Notes
The Earworm Effect
In this second post I will discuss ‘catchiness’ and the ‘Earworm Effect’ (1). The concept is simple. An advertiser manipulates a popular song to work not only as a soundtrack to their advert, but as a diegetic force. With new lyrics the popular song becomes the song of the product.
Thus the popular song subconsciously becomes the property of the product rather than simply a means of enhancing the mood of an advert. This works providing the song is so apt for telling the particular story or its adaptation so cleverly handled as to fit the product wholly. In successful cases it will seem to the audient impossible that the song could be extricated from the product or advertising narrative. Furthermore, the song’s popularity and its catchiness work in the advertisers favour. The song becomes easily lodged in the viewer’s mind as an ‘Earworm,’ and so too does the product itself.
The kind of music use in advertising I am here considering is that such as Babybel’s use of ‘Barbara Ann’. This song, already recorded and re-recorded and made famous by The Beach Boys was manipulated by the advertising agency so cleverly that a generation of television watches mightn’t even know that the song’s lyrics are anything other than ‘ba, ba, ba, ba babybel.’ One only needs to log-onto the Babybel website to see how the song has, effectively, become the property of babybel, or search “babybel song” on any search engine to see how a whole generation view Barbara Ann as little more than a cheese jingle.
Or we might reflect on Perfetti Van Melle’s manipulation of Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy.’ Only a year after the band’s sensational (and perhaps with hindsight, unbelievable) success with ‘I’m too Sexy,’ ‘Fruitella, Too Juicy’ appeared.
In each of the above examples a song that easily gets lodged in the mind (or, in the case of ‘I’m Too Sexy’ is still ringing in the ears, fresh with chart success) is directly associated, by lyrical manipulation, with a product. While there is no subliminal messaging at work here, i.e. “I listen to Right Said Fred’s style of music ergo I must buy Fruitella,” the music becomes forever associated with the product, and each time the music is recalled, so too is the product. In addition, the cleverer, or more comic the advertising agency is in their manipulation of the song, the more tongue in cheek the mis-usage of it is, the better. The audient begins to side with the advertiser, almost against the musician, and mock the original song in favour of the spoof.
(1) James Kellaris (University of Cincinnati) is credited with popularising the term “Earworm”. http://magazine.uc.edu/issues/0408/doctor-earworm.html
