From the American Bankers Association, this is the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. Welcome back. Today's episode is presented by Agri Access. I'm Evan Sparks, and I'm delighted to be with you to bring you a few digital earworms, some things that we hope will will stick with you and that you'll never be able to get out of your head. And that's some Classic and newer bank jingles.
So we all know about the role of jingles in marketing the insurance industry, it's pretty good at, at these, you know, like a good neighbor state farm is there, you know, there's a lot in the insurance industry and there are several, several in the bank industry and they're not entirely retro.
If you take a look at an article that my colleague, Craig Colgan wrote in the September, October issue of the banking journal, there are actually a lot of banks that are continuing to use not just their classic jingles, but also kinds of different forms of sonic branding. And there's, it's not quite history, not quite as much a historical topic as you might initially think. So here to talk about that today, I am delighted to have Craig.
Craig is a senior editor at the ABA Banking Journal and my colleague, Craig, welcome.
Great to be here.
I also have Clark hook. Clark is partner and executive creative director at FMS solutions, a marketing firm based in Franklin. Clark, good to have you.
Good to be here.
And we also have, we also have Debbie Arnold. Debbie is senior vice president for marketing at people's bank in Southwest Arkansas. So Debbie I, I know your bank has a jingle that you are still y'all are y'all still use, and we're glad to, glad to have you on to discuss that and other topics. So thank you.
Thank you for the invite. Glad to be here.
All right. So I'm going to just start with Craig, if you want to kind of pick us, kick us off with a little discussion on, you know, What, what's the, you know, the, are these, are these these kinds of you know, these musical riffs that use this musical branding that people do, what, what's the kind of this, the evolution of this and where did it go and, and where, where is it now?
What are, what's your kind of high level summary of, of the state of play with with jingles in the financial services marketing?
Okay. What I would say is that the idea behind this piece is just to sort of evaluate not just where jingles are, but where all of Banks use of music is right now. Is it still part of the bank marketer's toolbox? We know perhaps long ago, there weren't many tools marketer's toolbox, certainly a jingle and a big blue sign and a few other things. And a few contests.
And now decades later, what we have is a whole new challenge with not just digital marketing and digital content, but the data that we can learn from all that. And that really is the overwhelming focus for a lot of bank marketers and a lot of leaders in the bank marketing industry. So we wanted to look at music.
Because for some reason, and we can talk about this today, some banks are sticking with a particular kind of music, which is the sort of formerly stayed jingle which is hard to define, but I think can be defined as That short, bright, happy song that used to be on the radio or used to be on TV. And now for some banks is still in, can still be heard in those media and now can be heard in social media.
So we wanted to take a look at that, and we found some banks, as we can talk about, have stuck with jingles and have updated jingles. And we also included in the piece some skepticism from some experts around about the idea of focusing on this single tactic as a value proposition for bank marketers, given perhaps limited resources and given the imperative of. To embrace and be driven by strategy, be driven by data we can learn now from the digital marketing universe. That alone is a big.
Focus and can show us so much and teach us so much why we would we even bother with this single stayed thing from another era. So that kind of those two sides of this were sort of what the piece was formed around. But we found that a lot of people who do both support both and love both.
And it's it's either or sometimes but it's not either or all the time So we talked a lot about how banks use music how banks use pop music how banks have sort of evolved their use of music and It's a fun piece And so looking forward to talking about it.
Great. Well, why don't we, I'd love to talk, talk to go, go right to Debbie and give, because I know people's bank has a jingle and I'm going to play it now. And hopefully you, y'all tell me if you can hear it. Okay. So but we're going to play it now and Then we can chat a little bit more about People's Bank and the vision for how they use it.
My bank is People's Bank. Make it your bank too. It's People's Bank. Make it your bank too.
All right. Well, that was that's a very peppy upbeat.
That absolutely rocks.
Come on.
Admit it. It's amazing. It's U2. It's just like,
it's just, it's got, it's got that, you know, I'm just like shaking my shoulders here, listening to that. So Debbie, can you talk a little bit about why people's bank developed that and how you're, how you're deploying that today at the bank?
