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Reversing the Trend. Even better, some songwriters claim that the use of their tunes in commercials helps to sell the original song as well as the sponsor's product. For NBC's Ford Show singing commercials, the J. Walter Thompson ad agency consults experts for early spotting of songs that promise to be hits, so the commercials can "ride" them on the way up. Before his latest venture began, Composer Loesser contracted to give White Owl Cigars the title song of his Most Happy Fella for a filmed commercial, with the six principals of the Broadway show's cast. The result sold not only White Owls but tickets to the show.
The bulk of singing commercials are manufactured complete by specialists. The biggest ad agencies turn out their own, e.g., Young & Rubicam keeps a full-time staff of a dozen jinglesmiths. Smaller agencies get their stuff from such jingle firms as Manhattan's Scott-Textor Productions, which has sung the praises of virtually everything from the U.S. Air Force ("They took the blue from the skies/And a pretty girl's eyes") to toilet paper ("Don't you wish you/Had new Scott Tish-yew?"). For a network singing commercial, including musical arrangements, casting and production supervision, Scott-Textor gets $2,000, turns out numbers that would sound plausible in a Hollywood musical.
When a jinglemaker tires of his art—as millions of his listeners often do—he can still dream of other rewards. Some commercial tunes, e.g., Chiquita Banana, have sung their own glories so well that their composers have been able to reverse the trend and get them published as regular songs. Jingles can even make a star. Vocalist Peggy King was an unknown in the jingle jungle when Mitch Miller signed her for Columbia Records. What impressed him was her rendition of a spot for Hunt's Tomato Sauce.