Cicada Serenade: In an Unlikely Collab, Orkin Embraces Bugs With an Original Symphony

Two broods of cicadas are emerging this summer from their underground resting places for the first time since 1803—when Thomas Jefferson was president—unleashing their distinctive high-pitched cries across more than 17 American states.

For people with entomophobia—the fear of insects—this is the ultimate creepy-crawly nightmare.

For Orkin, it’s a reason to put on a show.

The brand, better known as a bug annihilator, is uncharacteristically throwing its arms around nearly 1 trillion arthropods, “turning this shrieking invasion into a musical masterpiece,” per Orkin.

To that end, the legacy pest control company and its agency of record, DDB Chicago, created “The Cicada Symphony Orkinstra,” an original seven-act symphony from Emmy Award-nominated composer Bryan Rheude. The piece of music not only takes its inspiration from the invertebrates, but also samples their unique sounds.

Pop culture invasion

There will be a live performance of the symphony with a 10-piece orchestra in Springfield, Ill., Saturday, although tickets were snapped up quickly when they became available to the public. 

For those not on-site, there will be a livestream of the 45-minute concert on Orkin’s TikTok channel, with a full-length album drop on Spotify to follow.

Springfield was chosen, by the way, because it’s the epicenter of the cicada swarm that’s extending from Oklahoma to Wisconsin to North Carolina and other Southeast and Midwest U.S. locales.

“Orkin uses its knowledge to make bugs less disruptive, and this summer, there is nothing more disruptive than a once-in-a-lifetime event featuring 1 trillion shrieking cicadas,” Colin Selikow, chief creative officer at DDB Chicago, said in a statement. 

The agency’s challenge, in effect, was to flip Orkin’s mission on its head.

“The answer was pretty unexpected: Create a symphony that uses the sounds of the cicadas as part of the arrangement to turn their iconic noise into something beautiful,” Selikow said. “It’s a unique way to demonstrate what Orkin does at a time when bugs will literally be taking over popular culture.”

Buggy content bonanza

The partners enlisted some heavyweight help for “Orkinstra,” as the campaign is known, including renowned wildlife director and cinematographer Lex Jones. Using the live show as a content-creating bonanza, Orkin and DDB plan to produce a behind-the-scenes film for distribution in late June.

Rheude—a scoring composer for film, TV, games and branded content with an experimental reputation—called the project “the most scientific music composition I’ve ever done,” according to a promotional video released on social channels.

Because each species of cicada has different notes, rhythms and frequencies, there was “a rich pool of sonic information we could pull from,” Rheude said. (For anyone who wants a sneak peek, go to Orkin’s site to hear a snippet of “Act I: Nymphs of the Underworld.”)

Wall of sound

Trivia on these cold-blooded critters: The two periodical broods, so named because they come out infrequently, are called Brood XIX and XIII. They have not emerged together in 221 years and are not expected to do so again until 2245, per USA Today.

Frank Meek, an Orkin entomologist, has dubbed their 2024 cameo “the loudest natural invasion of sound in our lifetime,” per social videos.

Although its program is elaborate and eye-catching, Orkin isn’t the only brand to co-opt a naturally occurring phenomena for marketing purposes. MoonPie is famous for it, having dropped marshmallow-scented sunscreen for summer solstice and survival kits for this spring’s solar eclipse. The latter event drew a host of brand players, including Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, SunChips, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Krispy Kreme and McDonald’s.

“Orkinstra” is a way for Orkin to flex its bug bona fides, according to Cam Glover, vice president of marketing, with the goal of “entertaining and educating” audiences and planting the flag “as the leader in our industry.”