Sure. First of all, let me, let me describe my market to you. So maybe you can understand my point of view a little bit better. We're a community bank. Our market is solely one County Columbia County in Arkansas. We have four locations, three of them in the town of Magnolia. One of them in another town about 13 miles up the road called Waldo. So This is coming from a different perspective than either a regional or super, super regional bank might be coming from.
And we still have presence on a couple of local radio stations. Now the largest employer in Columbia County is Southern Arkansas University, which is a D2 school if you follow sports, a D2 level school. And so we use a lot of our commercials surrounded around sports broadcasts for both high school sports and college sports. We get a good part of our business from referrals. Therefore, the little jingle that y'all so Adore, haha, is my bank is people's bank, make it your bank too.
So we're asking people to be proud that they bank with us and ask their friends to come bank with us. And so we use our commercials like I said, around sports broadcasts mostly. We do have some others that run during the day. But it was written several years ago and I found out after we talked for the article. That actually the lady who's now our CEO wrote it. So that was a little tidbit. I didn't know until later.
Multi talented bank CEO.
I hope she, I hope your CEO is getting some, some residuals from this.
Well, actually she's the owner. So I guess you could say, yeah, we're, we're, we're a family owned subchapter S bank, so There you go. But like, you know, like I said, you have to kind of know your market, know what works. And for us, it, it works.
And I think the other piece of this, and I'm curious, Clark, what your thought is on this, you know, is persistence with it. You know, whether if I think about any kind of branding, right? It needs to be omnipresent in a way that you're not necessarily consciously absorbing it, but you are picking up the brand message from when you, whenever you see that, see that a representation of that brand. And so that's where I think of, you know, a jingle.
I don't have to, I just hear it on the radio, hear it on a TV ad, hear it on a social media, or I hear it in a pre roll ad on a YouTube video or something like that. And then I'm just, it's just subtly working its way in to the next time I think about whether I need a mattress, you know, I'm gonna, you know, call the company that has stuck their jingle into my, got it into my consciousness, right?
Clark, what, what is your thought on kind of how, on the, the need for persistence in using this form of marketing?
Well, we, we talk a lot to all of our clients about how profoundly and important it is to be consistent. And what we know from research that's been around for a number of years is that an enormous percentage of advertising is either not remembered at all or not attributed appropriately. We have plenty of data to support that notion. What I think, where I think jingles get sold short is that attribution is half the success of advertising.
And if they remember it's you, And something good has happened there. If they don't, you've just spent money on nothing. I think jingles do an amazing work of attribution. I think that is half of their value is. Take your pick of any jingle. The MGM lion, you can hear that from a mile away. You don't have to see the screen, and you know who and what that is. I think jingles do this kind of work.
That, huh, I listened to the People's Bank thing because you sent it, and I listened to it in advance of the podcast and I was walking down the hall to come to my office and I was paying attention to nothing and I was going like, I'm singing. I've heard it two times in the last 30 minutes and I'm already singing it. That's just my experience in one little bit. Imagine the repetition over years in a community that hears it regularly.
It's whether you love or hate jingles, you cannot deny the power of that mnemonic device to put attribution to the things you're putting into the world. And I think that is a remarkably unused thing for lots of banks and kudos to Debbie and their team for using it because it clearly works. What has been interesting and we do, we do, most of our clients are some version of community to, to regional banks. We do focus groups all over the country. And what Debbie says is right.
When we do focus groups, we do, we talk to customers and non customers of every bank we work with in multiple markets. If they have a jingle and it may have been around 20 years ago, I can guarantee you that in every single focus group, no exception, someone is going to mention the jingle. There you go. It is, it is, and sometimes you hear the jingle and go, Ah, are you sure you like that? Are you sure that's something you remember? But they do.
It is, it is unbelievable how powerful that device is to help people remember something about you. And so, yeah, that, like I said, I was singing along to Debbie's Jingle on the way into my office to do this recording, so something, something good happened there.
