Top Jingle Companies: What to Look For, What to Expect

The internet offers you the opportunity to seek out jingle companies and listen to their jingle samples online. Your success depends upon a thorough evaluation of as many companies as possible. You don't need to be a musician to know what you like.

There are things to look for in a top jingle company and a few red flags that can help to weed out the bottom feeders.

When listening to jingle samples online, here are a few things to look for:

1) Look for: Overall quality of the all the samples on the site as a whole. (Red Flag: If one or two samples sound boring, bland or poorly done, why are they being showcased on the site?)

2) Look for: Diversity of voices. (Red Flag: If there is just one male and one female voice singing all jingles on the site)

3) Look for: Diversity in styles of music, production, instrumentation & vocal arrangements. (Red Flag: If it all starts to sound the same to you)

4) Look for: Overall quality of the writing. Each sample should demonstrate creativity & imagination, lyrically and musically. (You'll know it when you hear it)

Just as a casting director chooses talent, a great jingle company will find the ideal personality, voice, musician for your project to capture your company image and marketing message most accurately and effectively.

You have every right to expect the company that you hire to create something spectacular/exciting/compelling... Don't settle for less.

Barry Volk is a former Staff Songwriter/Producer with ABC and Screen Ems/EMI Music Publishing, Musical Director of the West Coast Theater Company and National Director of Marketing for Metro Networks (Westwood One). Barry is the owner of Sound Advantage (A Musical Identity Company Since 1993) - http://www.soundad.com

Public workers are scouring churches and libraries to find workers—mostly male—who have been sidelined for years

Despite a roaring start for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index in 2012, volume is low, equity-fund redemptions persist, and valuations are the lowest since 1989

After numerous customers accused JPMorgan Chase of gouging them on debit-card transactions in checking accounts, the bank had sought to make them arbitrate claims

The 2012 bonus season is a lot less festive

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Su Keenan reports on plans to cut pay and reduce bonuses at investment banks.

Asian stocks rose, with the regional benchmark index trading near a five month high, as Greek lawmakers worked to secure a bailout amid warnings Europe’s crisis threatens global demand.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission may complete rules as soon as today requiring registration by mutual funds when they have investments in commodities, according to a person briefed on the matter.

States that balked at bank liability releases in a proposed $25 billion nationwide settlement over foreclosure practices must decide by today whether its mortgage relief and reforms are worth the legal claims they’ll give up.

A trustee’s investigation found that the $1.2 billion in missing MF Global Inc. customer funds began to flow out of the brokerage on Oct. 26, five days before its collapse, as computers and employees fell behind margin calls and demands for collateral.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System, or Calstrs, intends to question in a letter the controlling power amassed by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg

By trying to help distressed homeowners without appearing to bail them out, the Administration would leave borrowers submerged

Analyst Buck Horne downgraded homebuilders and says the spring selling season may disappoint again

Rebound from the recovery from Thai floods, and explosive growth in mobile technology make tech stocks a good pick

Companies are scrambling to handle a torrent of data, pushing them into bigger M&A frenzy since 2007

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Andrew Economos, head of sovereign and institutional strategy Asia ex-Japan at JPMorgan Asset Management in Hong Kong, talks about Europe's sovereign debt crisis