Once we returned with our hearing and sanity intact, this is what we found: residents to share their impressions of 67 advertising melodies … then had to go on a weeklong silence retreat. To explore the staying power of jingles today, we got 735 U.S. The Atlantic went so far as to declare jingles dead in 2016 - but that pronouncement just might have been premature. And changing media habits have made ads easier to avoid. Others don’t make such a strong impression. Some, once burned into our consciousness, will never leave us. Of course, not all jingles are created equal.
At their peak, these artfully produced ditties shaped the minds and spending habits of generations of Americans. Intervening decades brought a rise and fall in the production and popularity of jingles.
According to the Smithsonian, the first jingle broadcast on the radio debuted on Christmas Day 1926 to praise the virtues of Wheaties cereal. Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that advertising jingles have been part of American culture for a very long time - nearly 100 years.