Well, speaking of kind of bringing something back, I'm going to play something for you guys now. This is from gate city bank out in North Dakota, and it's this vintage ad that they, when they did their hundredth anniversary, they kind of unearthed this ad with their jingle from the seventies. And I'm just curious to get your your take on it after we, after I play it here.
Across the state of North Dakota, you're saving
for a better way of life. What our viewers can't see is the amazing colorful graphics that are, like, it looks like, you know, an old Maurice Binder film at times.
All right, so I think, I think that works in Nashville. What do you think, Clark? I mean, yes. That is like a
time machine that I feel like I'm in my, my parents station wagon, sitting in the back and listening to AM or FM radio on the way to my grandparents house. Like that is, that is a time machine. I keep thinking about the the recording session of that. Cause they had layered voices. They had multiple voices, which means they're all sitting in front of a mic, someone directing them and they're singing about gate city savings. Like but that, that does a beautiful work of, of.
Like, you know when they ran that, the people in their community who grew up with that, like, it made their hearts swell. They were like, oh, I remember that, that's a, like, it, it, I think with, with jingles like that, rarely do you have, particularly in retrospect, rarely do you have anything other than warm fuzzies for it. Do you know what I mean?
Because it, even if it's antiquated, even if it's quirky or cheesy, it takes you to a place in life that, that meant something to you or that, like, that reminds me of my grandfather taking me to open my first bank account. Like it issues that sort of emotion and emotion is money and marketing. So I just love what that is and how that's portrayed.
Yeah. I want to take a quick moment here and thank our sponsor for this episode. AgriAccess is a secondary market financing participant that delivers capital solutions to a nationwide network of lenders, enhancing their agricultural portfolios with tailored and transformative solutions. By providing higher lending capacity and long term fixed rate lending products, AgriAccess helps reduce risk for lending partners while they maintain the direct relationship with their ag borrowers.
Learn more at agriaccess. com. That's A G R I hyphen access dot com. And thanks again to them for sponsoring this episode. Now, and so we're thinking fast forwarding to kind of, to the present, you know, I know one of the concepts that, gets used today as less of like you know, a, a musical jingle or a song and more of just this kind of sonic identity, the sonic branding.
And Craig talks about this in the piece and, you know, and you can see this in some of kind of the the insurance jingles that as they've evolved, right. It's like, you know, the state farm, like a good neighbor, they don't sing it anymore. They just say like a good neighbor state farm is there, but then they do this kind of do, do, do, do, do, you know, they do the musical notation in the background and you know, instantly what it is.
I was thinking about this in relation to PNC bank, which, which is obviously based here in the based here in the greater Washington area, based in Pittsburgh, but like throughout the West, throughout the East coast and the Eastern United States. And this I'll play this thing and then we can talk about it for a minute here. What you can't see, see what the viewer can't see is that On YouTube, this has tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments.
This like little 30 second clip of the PNC Bank jingle is you know, been adapted, been watched, you know, tens of thousands of times. There's a trap remix of it. There's a crunk remix of it is people have, people are just going crazy with this little visual audio signature that basically played under ads in the 2000s and 2010s. I don't think they're using it anymore. But it's it's something that has this, that instant that the, kind of the, again, it's not, it's just a whistle, right?
There's a little some, some digital music and a little whistling and nothing that That says, with words, how great PNC Bank is, but the moment you hear it, you say, hey, PNC Bank. So what curious what your thoughts are on kind of the evolution of jingles into this kind of sonic branding.
I envision like a kid sitting in the back seat of the family sedan trying to learn to whistle as that's playing is, is, is what I'm, I'm gathering nostalgia, you know, and you know, we're in some troubled times, and I think people are hungry for nostalgia. I think it's kind of like comfort food for the ears.
Now we don't, we don't do audio signatures. We don't do sonic branding for all of our clients. Sometimes to your point with a community bank that feels excessive when it comes to budget and things like that. And I understand that logic, but one of the things we do tell people all the time is Sonic devices are powerful tools. And in my mind, a sonic device of some sort, or at least a consideration of that is, is almost requisite to being part of your brand identity. And we view it in that way.
