

1.  Play whatever gigs you can get. They are far and few at this point, but if you’ve been doing it for a while in your community, there will be a few opportunities for you here and there that are pretty Covid Safe Options.  Remember…gigs will come back next year. Bars and especially Private Functions. Private Functions Gigs will be BIG for musicians who play live and are marketing aggressively.   

2.  If you haven’t already begun to write, do it now. If you are a songwriter/producer, keep doing it and send your stuff out to Music Libraries, Producers, basically anyone in the business who will give you feedback.  Listen to a lot of Commercial Music from Online and TV Ads.  Listen to Reality Shows and the music that’s in them. Listen to ALL TV for that matter, and listen to the music in the background.   And of course… do that with Films as well.  Writing and producing music for these platforms can be a great source of income if you work hard enough. Do a little research on this. It may be important to your survival as a musician.

 It’s not game over.  It’s all still playing out in front of us.  Hey… maybe submit a jingle or three to your favorite Jingle Company.  This JC would welcome that!

It’s not the Minutes. It’s the Decades.

So let’s just put it out there.  Value.  How do we place a value on something that’s created?  We’re talking about everything from voiceover, web design, original music for film, TV, the web, radio, script writing, creative, sound design, logo art…the list goes on.  It’s kind of random when you think about it, which sometimes makes it hard.  The amount of time required to create great art/creative varies WILDLY! I can tell you as a composer/producer I’ve come up with killer stuff in 20 minutes.  Then there are times I’ve labored for weeks, months, or years on a single piece to get that same result.  We all know MANY creative types have had similar experiences.  So never judge an artist by how long it takes them to create the art.  Some of my best stuff has basically taken about 20 minutes!  Take Paul McCartney.  He had just played “Live and Let Die” to the Director of that particular Bond film who was blown away.  When informed it had taken McCartney “just” 30 minutes to write and arrange it”, Director turns to ex-Beatle and said “Wait a minute, I just paid you a million dollars for 30 minutes of work?” Paul responded, “Let’s not talk about the 30 minutes. Let’s talk about the 40 years.” His 4 decades of experience. That’s what it’s all about. You can’t get 40 years of seasoned excellence from someone with 5 years of experience.  Ultimately you have to pay for it.  That’s the value of great creative work.  Like excellent Jingle Writing and Production. It started when I was 15.  

The Power of a Great Slogan.

Your business name along with an ear burning, memorable jingle may be the vehicle that gets the fish AROUND the boat, but a great, dominating slogan will get the fish IN the boat every time. . . even if they don’t know it’s happening. Think about it. No matter what you find online researching this topic, sometimes it’s just experience and aging that informs. You know, like a good scotch.  Nike’s brilliant 1988 slogan “Just Do It” was landscape shifting.  But for me, the all-time great slogan is McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It!” written by Pusha T and performed originally by Justin Timberlake.  It’s perfect.  It doesn’t ask you to do something, it doesn’t ask you to imagine something, it doesn’t ask you to feel something.  It’s just a simple statement that weaves the “You“ and The “We” with the “I”.  Amazing really. It’s just. . . “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m LOVIN’ it!”  When you put the power of that slogan with a Jingle Melody you can’t get out of your head, the competition is doomed. Just like they planned it.

So, the first thing to do when you’re planning on launching a branding campaign is some audience testing with the best slogans you can come up with.  And if you can’t think of one, you can always come to us! We Do Slogans.  

New Pandemic Pricing!

Look, we’ve always been flexible with pricing, but now we have. . . drumroll please. . . a brand new COVID-19 price list for all of our products! This includes Jingles, Music Branding, Podcast Imaging, Corporate Songs and Parodies, Male and Female Voice Overs, Radio Spots, TV spots. . . You know what we do. We’ve been doing all of this for 25 years. We made it through the great recession. And we’re going to make it through this. You will too. We understand what’s happening to small businesses. The choices are few and far between and it has come down to survival for all of us.  We’re gonna give you the same awesome marketing power for thousands of dollars less. Why? It’s a freaking worldwide pandemic people!  We can all help each other by providing great services that are affordable in these very weird times.  Check out our work.  Ask for referrals. Let’s talk! Let’s get through this together.

