I Don't Wanna Grow Up, I'm A...Powerful Brand Asset.
Jingles deserve a comeback.
For anyone new here, I’m the founder of Woo Punch, a brand consultancy rooted in evidence-based brand design. I write about the evidence that debunks brand purpose, differentiation, brand love, loyalty marketing, customer personas, color psychology, mission statements, customer engagement, AdTech, and “hustle culture.”
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Growing up in the back seat of my mom’s minivan, running errands with my three siblings, a catchy song would often play on the radio. We all knew the lyrics by heart. But this song wasn’t by Elton John, Boys II Men, or Whitney Houston—the pop stars my mom loved in the '90s. It was written in 1982 by Linda Kaplan Thaler, with help from bestselling crime novelist James Patterson of all people.
The song was about a toy store: "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a ___________."
You’ve probably heard the Toys R' Us jingle most of your life. That’s why you remember it so well, right?
Wrong.
The jingle hasn’t aired since 1996, yet if you heard the tune today—or just the words “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R' Us kid”—you’d instantly recognize it.
You probably won’t hear it again on your TV or radio. In 2017, Toys R' Us finally “grew up” and filed for bankruptcy.
Plenty of experts have theories on what went wrong, each filtering the collapse through the lens of their own expertise:
"They didn't adapt to the influencer age!" says the social media guru.
"Their CEO was unqualified!" says the HR consultant.
"They filed for bankruptcy too soon!" says the financial analyst.
"Their values didn’t align with Millennials!" says the brand purpose grifter.
“They didn’t stick to their brand archetype!” says the designer-turned-brand-strategist, who needs to stay in their lane until they get proper marketing training.
I won’t pretend that abandoning the jingle is the reason Toys R’ Us died. Online retailers were likely the main culprit. The brand also still had a recognizable logo, mascot, and name—valuable enough that creditors used them as collateral to buy nearly $1 billion of the company’s debt.*
But dropping the jingle was a mistake. A symptom of a bigger problem that may have helped speed up the collapse.
*Fun fact: Other intellectual property included almost every possible domain name that ends in "R' us," including sexrus, cigars-r-us, and f*cktoysrus (.com, .net, and .org!). See them all in the appendix of this Bankruptcy Court auction filing.
The jingle worked—and it stuck. That’s why you still know it, even though Toys R’ Us hasn’t aired it in nearly 20 years.
Jingles have a unique power. They don’t require your full attention to work. You hear them, and over time, you associate them with the brand. Exposure leads to familiarity, familiarity builds trust. And without trust, a brand is fighting an uphill battle for sales.
You’ve probably heard of "distinctive brand assets"—logos, colors, jingles, mascots—a term coined by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. But according to Distinctive Bat’s research, jingles aren’t just an effective distinctive brand asset; they’re the most effective when it comes to "fame" and "uniqueness."
And jingles don’t just stand out, they transcend platforms. Radio is still one of the most powerful advertising channels. Not podcasting, AM/FM radio. Nielsen estimates 91% of adults listen to the radio weekly. And then there's podcasting, which opens up even more opportunities to reach an engaged, captive audience with distinctive audio. Jingles thrive in these mediums, where visuals can’t help you.
And yet, some of the most iconic jingles are lying dormant in the marketing graveyard. Alka-Seltzer, KitKat, Meow Mix, Huggies…essentially dead. A few have been “resurrected,” but only after years of neglect: Folger’s, Ricola, Chili’s, Band-Aid, and Bud Light’s ”Real Men of Genius.” Even when they do reappear, it’s usually a half-hearted effort or a viral remix, rarely integrated into meaningful campaigns.
Instead, we’re bombarded with forgettable ads like generic Alka-Seltzer spots or watered-down KitKat commercials.
The good news is that some brands are getting it right. State Farm evolved its jingle into a sonic logo—stripped down, yet still unmistakably tied to the brand. McDonald’s turned Justin Timberlake’s dated "I’m Lovin’ It" anthem into something timeless, quietly hummed by Succession star Brian Cox.
And then there are the local legends—furniture stores, injury lawyers, and carpet cleaners—who’ve kept their cheesy jingles from the ‘80s alive, unbothered by the myth that customers will be turned off.
Jingles aren’t relics. They’re underutilized weapons. Brands willing to embrace them have an edge.
Toys R' Us didn’t die because they dropped their jingle. But abandoning one of the few things people still remember about them? That didn’t help.
Jingles stick in your head. They make brands unforgettable—sometimes for decades after they’ve stopped airing.
Brands didn’t drop jingles because they stopped working. They dropped them because they were afraid of sounding “uncool,” and jingles didn’t fit with trendy marketing fads like “brand purpose.”
Marketers started believing they couldn’t be themselves. The myth now is that customers tune out ads that look like, well, ads. So brands hide their identity, and agencies chase Cannes awards instead.
We need to stop insulting customers’ intelligence. They know they’re being sold to, no matter how hard brands try to disguise it. If anything, jingles, mascots, and other attention-grabbing brand assets turn them off far less than hyper-emotionalized “brand storytelling.”
Brands need to embrace what works. Jingles work.