Clients get the jingles they deserve

It’s true. No matter how expert the production company you enlist, the product is only as good as your brief and your attitude.

Free Radio

No surprise then that David Lloyd and his team at Free Radio have recently taken delivery of this remarkable package from the UK’s Wise Buddah.

There are some features of this work that demonstrate a great confidence in Free we haven’t seen before. The station’s rather forgettable launch strapline (I have genuinely forgotten it) is now replaced by “We are Free” which reinforces the station name and rather brilliantly takes ownership of a precious and fundamental human right: freedom. Others have laid down their lives for it. All you have to do is turn on the radio.

Secondly, there’s a range of playful vocal devices in the music that single out Free Radio as being fun without being cheesy. The variety of spoken voice drops and the occasional longform sung line also suggest a freedom from formula.

The jingle package positions this station as being unshackled from the mundane and predictable. That’s a strong idea on which to build a brand, and a great place from which to entertain listeners.

VRT Radio 2, Belgium

Here is a heritage station that was in need of an aural facelift. With a mature audience and a huge share of the Flemish speaking market you’d forgive the station for only inching its way to modernity, but its new package from Reelworld picks up on many really contemporary musical cues.

As Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars have demonstrated, big brass is back in vogue and Reelworld has used horn sections in its orchestrations for several of the cuts.

The overall arrangement is open with fresh female vocals and the mastering engineer has just lightly simmered the final mixes so there’s a high quality sense of air and space in the production.

Two great examples of radio stations that know where they’re heading and know how to get the best work from the jingle companies they commission.