I view, I don't view it as a, here's your brand identity. Oh, here's your audio signature. I view when you're crafting a brand identity. What we will try to do is craft a brand identity for which sound is a portion of that. Sometimes that may take place in terms of a, a piece of music that underscores all of their work and then ends in something that wraps around a logo evolution or, or, or, or logo super and, and sort of feels like a mnemonic device, like an audio signature.
For others, we do true audio signatures, but. I think I think sound in general is a powerfully important tool if brands will use it right. Just look at like I always think of farmers that we are farmers, bumping up on that thing. Take that or Nationwide is on your side and then you have Peyton Manning singing Chicken Parm You Taste So Good and we all know what it is. That is to me, that's the power of music and so many brands do that so well.
And I, I think it's a missed opportunity a lot of times for banks because in the, in the grander scheme of things, you might spend a little money to get something that's really quality. But the payoff on that quality, I think is undeniable, particularly based on what we talked about earlier, where what you got to get is someone's attention and you need them to attribute that message to you. I think sound and music can go a long way in doing that work.
Well, I want to, I want to ask was a one, one question I have is kind of how important is it to have, to have, does it have, you know, we heard the PNC bank. That's the example. That's just the sonic branding. No words. How much do you need to have words to make it successful? I'm going to play something that we hear a lot on the radio here in the DC metro area and probably increasingly throughout the country.
And this might, this might Annoy a few of our some of our listeners from the banking community, but I'll play this. So that's the tag to the PenFed jingle, which is you know, Pentagon federal credit union headquartered here in DC, but they are growing around the country. One of the largest credit unions in the country. And so I hear that a lot and I, and it's just, it gets stuck in your head, right?
You know, Do you need to, do you need to have the word, how important is it to have some words that people will remember versus a tonal sense that you take away from it to associate with the brand?
My gut reaction to that is that Some of that is going to depend on your market. Like to Debbie's point, she, she serves a fairly small footprint, a very particular community set. I think the nice thing about what they have done there is it, it feels like a community bank and it feels like a community bank that knows it's community and I don't know why is that. Maybe it's production value. Maybe it's the lyrics to the thing. I don't, who knows what that is, but it plays well in their community.
I think if you take that. The words out of that for them, that's probably a mistake. I think if you have. larger markets that require more extensive branding and a whole lot of different audiences than, than the, than the audio signature, some, some device like that. A sound signature probably does more work more quickly and more value over time, if that makes sense. And I, that's not, there's no magic to that.
I don't know that that's accurate, but that's my, that's the sense I get based on the work we do is the other thing that's funny is, is, you know, Jingles, I think, get this bad rap as being dated, and there is some logic to that, because the ones we've looked at so far, they all have this, what I would say, is a sort of nostalgic tone to them that I think we all sort of feel but I don't think that means that all jingles moving forward have to have that.
I don't think they all have to be that way, and we see some, some degree of success in some others. I think the worst offenders of that are, are the pharmaceutical commercials where they either take A song that they'd license, do a new performance of it that's garbage and they put it with their, or they'll take it and they'll make a new song that is semi jingle, semi not.
Those feel like train wrecks to me and they always, I always go because in my mind, what you want is a reaction of your customer or potential customer to be I feel something good about this, whatever that is. And I think if you don't, then you've got to look at whether or not that should be in play.
Well, speaking of the intersection of banking and pop music, Craig, I know you talked about it a little in your piece. I wrote about this many years ago in the ABA Banking Journal, when we did an article about societal trends in marriage and how that affects banking. But the song "we've only just begun" the great hit of the, one of the great hits of the carpenters from the seventies had its beginnings as a bank commercial.
Craig, do you want to talk a little bit about that and how, and then we can we can play it that for our listeners. Right.
So this was a And you can see the video on YouTube, it was a commercial from a bank that doesn't exist by that name anymore, in California, and it was a wedding, and then there was this song underneath it, written, co written by Paul Williams, who was a big songwriter of that era.
who also did some acting and I think he sings it unfortunately, and if we, if we play both, it's easily to prefer Karen Carpenter, but the legend is Richard Carpenter Saw this ad on TV and his ear was for finding stuff out there that he could rearrange and make his own, make a carpenter song. He did that a number of times. So this was a very successful, extremely successful example, maybe the best example, maybe the most well known bank jingle of all time. Yeah.
