Sudden death of advertising industry icon who wrote Australia’s catchiest jingles – with Tip Top bread and Bing Lee just some of his 15,000 legendary earworm tunes
Geoff Ayling, one half of the song writing duo behind Australia’s catchiest jingles, has died suddenly, just two weeks after falling ill.
Ayling and his wife Jenny penned 15,000 advertising jingles and theme songs including Bing Lee’s instantly recognisable ‘I Like Bing Lee’, and the classic Play School song ‘There’s A Bear In There’.
Among their other Aussie advertising cult classics that are almost impossible to forget – and worked wonders for the brand – is their Tip Top bread tune, ‘Good on you mum.’
Since 1967, the jingle geniuses have written tunes for Tooheys beer, and the theme song to the much-loved Australian children’s show, Mr Squiggle.
On the back of their success, the couple also wrote a book detailing their winning formula to get brands and products to ‘spread like wildfire’.
The couple had been living on the NSW Central Coast, where they kept a piano in their lounge room for composing songs, when Geoff, 85, fell ill and was diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 cancer on September 13.
‘We are devastated,’ his wife posted on Facebook on the day of his diagnosis.
She posted again on Wednesday: ‘Two weeks ago we did not know that he had cancer. He has now passed away, leaving an unimaginable gap in our lives.
Geoff Ayling (centre, Geoff Ayling with his wife and jingle partner, Jenny) was behind Australia’s catchiest jingles
The couple wrote some of Australia’s most iconic jingles such as the I Like Bing Lee ad (above)
Geoff Ayling has died suddenly after being diagnosed with stage four cancer just two weeks ago (He is pictured with wife Jenny this month, left, and writing jingle for brands like Tip Top)
‘His last few days were spent in gratitude. His funny lines kept coming almost to the end.’
She revealed he died in Gosford Hospital, and added: ‘He was grateful to everyone who helped him through these tough days, everyone who had worked with us, everyone who visited him.
‘He was grateful for his family, the good times we had shared, the life he had lived.’
Tributes have begun pouring in for Ayling, with fellow jingle writer Christopher O’Connor remembering the ‘musician genius’ who, alongside his wife, were ‘two of Australia’s greatest jingle producers’.
O’Connor said Ayling was also a prankster who pulled ‘the maddest gags’ on friends after big nights out together.
