Free Rock and Roll Jingle or Viral Marketing?
Sunday August 10, 2008
Intuit has come out with the Jingle Generator, which according to the company's press release is supposed to help "small businesses create customized jingles that they can take and share with customers, or download to use on their Web site, voicemail or mobile ringtone, limited only by their imagination." Intuit partnered with Tommy Silk to host the program and "create" the jingles.
The idea is that you select your business category. You can then call in and provide some information about your business, which is then used in the jingle, or click the Text-to-Voice option where you can type in the name of your business and provide its address, phone number and Website address. Once your information is entered, you click Preview Jingle. At that point, your custom jingle is created for you and when ready, runs for you to hear.
It doesn't take long to figure out that each jingle uses the same tune. The lyrics vary only depending on what you've selected as the category for your home business. If you click the Jingle Lyrics link at the bottom right of the page, you'll also see the lyrics used for any category you select and where the information you've provided is placed in a voice over. So the tune is the same for everyone and the lyrics are the same for everyone in the same category as your home business. The only thing that changes is the name of your business and its phone number. Wow, how ingenious.
So, can you really create a useful jingle using this method for free? No, but you might think it's fun, and that seems to be what it was intended for in the first place. Why'd they do it? For Internet viral marketing and linkbait purposes, obviously. It seems to serve those purposes well, after all, I've just blogged about it and linked to it, didn't I?
Definition of Viral Marketing
What is Linkbait?
The idea is that you select your business category. You can then call in and provide some information about your business, which is then used in the jingle, or click the Text-to-Voice option where you can type in the name of your business and provide its address, phone number and Website address. Once your information is entered, you click Preview Jingle. At that point, your custom jingle is created for you and when ready, runs for you to hear.
It doesn't take long to figure out that each jingle uses the same tune. The lyrics vary only depending on what you've selected as the category for your home business. If you click the Jingle Lyrics link at the bottom right of the page, you'll also see the lyrics used for any category you select and where the information you've provided is placed in a voice over. So the tune is the same for everyone and the lyrics are the same for everyone in the same category as your home business. The only thing that changes is the name of your business and its phone number. Wow, how ingenious.
So, can you really create a useful jingle using this method for free? No, but you might think it's fun, and that seems to be what it was intended for in the first place. Why'd they do it? For Internet viral marketing and linkbait purposes, obviously. It seems to serve those purposes well, after all, I've just blogged about it and linked to it, didn't I?
Definition of Viral Marketing
What is Linkbait?
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