Yeah. We'll listen to it right now. How
about that bass track? Wow.
I can't believe I didn't know that was a bank commercial. That is awesome.
Isn't that great?
Amazingly. So I have, this is the one, this is one of the two things that the Crocker Bank was most famous for. It's, it was decades ago, it was absorbed into Wells Fargo but based in San Francisco, they did this commercial and this commercial was a phenomenal hit. I mean, as a commercial, and that's one of the reasons, like, I think Richard Carpenter liked this song. It was like, it was a great song. Right. That's great.
And they, the bank started getting all these people coming into the bank to open accounts and get loans and they were like, Oh, we actually, it was actually more successful than we wanted it to be in our markets. The other fun fact about the Crocker Bank, and perhaps this is a reason why it's not a bank anymore, is that it was is that the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, worked at the Crocker Bank.
In kind of middle management early on in his career and much of the much of the early Dilbert you know, bureaucracy that he's skewering in this cartoon is based on his experiences that the bank and that it ended at another big company that he worked for in San Francisco. So I love, so, you know, Crocker Bank has, you know, two, two claims to, you know, To fame, one positive and one less, so the
it's a great story.
Yeah, it's like, it's just, it's interesting to see kind of the, some of the connections that we have in like in banking and music and how we're you know, how we, and how people, you know, like you were saying, Clark, you associate these, this have this positive brand association because of a music of music that you you know, you heard ones.
And I think if you, you know, If you remember, we remember things when we sing them versus, you know, if we just, if you want to remember something, make a, make a song out of it. Right. You know, I grew up, I grew up in the South and we did a lot of Bible memory with singing. Right. And it's like I remember a lot more of those than I do of the, the ones that I just, you know, Memorized as spoken word, so
yeah, I'm probably older than you guys, but "conjunction junction. What's your function?"
Yeah, schoolhouse rock. Absolutely. So, all right. Well, this was, this was, we're, we're kind of at our time here. I'm going to play one final song. And then I'm just, cause I, cause one thing I was, as I was exploring some going down some YouTube rabbit trails, I learned that. The bank jingle is not just a, an American phenomenon. It is it is actually, there are actually quite a lot of Indian bank jingles and African bank jingles.
And so I got one from Nigeria here that is pretty good and it's got kind of a lion king vibe to it. So I'll put this one on and then we'll wrap up our conversation here. We are a co op, cause we are a unity band. Yeah. Wow. Tremendous. That is impressive. So yeah, it's like That's our Broadway level. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I know, it's like, that's, that singer has, that jingle's got some pipes on there, so Wow. All right.
So what's still going to be in your head at the end of the, at the end of the day here?
Well, you know my answer.
Honestly, it might be Debbie's in my head too. Although that last one, the, the one from Nigeria, that's going to be in my head too. That's going to stick.
Well, I, I, when Clark said he found, caught himself singing the Debbie's Banks jingle, I did that as well when I was writing this a couple of months back. Walking down the street and I remember thinking I remember I caught myself but I remember thinking this is big. This is It's a killer tune. It's I want that on the record. I think that's a killer tune. All right Well, let me
take it. Well, i'm gonna just just thank thank Thank Clark and Debbie for being on the show today and Craig as well. We really appreciated talking through some of these, some of these yeah, unique marketing examples with you. And thanks for helping us take a walk down memory lane and see what's, you know, kind of new and interesting in the world of of sonic marketing. So thank you both.
Thank you. This was fun.
And so thanks so much for listening. Thanks again to AgriAccess for sponsoring this episode. This is our last episode before Thanksgiving. It's coming out a little earlier in the week for you. So, to all our listeners, I want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving with your friends and family or however you celebrate. I'm thankful to you for listening.
So I'm going to play the People's Bank jingle to take us out and we will we'll go out with a, send, send all our listeners out with a little earworm today.
My bank is People's Bank. Make it your bank too.