Thirty seconds, asked for in the brief
A jingle is a short song made to sell something, and the short part is not automatic. Describe a business and a mood and the engine writes a whole song, verses and all, because that is what a description usually wants. The number of seconds is what tells it otherwise.
The prompt that made it
“A 30-second radio jingle for Marigold Coffee, a neighbourhood coffee shop. Cheerful and bright, female vocal, ukulele, handclaps and a whistle hook. Sing the name Marigold Coffee at least three times and end on the spoken tagline: Marigold Coffee. Your morning, brighter.”
Made by us for a café that does not exist. The brief asked for 30 seconds; the song is 26. A two-line set-up, a chorus that is nothing but the name and a benefit, the name sung four times, and the tagline spoken at the end as a button. A 15-second version of the same idea came back at 15.
Read the brief again and count what is doing the work: a length, a kind of business, a mood with two instruments, an instruction about the name, and a tagline in full. Each one closes a decision the engine would otherwise make for you, and the length closes the biggest one.
Two settings look as if they should do this and do not. The Length setting on Pro and Ultra lives in Custom mode and starts at one minute, so it is for longer pieces. And Custom mode itself sings your words exactly but gives a short lyric room to breathe: across the site, eight lines or fewer come back at about a minute. For a spot under a minute, keep the words in the description, in quotes, and the length beside them.
What a jingle brief has that a song brief does not
Five slots, in the order they matter. A song brief can skip any of them; a jingle brief that skips one is a song brief.
| Slot | Write it like this |
|---|---|
| The length | “A 30-second radio jingle”, “a 15-second version for social” |
| The name, and how often | “Sing the name Marigold Coffee at least three times” |
| One benefit | “Make the whole day bright” — one promise, not the list from your website |
| The tagline | Written out in full, with “spoken” or “sung” in front: “end on the spoken tagline: Your morning, brighter” |
| The sound | A mood and two instruments: “cheerful, ukulele and handclaps, a whistled hook” |
Repetition is the point of the form. A jingle is remembered because the name comes back, so ask for the repetition in so many words rather than hoping for it.
How long, for where it will play
Radio still sells the 60-second spot more than any other, and stations also sell 30, 15 and 10-second units, so ask for the slot you have booked rather than a round number you like.
| Where it plays | Ask for |
|---|---|
| A radio spot with a voice-over | The length of the slot, with “leave room for a voice-over in the middle” or an instrumental bed |
| A short radio or streaming unit | 30, 15 or 10 seconds, the name in the first five |
| Social video and pre-roll | 15 seconds, the name sung in the first three |
| A podcast or channel sting | 5 to 10 seconds, instrumental or one sung line |
| Hold music or a shop loop | Instrumental, a minute or more — this is where the Length setting on Pro helps |
Make the longest version first and ask for the shorter cuts as separate generations with the same brief and a new length. A cut made in an editor ends wherever you cut it; a version the engine writes at that length is built to finish there.
Words that have to be exact
A tagline, a phone number, an address: the engine sings what it is given, so give it the words as they should be heard. Numbers go in as words — “five five five, two one hundred” — because digits can be read more than one way. A street name that could be mispronounced gets a spelling-out in brackets.
If one line comes back wrong in a take you otherwise like, you do not have to start again. On Pro and Ultra, Fix a section in the song's Remix menu redoes the seconds you pick, with new words if you give it them, and blends them back in; the rest of the jingle is untouched. It costs two credits.
Putting it on air
Listening and sharing a link are free on every plan. A jingle that plays in an ad, on a station or in a shop is commercial use, which Pro and Ultra license for every song in the library, with a certificate and a licence code you can hand to the station or the agency — including songs you made before you upgraded. The same plans include the MP3 and lossless WAV; on the free plan the MP3 is $1.99 per song.
What a licence does not do is make the jingle yours alone. The recording is licensed to you, not assigned, and a tagline is only protected if you register it. If the jingle is meant to carry the brand for years, that registration is a question for a lawyer, and it is easier to answer for a tagline you wrote yourself.
Before you press Create
- A length in seconds, in the description
- The business name, with “sing it at least three times”
- One benefit, not a list
- The tagline written out, with “spoken” or “sung” in front
- A mood and two instruments
- Numbers and addresses written as words
Sources
Written and fact-checked by the Tunely team · Updated