Jingles, slogans, brands, and logos are repeated often to be remembered.

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j1. Simple repetition is a very common tactic in all persuasion.
j2. Ads are designed to be remembered and replayed.
j3. Brand names are important confidence-builders.

Intensifying by repetition is an easy, simple, and effective way to persuade. People are comfortable with the known, the familiar.

Constant repetition is used to imprint on the memory of receivers to identify, recognize, and respond. People often complain about the annoying intrusion of ads, often repeated, as being "clutter" or as a saturation blitz.

Slogans and jingles will have a wide variety of message content, but, an important function of any frequently repeated slogan is simply name recognition: to make the brand memorable, known, and remembered.

Ads have a limited "life" (six months or so) but, often, a long after-life. For example, we'll remember some slogans for years after the ad actually stops running on TV.

Constant changes, however, are made within ad campaigns (especially with standard products) so that new ideas, new approaches, new attention-getters, will help to keep the brand "fresh." Think how many different slogans you can remember for Coca Cola ("The Pause that Refreshes," "It's the Real Thing," "Always Coca Cola") and McDonalds from their original ("You Deserve a Break Today" giving permission for busy mothers to take their kids out) to their more "edgy" 2003-05 ad campaign using the tagline " I'm lovin' it."

Closely related, both slogans and jingles are uses of language which is designed to be easily remembered and repeated.

The origin of the term slogan is "a war cry or rallying cry" (and is often used in political and patriotic context), but it is commonly used to describe "a brief attention-getting phrase used in advertising or promotion."

The term jingle is usually defined as a phrase that "rhymes or sounds in a catchy manner," which emphasizes its musicality, as being associated with a song or a tune. Most people have "favorite" songs associated with their own good times (significant others, friends, big events, happy days).

Aldous Huxley (in Brave New World Revisited) wrote: "For the commercial propagandist, as for his colleagues in the fields of politics and religion, music possesses yet another advantage. Nonsense which it would be shameful for a reasonable being to write, speak or hear spoken can be sung or listened to by that same rational being with pleasure and even with a kind of intellectual conviction."

For many years (1960s-1980s), most pop music groups refused to "sell out" to commercialism, until Yoko Ono (widow of John Lennon) allowed the Beatles' "Revolution" to be used in an ad. Since then, the flood gates are open and both advertisers and musicians eagerly work together. Musicians not only get a big, upfront "Permissions" payment, but also get increased exposure in the pop culture scene.

Advertisers primarily use best-selling songs (with a large audience already having favorable associations with the songs). But, Peter Beckman of adcritic.com says that sometimes a little-known new song "helps to create a cutting-edge impression about their product that makes it look smart, sharp and way ahead of the curve."

In its review of ads of the 20th century, Advertising Age selected the century's most effective advertising slogans and jingles, as well as the most famous icons (created characters, such as the Marlboro Man and Ronald McDonald). In 2008, one of the most effective (or annoying?) jingles was the Subway $5 Foot-Long. For more: How Ad Slogans work.

Poetry? For centuries, in the distant past, poets, musicians, and artists were often paid by the wealthy of church and state, thus producing a large body of religious and patriotic literature supporting and praising their patrons. So many poetic "figures of speech" (such as alliteration, rhyme, word pairs) are used today that perhaps ads can be seen as the "poetry of the corporation" and advertising copywriters can be seen as modern poets, paid to work in support of their wealthy patrons.

Ads are designed to be remembered. When kids claim that they "know all about an ad," they are partially right. Most kids are very good at remembering the surface of an ad: not only the brand name (including slogans, jingles, symbols, packaging), but also the little details about the characters, actions, dialogue, backgrounds, catch phrases, sound bites, and visual images.

Ads are designed to be replayed. Most kids are able to echo the exact words (often imitating voice tone, gestures), to sing the jingles, to hum the music, to re-enact the scene and situation of ads directed at them. Such replays of any fragment associated with an ad is enough to trigger a memory of the whole ad. Advertisers love to get people to incorporate ad phrases into their jokes and regular conversation: an "echo effect."

Advertisers love "to put words into our mouth" with slogans, jingles, and catchphrases. "Whasup?" "I Love You, Man," "Make Mine Miller," "Miller Time," "I'll have a Bud."-- are all phrases crafted by ad writers for young men, novices, to use in a bar. Even when such parroting is used humorously to mock or mimic, it still shows that the message has been noticed and received by an audience.

Describing one ad agency (DDB) which calls this tactic "Talk Value," Mark Scheffler (in Chicago Tribune, 7/27/03) writes: "Are frat boys parroting the commercial's catchphrase? Has it become a punch line in a stand-up's monologue?" Budweiser tries to be hip, cool, and macho -- with a lot of "guy humor." With an agency staff of 100 on the Budweiser account alone, DDB creates 20 new ads a year targeted primarily at an audience of males in the twenties. The DDB Creative Chief says: "Young guys like girls, rock music and beer. It's always the same; it's just how you wrap the present."

Brand names and trademarks are probably the oldest ways of building confidence in a product. In the pre-industrial age, good craftsmen put their own marking on their silverware and pottery to identify their work. Thus, trademarks -- and later, brand names -- became associated with quality products and reputable established companies.

Any recognizable design, logo, symbol, distinctive packaging shapes, and even colors can also be associated with a product (by long use and constant repetition) so that people recognize it quickly.

Corporations and advertisers spend a good deal of time and money to build and protect their reputation. "Brand loyalty" is the goal of every seller: that buyers would know, trust, and prefer their brands.

In business, a well known and trusted name is very valuable. To protect this reputation, companies are concerned not only with their internal operations (quality control, guarantees, customer relations), but also with external factors. Famous brands are often imitated, pirated, and counterfeited by others. Alas, there are even disadvantages in gaining the confidence of the public.

Most brand names and franchises use some reliability slogans ("You can be sure if it's Westinghouse." "You're in good hands with Allstate." "The best surprise is no surprise at all."-- Holiday Inn) emphasizing confidence.