Folgers Reinvents Jingle with Lo-Fi Campaign
Folgers has reimagined its classic jingle into a medley of "wake up" songs that span multiple genres and decades. The campaign uses a lo-fi, collage-style production to connect with a new generation while tapping into nostalgia. The strategy exemplifies how legacy brands can remix familiar assets for platform virality and cultural relevance.
- The original "The Best Part of Wakin' Up" jingle was created in 1984 by Leslie Pearl, Susan Spiegel Solovay, and Bill Vernick and has been a central part of the brand's advertising since. The rights to the jingle, including future royalties, were sold at auction in 2021 for $90,500. - Lo-fi content is characterized by a raw, unpolished, and authentic aesthetic that mimics user-generated content, moving away from high-production advertising. This trend resonates with Gen Z and Millennial consumers who are often tired of overly polished imagery and crave relatable and genuine brand interactions. - For brands, the lo-fi approach is not only a cost-effective production strategy but also serves to build trust and increase engagement, with some studies showing lo-fi videos garnering 40% more views than high-fidelity counterparts. Companies like Zara, Chipotle, and Lego have embraced this trend by using smartphone-shot visuals for their campaigns. - This campaign is part of a larger brand storytelling transformation by parent company J.M. Smucker Co., which has also recently reimagined marketing for brands like Jif and Meow Mix. In early 2022, Folgers attempted to shed its "grandma's coffee" reputation with a campaign featuring the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts song "Bad Reputation," created by the agency PSOne. - The adoption of AI in marketing is a key priority for CMOs, with nearly 93% of marketing teams budgeting for generative AI in 2026. The focus is shifting from using AI for efficiency to leveraging it for business growth, including enhanced personalization and accelerating the creation of creative assets. - Creative agencies are increasingly integrating generative AI to speed up production, automate repetitive tasks like asset resizing, and allow teams to focus more on strategy. Tools like Midjourney for image creation and Runway ML for video editing are being used to quickly test visual concepts and reduce production bottlenecks. - The "remix" strategy has been successfully used by other brands to connect with both Millennial and Gen Z audiences. Examples include Uber Eats featuring Diddy and other artists remixing their 90s and early 2000s hits, and Chex Mix enlisting Sir Mix-A-Lot to create "Bagel Is Back" from his song "Baby Got Back". - A 2009 Folgers holiday commercial called "Coming Home," created by Saatchi & Saatchi, became infamous after many viewers interpreted an incestuous subtext between the brother and sister main characters, leading to numerous parodies and the fan fiction moniker "Folgercest".