Tougher than You Think.

I think the most surprising thing we’ve come across during our 25 years of Jingle and Original Music Branding experience is finding out through trial and error, session after session, that great world class singers often times do not make great jingle singers.  Who knew, right? I mean you gotta figure someone with a four octave range and the ability to bring an arena, church, or even a bar to a standing ovation can go to studio and totally own the vocals on a commercial jingle or radio jingle. Of course on some commercial jingles, not many, if the music is written for THAT singer it usually works out great.  But if it’s something  that requires extreme control of pitch and tone in a very short window with no time to really establish style, feel or originality, it’s often a “No… No… You sound great!  Let’s take a break and… you know, let’s take a break for and live with it for a day or two.  I’ll text you if we need to re-cut anything. Thanks so much for doing this!  We’ll Venmo you.”

Not a pretty picture. Our singer doesn’t feel good. We don’t feel good.  If our dogs are in the studio, they don’t feel good. My stomach doesn’t feel good. I have a headache.  I mean… How could this happen?!!  I’ve heard this male/female singer many times… I just heard her singing around the studio.  She sounded great!  The thing is… To be a great Jingle Singer you have to have what we call in the biz “Vocal Notches”.  Literally.  Like physical pitch notches on your vocal chords.  Most of the time, a Jingle singer doesn’t have any extra time to build up to a hook and use their own little tricks to make it happen.  Their hair has to be on fire from the first note. No run ups. No caressing.  No nothing.  And if you haven’t done it before, that can be very demoralizing. That makes us sad in the moment.  I mean we LOVE great singers!  Great Vocals are what we’re all about. So what have we learned here?  Killer jingle singing requires great talent plus experience, with a little dash of even more experience. We’ve done both… We’ve had to execute live during 10 years of touring, we had to execute in the studio doing OUR songs that we wrote for US, and we had to learn to deal with the very different experience of executing jingle vocals.  It really is tougher than you think. Who knew?

What’s the Magic?

How do we create the magic between us and our clients?  What are the questions most asked by them? Okay, 2nd question first. Simple:  “How do we know we’ll like it?  Will you keep working on it until we’re happy?  What if we don’t like it?”  Well, once you’re familiar with the entire Jingle Creation Process (JCP),everything becomes simplified.  What is the Jingle Creation Process (JCP)? Now THAT is a great question.  Here are our 7 steps to completing the Creative Mills Jingle Creation Process successfully:

1.   YOU CONTACT US and indicate you’re interested in having us create a custom jingle for your business.

2.   WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU?  We discuss the kind of Jingle package that will drive your customers through your doors, on to your site, and into your world to use your product or service. (:30, :60. Sing In, Sing Out, Mini Jingle?).  Along the way we’ll lay out our very negotiable pricing structure.

3.   ONCE YOU DECIDE on the kind of Jingle Package you want, we send you the JCP Prep sheet along with our Music Agreement, which we’ll both fill out completely and sign.  

4.   YOU SCHEDULE A JCP CONFERENCE CALL with our Executive Producer, Client Services Director, and your company’s decision maker(s), at which time we discuss, in depth; the target demographic, musical style, lyric content, general tone and direction, and deadline.

5.   WE BEGIN COMPOSING and producing your Custom Jingle. Only when it’s complete and broadcast ready will we present it to you.  When it comes to musical and vocal production we set a very high bar, so you won’t be getting any “rough versions” during the process.

6.   YOU (the Decision Makers) LISTEN TO THE JINGLE.  We’ll address any concerns and make changes/revisions if required.

7.   ONCE WE HAVE A FINAL PRODUCT (a jingle that kills!), we’ll create the many different versions or “mixouts” of your Jingle that are included as part of your package. 

