Before making it big, many singers and songwriters have found creative ways to earn a living with their musical talents. While some worked at piano bars or wrote songs for others, many songwriters actually got their start in the world of marketing, creating catchy jingles that refuse to leave your head. Barry Manilow is one of the most famous examples, having created such iconic jingles as “Stuck on Band-Aid” and State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbor.”

While there are certainly some commercial jingles that have turned into earworms over the years, they usually remain firmly connected to the brand that popularized them. However, there have been some unique melodies that actually became songs in their own right, despite being created as commercial jingles. These nine songs were created for ad campaigns before becoming popular, full-length songs months later.

1. “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)”
2. “Music to Watch Girls By”
3. “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”
4. “We’ve Only Just Begun”
5. “When You Say Love”
6. “Times of Your Life”
7. “Driven By You”
8. “Inside”
9. “Forever”

“No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)”

While most famous commercial jingles are known for their catchy lyrics, the oldest entry on this list was a fully instrumental track. “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)” was composed by Sascha Burland for an Alka-Seltzer commercial that promised that their product could help people of all shapes and sizes.

Dave Pell decided to try turning commercial jingles into real songs to benefit from their radio plays, and this Alka-Seltzer instrumental was his first big attempt. He enlisted studio musicians The Wrecking Crew to record a full-length version of the song, and it was a success. The track reached the 3rd spot on Billboard‘s Hot 100 list and the top spot on Canada’s RPM Play Sheet, successfully proving that a commercial jingle could make it big on the radio.

“Music to Watch Girls By”

Inspired by the success of “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In),” writer and producer Bob Crew decided he was going to make a successful ad-turned-hit with the song “Music to Watch Girls By.” The instrumental track was originally made for the background of a sexist 1965 ad, which informed audiences that “the kind of girl girl-watchers watch” kept a slim figure by drinking Diet Pepsi.

The Bob Crewe Generation released their version of the song the next year, which charted well on both the Easy Listening charts and the Billboard Hot 100. It might have been a fluke, if not for another cover by Andy Williams in 1967. His version similarly performed well on the charts before eventually making its way back into commercials with a 1999 Fiat commercial and a 2005 Samsung ad.

“I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”

“I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” has an interesting history, having gone from a pop song to a jingle, to becoming a different pop song. The melody was originally released in Susan Shirley’s 1971 song “True Love and Apple Pie,” but it was reworked into “Buy the World a Coke” for radio and television. The jingle was a hit and has continued to be used in Coca-Cola marketing for decades.

One unexpected consequence of its popularity in the 1970s was that radio stations were asked to play the full song. Responding to the demand, the songwriters came up with a full-length version of the melody, officially releasing it by the Hillside Singers and the New Seekers. Both versions ranked highly on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, cementing both the jingle and the expanded version in popular culture.

“We’ve Only Just Begun”

One of the most popular wedding songs of the 1970s was originally created as the solution to Crocker Bank’s lack of popular appeal. Looking to connect the bank with younger clients who were getting married and working their first jobs, advertising agent Hal Riney hired songwriter Paul Williams and composer Roger Nichols to make a song to fit the slogan “You’ve got a long way to go. We’d like to help you get there.”

The song was an automatic hit, but its popularity only grew when the Carpenters released a version on their album “All of My Life.” Richard Carpenter had seen the commercial and reached out to the creators for the rights to the music. Since Williams and Nichols had originally written the first two verses, the tune required some reworking and drafting to complete. But it was worth it. The song was a major part of the Carpenters winning the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1971, and it went on to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 as a “recording of lasting qualitative or historical significance.”

“When You Say Love”

While the other entries on this list include jingles that were transformed into full songs with proper legal permission, “When You Say Love,” recorded by both Bob Luman and Sonny & Cher in 1972, was far more complicated.

Steve Karmen won a contract with Budweiser in 1970 for his jingle, “Budweiser/You’ve Said It All.” His jingle was featured heavily in beer commercials for the next decade, but its melody also made its way into “When You Say Love.” As Karmen had received neither credit nor compensation for his contribution to the reworked song, he sued for copyright infringement—and won.

“Times of Your Life”

In 1975, Kodak was looking for a song to play in the background of its commercials. The ads would feature weddings, children, and graduations to showcase how Kodak captured life’s best moments. Roger Nichols teamed up with ad executive Bill Lane to write the song “Times of Your Life,” which was then recorded by Paul Anka.

It was an incredibly successful advertising campaign, and Paul Anka fell in love with the song. Thus, he recorded a full-length version of it, even naming his eighteenth album after the commercial jingle. He continued to perform the song at concerts for years until it returned to the advertising realm in a 2021 Downy commercial.

“Driven By You”

According to Queen guitarist Brian May, the song “Driven By You” originated at a swimming pool in Los Angeles, where an ad executive asked him to write a song for Ford to the slogan “Everything we do, we do for you.” The song came together quickly, with verses about Ford’s reliable reputation and a chorus assuring customers that their needs were at the heart of every choice the company made.

This opportunity came at a trying time for May, as Queen’s future was uncertain due to Freddie Mercury’s battle with AIDS. But when May showed his bandmate the song, Mercury encouraged him to perform it himself as the start of his solo career. Sure enough, the single (with fewer Ford-centered lyrics) took off, later making it onto Queen’s Greatest Hits III album and getting re-released in four different versions for May’s Back to the Light album.

“Inside”

The song “Inside” and the commercial it was written for were actually responsible for the creation of Scottish rock band Stiltskin in 1994. The commercial showed young women from a pioneering family spying on an attractive man wearing Shrink-to-Fit jeans. As the women’s attraction rose, so did the intensity of the music.

The band had been formed specifically to create this song, and they went on to record a full version of it for their first album. The single was a massive hit, climbing the UK charts before making its way throughout Europe and beyond. Unfortunately, the band didn’t find much success beyond this song, and they disbanded in 1996.

“Forever”

Chris Brown and Wrigley teamed up for a very strange version of this trend in 2007. Wrigley hired Brown to put a new spin on their 1960 Doublemint jingle, including the slogan “double your pleasure, double your fun.” However, he also wrote a full-length version of the song, which was released on his Exclusive album under “Forever.”

Rather than release the commercial version first, as all the other examples on this list did, Brown’s team actually released the full-length song first. Ad executive Mr. Stoute told the Wall Street Journal that this was an intentional plan to make sure the jingle was “already seeded properly within popular culture” before anyone realized its commercial ties. While some consumers felt that the ad campaign was manipulative, both the song and its jingle counterpart successfully wormed their way into pop culture.

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