Oscar Mayer Bologna Has Same First Name, But New Jingle

A catchy jingle is one of the most enduring aspects of a brand, whether it’s Coke teaching the world to sing or Alka-Seltzer setting to music the sounds of its antacid in action. Oscar Mayer can boast two songs that have likely been lodged in your head for years: the opening lines are “My bologna has a first name” and “I’d love to be [or 'wish I were'] an Oscar Mayer wiener.”

But those jingles won’t be part of the $50 million branding blitz that widens the focus from bologna and hot dogs to the broader Oscar Mayer product line. As proof that this won’t be your father’s meat-products campaign, the new song representing the brand was penned by Joy Williams, who wrote a song for “American Idol” contestants that contains the ho-hum tagline, “It doesn’t get better than this.”

The New York Times describes the tune as “a pop song one might hear on a light-FM station, wedged between Natasha Bedingfield and Ingrid Michaelson,” with lyrics that are as vague and quasi-inspirational as a horoscope. This fits a campaign that follows a very safe path – the Times notes that “the commercials and tag line could almost as easily be selling cameras or light bulbs” – and focuses on families rendered happier thanks to processed meats and prepared lunches.

At least the Wienermobile will still be rolling throughout America, spreading the tube-sausage gospel, though it would be cool if Oscar Mayer could hire Peter Stormare to “un-pimp” it, like he used to do for Volkswagen.

As for those old jingles, which the brand’s ad agency claims “hearken back to yesteryear” (and not in a good way), you’ll have to hit sites like YouTube if you want to be an Oscar Mayer wiener or give your bologna a first name.

That’s if those jingles ever left your brain in the first place.