There it is.  7 Steps to a whole new Branding Tool for your Company. Literally 95% of our Jingle clients are thrilled after no more that 1 revision.  THAT is a direct result of the JCP sheet and Conference Call.   Sometimes it requires a few times re-working things.  Whatever it takes.  If you’re not happy, our business is not sustainable.  If you have more questions, reach out to us. . . we’d love to talk.

A Day in the Life.

So this is what it’s come down to. I am now going to write a blog about what I did today as a husband, father, dual dog owner, musician, composer, voice actor, and CEO/Executive producer of Creative Mills productions.  I could’ve spent this time with a therapist of my choice over Zoom, but I think this will be much more helpful to my overall sanity.

I woke up today, showered, got some coffee, and went out on the deck, where my wife (and business partner) was already In full Creative Mills operational mode.  I caught myself up on the normal morning stuff, then went down to the main studio to record and produce a high energy Voiceover for a recent jingle client. One of our sons, who happens to be in the biz, FaceTimed me to catch up, and we had a good, in-depth discussion about how totally screwed up the music business is. (bored yet?)  I requested some vocal tracks from him to help finish up his latest single.  At this point I made some egg whites and toast which I enjoyed on our deck with the dogs.

My wife and I spent majority of the rest of the day recording sparkling vocals for… Yes… A radio station jingle package.  Very workman/woman like stuff.  I had lunch and went out on the deck to enjoy the day for a bit… Then I’m back in the studio doing mixouts for a recent Jingle project while listening to a podcast.  Kind of go on auto pilot for these kinds of tasks.  45 minutes of cardiovascular, write a blog and shut down work for the day. It’s somewhat bizarre. This pandemic really hasn’t altered our day-to-day ops.  But we try to never take for granted how lucky we are to create music, commercials, and voiceovers for a living.  It’s a day in the life of Creative Mills.

Social Media. Meh.

2020.  Feels like we’re living in a different universe. Oh, and you gotta love social media.  All of it.  I mean, there’s a lot of great stuff and a whole load of bad stuff.  Everybody gets to come to the party and weigh in with their “opinion”.  Isn’t that great?  And there’s no need to be armed with things like facts, research, experience or even the truth.  Just come on out… be read, be heard and be seen.   You can read anything about anyone, anytime, anywhere and you never really know if there’s any truth to it.  So I thought “Hey, maybe WE can do that with our newest blog”.  So here goes:

UNBELIEVABLE second quarter for us here at Creative Mills.  Among many other projects, we’ve worked on a jingle, original music and spot development for Sony’s new toenail held i-Camera 20.0.  Sony flew us out to LA for production, and from there we traveled by catamaran to Alaska where we spent a week re-creating actual ice fishing ambience for the last :07 of the radio commercial.  Never realized how HARD is to cut an actual hole in 6 inch thick ice, but it was well worth it…got some great “nat sound” that really brought it all together.  We also sampled some penguins mating and used that in the their new Jingle which worked out great, except for the one female penguin who was super talented but a major “diva”, and wanted to do complete re-writes on everything. What a drag right?  On second thought…I think we’ll stick to writing about real stuff.  That actually happened.  Or just stuff we know about.  We ARE working on a big Jingle project for a dog food company with an east coast agency that we love.  And they pay on time.  Not as splashy as the made up stuff, but it’s the truth.  No lie.        

What is “Singability”?

In our producer/songwriter world, we hear people throw around the word “singability” all the time.  We talk about it ourselves and with clients pretty regularly.  But what the heck does that mean to someone who is not in the high-level music business?  “Sing ability… are you kidding? We just want you to sing our name and our poorly thought out slogan just as it is!”, is often the response.  Clients send us lyrics all the time that have far too many syllables for a great hook, and it’s a pretty bad situation when they do. When we explain to them that their lyrics aren’t “singable”, sometimes they get it, and sometimes it’s like talking to a brick wall.  Think about it this way - remember one of the most popular songs ever… “September” by Earth Wind and Fire.  Think about how the lyrics ended up as:  

“Do you remember, the 21st night of September. . .

Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders. . . ”

Obviously not brain surgery here. But imagine if they had a producer who insisted that the first line as:

“Do you remember, 

we were walking the dog on the 21st night of September...”

If you sing it out loud it’s a musical train wreck.  It would never work and it would never have been the global smash hit that it was. That said, clients do request those kinds of syllabically disjointed jingle lyrics. And when we go about rewriting them so we can have a killer hook for the jingle, corporate song, or any other kind of musical vehicle, they’ll often approve it at first and then later say no, they want to have the “walking the dog” part back in because the owner likes the “walking the dog” part.  But it’s not singable, we tell them. . . and from there we’ll go through the myriad of hoops, hopefully convincing them that we were right.  So yes.  The lyrics must be singable.  Please dear God, let them be singable.  

Jingles, Earworms, and Marketing Magic

Hey, instead of our usual blog. . . we thought we’d post this fantastic blog by Bob Dumouchel, Content Scientist from Torchlight Marketing, who handles all of our online marketing.  Enjoy!

Have you ever had a jingle stuck in your head? Well, you are not alone because it happens to everyone. Jingles have the amazing power to live in our heads for days and can come back with just a few notes of music. In the Advertising jingles have been performing their magic for decades. In Plumbing, the most famous and longest lived is the Roto-Rooter jingle. This was first used in 1954 and is still in use today. According to Roto-Rooter their jingle is the oldest continuously-used jingle in advertising history, and it turns 66 this year. Talk about a strong ROI!

The Goal

The goal of advertising is to create brand recognition and recall at the point of want. The goal of a jingle is to create an earworm that makes the brand unforgettable and connects it to the value the business delivers to the market. Businesses use many different tools to make this happen and jingles are one of the most powerful. The change from conventional to digital changed lots of things but not the power of jingles. Like all forms of advertising, jingles have strengths and weaknesses depending on the quality.  

What is a Jingle?     

This is a great question, and to explore this we called experts that have been creating jingles and earworms for over 30 years. These are our friends Bill and Miriam Millikin over at Creative Mills in Cincinnati. Bill and Miriam are true experts in music branding, specifically jingles, and we have worked with them since 2008, but their jingle history goes back to the early 1980s. Bill told me that the goal of an advertising jingle is to create an earworm that causes brand recognition and recall. I thought that was fun because I had just written those words before I called. Bill explained to me that jingles are a marriage of words and music. 

Can Great Jingles be produced consistently?  

The short answer is Yes, but only some people can do this, like song writers that can produce hit after hit by applying a methodology crafted over years. There are jingle writers that can do the same thing. The key to getting there is, you guessed it, experience. Jingles ultimately get to a set up and hook, aka earworm. Experience is what makes the navigation of that process possible. This does not exclude one-hit wonders but it’s what advertising requires. Reaching this level requires experience, talent, and experience. My repeat of the word experience is no mistake. I am just making a point. As Bill, Miriam, and I discussed this topic it became clear to me that experience is the big difference.  

The Power of Music

Explaining the power of music is well above my paygrade but recognizing its power is not. Music is an emotional experience and it modifies how we perceive visual and textual content. Building a brand is all about building recall at the point of want. If you can connect that to music the recall of the message will be more emotional and emotions are the key to sales. This is why it is much better to connect to the want than the need. Need does not a sale make. Sales happen when the need morphs into a want because want is what people act on.      

