Phone Number Jingle

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Admit it, you can hear the song playing in your head just now.

A common advertising jingle, usually among local businesses, in which the phone number of the service is sung. This makes it much easier to remember than if it were simply spoken. These jingles tend to be quite the Ear Worm.

This may also be combined with a Spelling Song.

Examples of Phone Number Jingle include:

Live-Action TV

Music

  • "Pennsylvania 6-5000!" The Glenn Miller tune uses the telephone number "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City, where the network radio broadcast originated. The hotel in turn was named after a railway (Pennsylvania Railroad) which the hotel served. In 1940, the seven digits of a New York City local number were written as two letters + five numbers; there were no area codes.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • In the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes "Mr. Plow", Barney Gumble starts competing as the "Plow King", and enlists Linda Ronstadt to sing this jingle:
File:Cquote1.svg

When the snow starts a-falling,
There's a man you should be calling.
That's K-L-five, four seven-nine-six! (Let it ring!)

File:Cquote2.svg

Real Life

  • The Trope Codifier is Empire Carpet (now Empire Today): "Five Eight Eight, Two Three Hundred, Empiiiiiire!" When the business went from local to national, "800" was tacked onto the beginning, arguably throwing off the rhythm of the jingle.
  • "Eight oh oh, three two five, three five, three five" — a Sheraton Hotels number at the centre of one of the first major saturation-marketing campaigns to use a single toll-free number nationwide. Before the introduction of InWATS by AT&T in 1966-67, the major chains had adopted hundreds of different local numbers - one for each major city. As Sheraton's new corporate owners at the time were a telephone factory (ITT) and the chain was rolling out a centralised Reservatron™ system for computerised reservations, the hotels were the ideal guinea pig for marketing the new area code. By 1970 the number was ubiquitous in adverts in magazines, on radio, on TV, everywhere, with "...dial it as you'd dial any long-distance call. It's free. Eight-oh-oh three-two-five three-five three-five" spelled out quite explicitly. It was simple, it was memorable and it sold hotel reservations very effectively.
  • Jenny Craig has a phone number jingle: "1-800-JENNY20".
    • Or, for those who grew up in the '90s, "1-800-94JENNY".
    • This actually changed every year up to 2000 (95JENNY, 96JENNY, etc.). And the number was actually sung as "Jenny 2000" in that year, though the number was technically the current JENNY20.
  • Hastings Direct: "oh-eight-hundred-double-oh, ten-sixty-six".
  • "One Eight Seven Seven KARS FOR KIDS, K-A-R-S KARS FOR KIDS!" (Kars for Kids charity)
  • "Eight Six Six, Sixty Six FASTER, You've got the Green Light!" (Green Light Financial)
  • If you get long term payments but you need cash now, call J. G. Wentworth, 877-CASH NOW! (J.G. Wentworth Financial)
  • 1-800-Collect gave us "C-O-L-L-E-C-T, save a buck or two or three!" This lasted only two commercials, most likely because the jingle was too similar to AT&T's advertising campaign for 1-800-CALL-ATT (which also spells out the letters of its phone number, only without a jingle).
  • Boushelle upolstery cleaning: Hudson 3-2 700!
  • An old ad for a 900 number that gave sports scores and whatnot: 900-976-1313! Done as a cheer.
  • Next Day Floors, we come to you! Call eight hundred, nine one six, six one one two!
  • In Northern Ohio, if you needed aluminum siding, it was "GArfield One, Two-Three-Two-Three; GArfield One, Two-Three-Two-Three!"
  • In San Diego, ASI Heating and Air Conditioning uses the following jingle in its commercials:
File:Cquote1.svg

Call ASI the White Glove Guys! 1-800-481 COOL!

File:Cquote2.svg
  • "Lube Mobile will come to you! Thirteen thirty thirty-two!"
  • In New Zealand, Pizza Hut is well known for a particularly catchy phone number jingle:
File:Cquote1.svg

Ooooh-eight-hundred, 83, 83, 83! Pick up, Pizza Hut!

File:Cquote2.svg
  • 773-202-LUNA. Anyone in Chicago can sing the Luna Carpet jingle... "773-202-beep-beep-beep-beep-LUNA!"
  • Buffalo, NY's Cellino and Barnes law firm. "Cellino and Barnes/The Injury Attorneys/Call eight-five-four twenty twenty!"
    • Similar to the Trope Codifying Empire example above, when they expanded their business, the jingle became:
File:Cquote1.svg

"Cellino and Barnes/Injury Attorneys/Eight-hundred six-two-one twenty twenty!"

File:Cquote2.svg
  • Toronto, Ontario-based pizza chain "Pizza Pizza" had its immortal jingle "nine-six-seven, eleven-eleven! Phone Pizza Pizza, hey-hey-hey!" in saturation across all of the 1970s Toronto commercial radio stations. They even trademarked the number. Since the chain now has different phone numbers in various Ontario locations, the first three jingles change accordingly to fit the region, but the "11-11" bit remains the same for all.
  • PEI Tourism ran an ad in the 1970s with a jingle by Stompin' Tom Connors that said to call "Eight double zero, five six five, seven four two one."
  • Not strictly an advertisement as it was shown on a BBC children's programme, but still... Oh-One, Eight-One, Eight-One-One... EIGHT-ONE, EIGHT ONE!
  • Also from the UK, every Christmastime in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ITV regional station Yorkshire Television ran a Christmas Line service providing information on services open during the holidays, advertised with a phone number jingle: Ring YTV's Christmas Line on Leeds Double-Four-Eight-One-Nine-Nine!
  • Nova Scotia-based Pizza chain Greco Pizza had two different jingles for the same number, "three one oh three oh three oh" and the later, more faster paced "three ten thirty thirty".
  • Dial-a-Mattress: "One eight hundred, M-A-T-T-R-E-S!". Don't forget to leave off the last "S" for "savings"!
  • A commercial for Cablevision's Optimum Triple Play package had a reggaeton-style jingle, featuring women dressed as mermaids chanting the phone number: "Eight seven seven, three nine three, four... four... four... eight!"