Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star, 2nd Edition

A New Term for Spoken Taglines

A jingle is generally defined as a catchy tune that elicits instant recall of a product and, in many cases, its core or most distinctive benefit. I have created an additional term: tingles. The dictionary describes tingle as a pinched nerve, and perhaps that's just the right thought. To me, a tingle is a tagline that also serves as a jingle and is sometimes sung and other times spoken with great emphasis in a way that makes it memorable.

The John Houseman campaign for Smith Barney in the mid-1980s is one example. This campaign consisted of 10 television commercials. There was no other media used, so that Houseman's signoff was delivered in only one way. The line was: “Smith Barney. They make money the old-fashioned ...