Reach and Frequency

While there is little doubt that jingles are an artform and they do work, the perfect jingle without good reach and frequency is a wasted investment. If you are unfamiliar with these terms the reach is the number of people you reach with your jingle and the frequency is how many times you touch them over a time period. For a jingle to do its magic you need to find the right balance to these two factors. If you have a budget for 10,000 touches are you better off with 2,000 people touched 5 times instead of 10,000 people touched once. The answer to this varies but in most cases frequency wins. The response rate will improve with multiple touches but it is a balancing act. As a starting point, we recommend going for a frequency of 3 touches per week with a tight local market target. It is better to dominate your locale than it is to reach a huge metro with no frequency.  

Additional Value

A jingle is a short story delivered with a hook blended together with music giving it tone and tempo. This can be a great assist when you develop content in other forms. The story, what Bill at Creative Mills calls ‘the setup’, is the path to the hook. The hook in our world is the headline.The creative process that results in a jingle can be reused many times over in website content, email, and many other forms. 

Is this right for Your Business 

This is the question we are trying to help you answer. Assuming your business is mature enough to get your investment out of the jingle, we find this to be a good thing to consider. If you are in the very early stages of building your business, all your budget needs to go to direct response instead. If you have reached the point where you are investing in brand building then a jingle can be a great investment. Just remember you need the reach and frequency to get the value from the creative work. 

Thank You Bob!

We’d like to thank Bob Dumouchel and Torchlight Marketing for publishing this article.  We appreciate you and all you’ve done for us over the years. Bob has worked with internet data and content since 1994 and as a programmer specializing in sales and marketing systems since 1978. Learn more and connect with Bob at his LinkedIn Profile.

Tags: jingles

When Did it Go From “Chops” to TikTok?

Okay seriously. . . and this might make me seem old, which I’m not. But what the hell happened? I’ve been a professional musician all my life.  I couldn’t make money if I was unable to play my instrument at a high-level and compose and produce at a high-level. I’m able to do those things because I practiced and worked and worked and practiced and worked and practiced some more.  I got good. People recognized the quality of my work. You know, due to the practice and all.  But what the hell?  It went from “Man you got a great chops!  Love that solo you played!” to. . . (Valley girl voice here please) “Oh my God!  That TikTok post was Cray Cray!!  I love the filters you used and that benign music you downloaded from the Cloud was super amazing!”

Seriously?  I know, I know.  Gotta roll with the changes. Great REO song btw, you should Google them. So. . . I’m rollin’ with the changes.  There’s actually some great music out there written and produced by the next generation. You just have to look for it.  You’re probably not gonna find it on Spotify with Discover Weekly or Release Radar. In 2020, because everybody can technically do everything, there’s a lot of weak shit out there.  I’m just saying. . . just cause you CAN do it. . . doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.  Okay, that’s it.  I got to go practice.

Viral Videos V. Hit Jingles: Which is Easier?

We were having a conversation with our chief marketing guru from Systems Marketing Solutions and and he brought up a good question. Nobody knows how to create viral videos on demand, right? In the same way does anybody really know how to create a hit song or hit Jingle?  He had the view that they were somewhat similar in that if you consider a viral video and a hit song a purple cow, you can’t just keep producing that same purple cow and hope that it’s a hit, Viral or otherwise.  But I contend that over the years, assuming one has the raw musical talent and ear, you can learn through trial and error how to build a hit song or jingle until it gets to that sweet earworm spot looks like a prodigious fiction writer like say, James Patterson, figure it out over the years how to layout The plot of a book in such a manner that it builds and hooks you in a way that makes the book very satisfying.  When I wrote my first song at the age of 15, while I was very excited about it, it took me about two weeks to realize it totally sucked. But then as I got into the professional music business through live performance and studio performance and writing, I realized there’s a trick to the trade. Like anything else it relies on mimicking other writers who are successful, learning their basic structure, what kind of Melodies are emotional and stick with listener, and finally how to produce it so it sounds like million dollar hit single.  

