Marketers Should Protect Sonic Branding “Fiercely” Because “The Jingle’s Coming Back”

Sonic branding experts believe the jingle is set for a comeback, and wish marketers defended the way their brands sound “just as fiercely” as the way they look.

“What would be amazing is if marketers protected their sonic consistency just as fiercely as they protected the logo and the colour palette,” Laura-Leigh Smith, the executive producer at sound business Studio Tonic, said.

“When you get briefed on an audio brief and they're reinventing what's happened in the previous campaign, it always just is so mind-boggling to me. Distinctiveness in the brand sound comes from repetition, not from reinvention. And these incredible brands like McDonald's, Menulog, Bunnings-- they're treating this audio like their brand DNA, they're not treating it like a garnish on the campaign.”

Laura-Leigh appears alongside Aaron Matthews, founder and creative director at Original Audio, on the second episode of Heard Mentality, the new podcast series created by Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA) and Little Black Book.

The pair explained audio is emotionally powerful, which means it builds brands. “It's that emotion and that connection,” Aaron said, “and it does more way more than the visual logo and the Pantone colour and the font.

“We go around humming this stuff in our heads. ‘Insurance solved, with Budget Direct.’ All of these sonic brands that live in our mind. That's the power of this stuff.”

Laura-Leigh agreed. “A hundred percent, emotion is the core and key ingredient, because you can have a really clever production value, you can have a catchy hook -- and don't get me wrong, those things are really important -- but if what you're hearing doesn't make you feel something, it's just not gonna stick.

“And there are many ways in which you can, and brands can, bring emotion into their sonic branding through techniques like humour, nostalgia, warmth, tension.”

TikTok trends have breathed new life into classic jingles like Maybelline’s and Bunnings. The latter brand invited Australian electronic band Peking Duk to remix its jingle and host a rave inside a store last year. Aaron noted when a brand gives up a little control, “and doesn't take that stuff too seriously and isn't that strict on it, that's where it can explode.”

He also cited Amaysim as an example of a brand playing with sound in an interesting way, not with a sting, but “spoken brand names over a melody. It feels like almost a new version of how to do a jingle.”

More recently, Uber Eats partnered with Shania Twain to debut a new song, ‘Can’t Do That If You’re Driving’, alongside an Aussie comedian. Aaron believes the jingle is on the precipice of a local resurgence.

“I feel like the kind of sonic logos that are maybe just the melody and the notes are maybe moving aside for sung jingles again. I feel like the jingle might be coming back for 2026. The jingle is not dead.”

Laura-Leigh recently moved back to Australia after six years in London, and said rehearing iconic jingles from the likes of Pizza Hut, National Tiles, and Flight Centre (she was the voice of the latter) feels “so nostalgic and they just come rushing back to you, like muscle memory.”

“Once you hear something, you can't unhear that. Audio is the fastest recall trigger for someone, much more than any visual cue,” she said. “And it's also surrounding you and your airspace all day, every day. You're not necessarily looking at something, you're driving in the car, you're cooking, you're doom-scrolling ... but you're always listening.

“Another example I love, which uses the perfect marriage of humour and tension in building emotion in someone, and the reason why I say it builds emotion, because every time I hear it, I just crack up laughing, is 'Supercheap Auto, much, much more'. It's just so hilarious. It's literally screaming at you to buy motor products, and you just think, 'Wow, that's short, sharp, snappy, effective, and it works'.

“And the very other end of the spectrum is something like the brilliance of the Qantas campaign, 'I Still Call Australia Home'. You feel so emotional, you feel heartwarmed when you hear that ... It's all of those nostalgic feelings.”

A decade ago, Chemist Warehouse bought the rights to the classic Madness track, ‘Our House’, and rewrote the lyrics. Kimberley Flanagan, creative director at Strat Agency, also appeared on the Heard Mentality episode to explain how the jingle shaped the business’ latest brand campaign, which also features sounds like a whistle, the rattle of a can of bug spray, and the whoosh of a ball.

“We were told very strictly that the music is not a reinvention, it is an evolution,” she said.

“That track has lived and breathed over the last 10 years … we definitely wanted to keep the flavour and the familiarity that the jingle brings to the minds of consumers, but we wanted to make it a bit more modern and give it a fresher energy so that we could take it into the years to come.

“The other thing we also wanted to do was create audio assets that would live beyond this campaign. So by putting the whistle front and centre and refreshing the music in a more modern way, we've built something that feels current, but also gives the brand sonic longevity.”

Chemist Warehouse has invested in building its sonic identity over the course of a decade, boldly defying the temptation to ditch a strategy before it has a chance to resonate with consumers. Aaron said of marketers, “We get bored of stuff quite quickly and then move on to the next thing ... Very few brands do that very well.

“Just as everyone else is getting used to it and the general public are getting used to it, the marketers are doing the next thing. There is definitely a disconnect.”

If brands instead view sound as an overarching strategy and system, and ditch a campaign-to-campaign mindset, they can stretch their sonic identity across everything from “a short, sharp TikTok ad all the way up to a Super Bowl commercial,” Laura-Leigh said. “And that is how marketers can intrinsically pepper their sonic identity throughout culture.”

That strategy should shapeshift from channel to channel. For example, on a YouTube ad, “you should be putting your sonic branding at the start, before the skip,” Aaron advised. “No point putting it at the end. Put it at the start, so at least before anyone skips the ad, you could land a sonic identity for your brand.”

He wondered whether an underinvestment in audio is indicative agencies still find the medium “a bit unsexy.”

“You've done the really nice TV ad, you've done the cinema ad, you've done all the social media edits ... I always feel like audio is the afterthought. It's like, 'Oh yeah, we need to get a track for that.’

“If you did that stuff with intention throughout the entire process, the results would be amazing.”

Laura-Leigh observed, “Perhaps one reason why it does get left a little to the wayside and comes only as an afterthought is because audio is invisible. It's really hard to sell it into a client on a moodboard or on a storyboard.”

Yet its power is there to be harnessed for all brands, big or small. Audio is “such an incredible solution for everyone,” Laura-Leigh said.

“I once did a jingle, I sang for the Mingara RSL Club on the Central Coast, and oh my god, was it awesome. It's a little effective radio ad in that local town and it works.”

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Heard Mentality is a new podcast series, brought to you by CRA and LBB. You can listen to the episode with Aaron, Laura-Leigh, and Kimberley right here.

If you're a brand looking to connect with Australians, there's no better place than Aussie radio and audio. It reaches more than 15 million people every week and truly is where brands are heard. Head to cra.au to get started.

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