Great Big Story visited with legendary television and film composer Michael A. Levine to talk about one of the most iconic pieces he’s ever written – the infamous KitKat jingle. Levine explains that the song was originally a “throwaway piece”. It would, however, eventually become one of the most famous earworms for years to come.
We got a call from an agency handling the KitKat account they had a campaign they already loved and they just needed a throwaway song. Something for the client to say no to. You can’t present your client with one idea, you have to have something that they’re gonna buy and something they can throw away so this was the throwaway song.
Levine didn’t only compose the music, he performed the vocals for the commercial due to his limited budget.
I had a very tiny budget for the whole thing I literally couldn’t afford to hire singers, so when we went to do the actual commercial Chris the producer said well why don’t we have the band sing it? … I ended up being the lead vocalist as a result.
Here are a couple of the original commercials.
