Five. Five Dollar. Five Dollar Foot Long.

Why don’t we hear more jingles in today’s advertising world? There are a variety of reasons, but the biggest reason, I think, is fear of failure. Writing a good jingle is tough and if you fail, you fail spectacularly. A bland commercial fades off into the white noise of everything else; a bad jingle will rarely escape attention.

So it’s been nice to hear two companies use jingles to effectively market their products. A few months ago we had the launch of “Freeeeeeee credit. Report, dot, com.”, and more recently “Five. Five dollar. Five dollar foot long."

Call me odd, but I’ve been humming the recent Subway jingle for the past week occasionally joining in duets with my wife (so we’re both odd.) I know I’m not alone. I heard a guy in the store humming it and a few days back our designer was singing it and doing the hand motions. Clearly this is grabbing at people.

One of my favorite ad reviewers Seth Stevenson covers this jingle in a recent Ad Report Card. He caught up with the geniuses behind the ad who explain:

"We didn't want any blabbing," say Jerry Cronin and Jamie Mambro of MMB. "It was just, let's see how many times we can say 'five dollar foot-long.' Let's mention it as many times as possible without making someone hurt us. We wanted to make sure no one would miss the message."

That’s the key behind why it should effectively drive sales -- repetition and getting consumers to understand the message. But what’s the reason that I can’t get the song out of my head to the point where I’m walking in time to the beat? Stevenson makes his own guess before talking to the composer of the tune.

“I think the song's genius (I myself have been known to hum along) lies in its blending of stubborn repetition with a haunting and imploring chord progression. It's a far cry from the pat, upbeat vibe of your standard jingle, and it's this unexpected quality that perks up our ears and sticks in our minds. I called the composer, Jimmy Harned (of the boutique music outfit Tonefarmer), to see whether he might confirm my notion that there's something ominous going on in his work.

"The chord structure does imply something dark," he agreed, getting out his guitar to demonstrate over the phone. "On the word long, it goes down from a C to an A-flat," he said, strumming, "which is kind of a weird place. It's definitely not a poppy, happy place. It's more of a metaly place. But at the same time, the singing stays almost saccharine."

Stevenson gives the ad a B, but I give it an A and hope it inspires more companies to be gutsy and go with a jingle. In our office Subway purchases have doubled in the last two weeks while our minds are mesmerized by this five dollar foot long chant. That'll be a happy sub chain if that trend holds elsewhere.