Don’t get me wrong… Once you have the chops,  Great songs, Great musical pieces can just…happen in about 20 minutes. And that is a real yet rare thing. Well videos that go viral on social media always seem to just happen. That’s the sheer beauty of them.  I think there are people out there that try to quantify a viral video  and backwards engineer them to try to have success, but my knowledge there haven’t been any really successful books on how to create a viral video... although there is this really interesting article written by Karen X. Cheng that gives you tremendous advice about how you get it out there once you have your video.   But picking the right subject matter? Producing just the right  video? Nobody seems to know.

OK that’s a lot of words. And a very interesting debate.

Stop Listening on Your Freaking Phone Speaker!

You cannot imagine the number of major artists and their producers, sound engineers etc curl up in a ball and cry for their mommies each time they remember that their audience ... their FANS sometimes listen to their songs on their smart phone’s built-in speaker.  We’ve had dozens and dozens of conversations about this subject with a ton of different producers, artists and writers.  I mean no one’s faulting the music consumers… really.  But it’s just tough, you know?  Whether we’re working on a new single for an artist a new EP, or even a new jingle, it’s somewhat disheartening to spend all those hours on tracks getting jussst the right melodies, lyrics, drum sounds (that’s right, some of us don’t just rely on loops), guitar parts, killer vocals and more....then realizing our target listeners may be listening to the music through the speaker of an iPhone.  (seriously that hurt just to write that). We’re mostly concerned with clients that are listening to their jingles for the first time. Often clients will listen to one of our jingles for the first time through iPad speakers. As we all know, even those suck. 

OK. That’s it. I’m done venting.  Please TRY To listen to music on decent headphones or on decent stereo speakers. Everybody stay safe out there. Creative Mills out.

Our Jingles are Original. Wait. . . What??

So we’ve been working on this Jingles Music Branding thing for maybe 27 years or so.  In our contract with our clients, we clearly state “to compose and produce a completely original  :30 Full sing jingle for client X”.  It’s become kind of our thing. Almost every other major Jingle company recycles their jingles to different businesses in different markets.  And after five years they usually make the client re-up a payment for using the jingle for another five years. UGH.  For one thing, the companies that do that end up with very weak branding Jingles.  Why? Because they are shoehorning lyrics into a jingle that was originally produced for a different client Who probably had a completely different lyrics sung.  In fact, years ago, we thought “heck, maybe we should give it a shot… I mean all the jingle companies are doing it right? Well, we did give it a shot… and the outcomes were not good. It’s not surprising that original jingles sound better when they’re organically composed, working with NEW lyrics to be sung over music that was written for those lyrics.

But I digress. I guess the point here is recently we had produced an original jingle for a new client and their initial response was “We want to confirm that this music has not been used previously and is completely original.”  Either they were so blown away with our work that they couldn’t believe we were capable of producing such high quality music, or someone had spoke to them about these other jingle companies who recycle their music. It kind of shocked us actually. And it reminded us of these other companies… One that comes to mind… say it sounds like “Schmee em Mentury”. And they’re still doing it to this day. And the jingles generally are not very good.  And while that’s sad… It makes US feel very, very, good.

Don’t Distance Your Business From Advertising.

As we spend more and more of time watching TV and on the web, we see companies trying to reach out, reposition themselves, showing that they’re “Here for You“.  

I’m not judging these companies at all… I think there’s a time and a place for all these messages during these pandemic days. That’s the way we’re thinking about our marketing… And that’s the way you should think about yourmarketing. You don’t have to keep your profit margins at the same pre-pandemic level.  Think about cutting some of your rates...I mean, unfortunately, many of you have lower overhead.  These days a lot of you are having to work under your own roof, perhaps not paying rent for a shop or a store front.  This is the time for thinking out of the box as people say. A time to work harder and more creatively. It may be time to start thinking about changing your business model altogether. As local TV news ratings go up with people checking in on their own local situation, purchasing air time is getting cheaper and cheaper. So think about a top shelf jingle, top shelf voiceover, TV spot, or radio spot… At considerably lower rates. That’s what we’re doing. Because… “ We’re here for you.“

We’re Here to Help you Through.

