my dad wrote a jingle for a local restaraunt, it is a pretty big company with a lot of restaraunts around the tri state area. the general manager loved the song and is taking it to the marketing department in headquarters.. just wondering what we should charge.. dont want to charge too much but at the same time we dont want to get shorted.. suggestions?

chuck

So is it a "local" restaurant or a corporation?

Big difference it what you can charge.

It could go anywhere from $30k to $0. Pretty big margin.

its a corporation.. Eat 'n Park - Order Smiley In Your Favorite Colors listen to what they got on their main page lol.. i doubt it could go as high as 30 k but i wouldnt mind

on average i charge about 3k for a jingle package, included in that is

full jingle
30" edit
30 top and or tail
30 instrumental
then the same for 15" length.

i let them take it national too.

depending on the client i some times charge more or less after we guage how much they want to spend

I agree with Daniel. For local jingles, I've charged between $2500-$5000. Charge more if you need to pay musicians and sigers, less if you can do it all yourself.

-Ben B

Given that your father wrote the piece in the first instance for no money I'm guessing he's friends with the manager? My advice would be let him play it to marketing and don't worry about money for now. If they decide to use, I doubt they'd even try to offer you less than 2k. Just make sure that they would have to re-negotiate if they wanted to use it for anything bigger. If things look like they're getting big (national ads etc) I'd get a specialist lawyer to represent you - nicer for the company to deal with plus any good lawyer will more than cover his/her fee.

I've done a ton of jingles. Anywhere from a low of $2000 to maybe $3500 is what you should expect for a local/regional type package. There have been times when it would go as high as $5000 to $8000 but that was the exception rather than the rule. Don't do it too low please - like $750 - because that ruins it for everyone. I HATE when new guys start doing that. I never did when I was starting out. We must keep it at a level that we can afford to stay in business but don't be unrealistic and think that this type of client is going to pay $10,000 for a jingle either.

Things have changed since I had my eye on the money paid for spots, but in 1981/82 small market custom spots sold for $500.00 each.
In 1995/00 a guy I worked with as getting $10K for just the "creative" on national spots!
The actual spot was another fee altogether.
It was BIG money, but landing four of these per year would be a coup.
The guy had a private room with a Neve 8058, MTR90II and every other instrument and device ever imagined.
EXPENSIVE overhead!

I could name the music he did, but if I only hummed the melodies, anyone in the U.S. would know the company the music was produced for.
I'd say two were as big as it gets.
This is why he got the $10K creative.

So the prices quoted by the other posters are quite correct.

Another big factor to consider is IF their marketing people have ever bought jingles.
It is quite possible that THEY are clueless.
They might not even WANT a jingle and don't consider it part of their marketing strategy.

I find that I often make more money (in many scenarios) by charging a smaller up-front fee, and charging an additional fee on a 'per use' basis. If the chain of restaurants keeps using the jingle once a week for a couple of years (at $50 per pop), it soon adds up and reflects the value that the company will get out of it.

Isn't this how engineers work out their pensions?

MohThoM

True, but you have to have a way to track the usage.

... but if you DO retain the rights... and it gets big...

The guy I used as an example wrote the Motel 6 theme and retained the rights to the music because the spot and music (Tom Bodette and all) was originally produced as a P.S.A. (Public Service Announcement) for Motel 6!!!!
You don't get that luckey very often!
The fiddle in my good friend Milo and it was recorded and mixed by another good friend. It was recorded and mixed on my old Sphere.
That is one of the longest running radio concepts in the biz and the guy still gets money EVERY time it is played!
That spot isn't going away either because there have been many attempts to change the concept. Even Tom Bodette himself once proposed doing away with the music.
Still, he has no control, so it is probably going to be around a LONG time.

This doesn't happen that often.

My wifes aunt owned a local restaurant and she paid 8k for her (cheezy) jingle. Damn, if I'd known she was looking I'd have done it for half. heh

jingles are funny

1-800-64-Giant..........

badadattata I'm lovin' it!

two whole beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions all on a sesame seed bun!

Some of my faves!

It depend on the vocals really. Id charge $250.00+ to compose the jingle
But the production costs vary. Depends on how many instruments/vocalists are required.

Damn. That's a good story. Tom Bodette.

Where does one find this work?

I have a respectable amount of equipment and experience, some nice synths (and an almost finished degree in music composition to back it up), and access to some great singers.

We didn't write this jingle... but we got paid $1000 to record it.

http://goldstarchili.com/getlost/mp3/46Long.mp3

Cut that turkey in less than 30 minutes...

I only worked with Mr. Bodett (sp? I forget) once.

He actually lives in Homer, Alaska and has a home "studio" where he records those spots.
We'd get a new DAT every few months and we'd build it all over the music.
My good friend and then boss flew up to Homer, AK with the agency producer and oversaw the first session at Tom's place.
I was almost going to go, but my daughter was about to be born any day, so Ron went.

As you listen to Tom Bodett you have to picture him sitting in the studio speaking into a U87 and downing a sixpack of Coors.
A sixpack lasted about one V.O. session.
He was an OK guy, but a bit wry.

A was a bit demnding as well because not many years after he landed the Motel 6 gig he moved to northern California or Oregon.
His deal was that he woul only fly so many miles for a session.
This was all before the days of ISDN/EdNet link-ups when not many places had a satellite link.
The closest place that could do a satellite link was Denver, but the agency producer would fly there more often than we'd do a satellite lik.

Eventually, Tom decided to move and he decided to drive up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) to where it ends (this was his story.)
It ends in Homer, Alaska and there he styed.
He probebly moved to Homer in 1990 or there abouts.

The funny thing about Mr. Bodett s that prior to doing the Motel 6 spots he had NEVER DONE A NATIONAL SPOT!
He had a local fishing/unting radio show in Minnesota and that was about it.
I recall that he had recorded a "demo" and one of the agency guys figured he'd sound good on the new P.S.A. they were doing.
The rest is history.

Another friend of mine (Thomas Hrypco) wrote most of the original copy for the spots, but writing for Motel 6 became a right of passage to writers at The Richards Group after he left.
Thomas won a lot of Clios for those spots.
There are a bunch of Clios in my old bos's office for engineering nine billion Motel 6spots, too.
The guy that came up with the Chik-fil-A cows on the billboards wrote a lot of Motel 6 spots, too.

Imagine owning thrights to that music!

And here was me thinking it was pretty easy to know how many times you'd paid to play an ad on the radio . . . .???

hey everyone, thanks for all the advice.. was waitin on pops to come and look all this over but he's pretty busy so i figured i'd give an advance thank you to all who contributed to this thread. i told him over teh phone what was said but i would rather he read all the posts so he could make a better educated "guess" on what to charge. anyways a big thank you for the replies!!

chuck

Hey man, was curious what kind of numbers you see fit to retain on the publishing side? Is your fee for the master files (Sound Recording)? Or are you giving up the Songwriting, or both? Recently been offered to write a jingle but have never done this before and not sure how much publishing to retain and how it should apply? Thank you for the advice!