If you’re an essential business or a business that’s still able to have “Open Doors”, you may have advertising, marketing or branding needs.  Well, we’re open, working, and here for you.

Yep, many businesses that are open during this horrible time in human history still need regular advertising whether it be TV, radio, podcasts, or the web. When this all started we were very wary about how much we would be needed. . . But now we know.  Turns out new and old clients are coming to us for voiceovers, radio spots, and music branding needs.  In fact, we just finished up some work for UNICEF, CNN, and others.

For example, The HVAC business is alive and well and we’re starting to get some requests for jingles and radio spots to help them get their message out.  In their case a lot of them are offering specials, and because they’re an essential business, they have to stay competitive, so we work with them to highlight their affordability in a creative way.

The bottom line. . . This is a new day in world history and everybody has to be smart, safe and flexible, and when we wake up every day that’s exactly what we strive to be. We’re here for you.

The C Virus is here, but you still gotta have GREAT Slogan.

The people who work in the marketing and production business should be thanking their lucky stars.  Radio, TV, Social Media, the Internet and yes, Spotify are still rolling right along providing fantastic platforms for advertising.  That said, you still need to have a killer, catchy, memorable Slogan. (Cybergraff.com)

Slogan: “A standard promotional statement used by an advertiser to influence audiences and establish a brand identity. A brief catchword or phrase, a slogan summarizes in a unique and memorable manner the essence of the creative message underlying a marketing and advertising strategy.”(source: Adage.com”)  

 Here’s something we know to be true:  Your business MUST have a really good slogan.  If you’re marketing your business and you don’t have one, get one.  You know…like… “Nationwide is on your side”, “Subway.  Eat Fresh”,  “FedEx.  When there is no tomorrow”…just to name a few.  We hear ‘em all.  Some are good, some are bad.  We are often asked to write slogans for our clients….and to be perfectly honest, THAT can be a daunting job.

Brainstorming to come up with a new slogan is somewhat of a numbers game.  That is…if you think it, write it down. (or type it into whatever device you’re on) Basically throw everything against the wall and see what kind of sticks.  It’s like creative writing.  Knock down all the walls and let it flow baby!  98% of what you come up with might be garbage, but that other 2%?   Pure gold. The great thing is you’ll generally know it when you say it. (a general rule of thumb is if you can’t remember it after five minutes…well…it probably isn’t very good.)  Sometimes you end up combining two or three slogans into one.  Whatever it takes.

Lastly, use your slogan everywhere.  Social media, online, radio, TV, and print.  Pound it into the mainstream unconsciousness. Be relentless with it.  So have a slogan.  Have a Slogan that Rocks.    

There’s No Escaping the Worm!

Ever heard of Earworms?  We have.  And we love ‘em!  What are they?  Simply put, they are “pesky songs or melodies that get stuck in your head and just won't get out.” According to a Talk Of The Nation report on NPR, researchers are now trying to find cures for them. Cures for them?  NOOOOO!  Say it ain’t so!  I’m talking to YOU researchers!  We do not want you to research possible cures for Earworms.  They are the THING what make Jingles effective. You hear a catchy jingle a couple of times and BAM!  You can’t get it out of your head.  This has happened to a lot to people we know:  You step out of your car after work, go into your home, jump in the shower…and suddenly a lyrical melody gets into your head and stays there. Businesses across the word have weaponized super catchy jingles to connect to their prospective clients, effectively branding themselves to their client base, and you can too.  Of course, not all jingles will result in Earworms.  They have to be Catchy, Memorable, and well constructed.  Fortunately, that’s what we do here at Creative Mills.  Prediction:  No cure will be found for Earworms.  Ever.  (sigh)  Thank You!