September 9, 2025 • 59 mins
This is an encore episode of Ad Infinitum’s Season 2 Finale that I produced. Big thanks to Oxford Road’s Executive Creative Director and Ad Infinitum’s host, Stew Redwine, for asking me to write about something that I love.
The State of Sonic Branding is like the Princess Bride of podcast episodes; it’s got everything! Giant companies, inconceivable innovations, sound storming the Depot, rogue engineers in the Pit of Dispair, and a whole lot of sonic strategists and neuro marketers making miracles happen. All for the ‘True Love’ quest for sonic branding.
Ready to listen… well, then… As You Wish!
The original episode can be found here.
Let’s make this world of sound more intriguing, more unique, and more on brand.
—
For more on sound in marketing, sign up for the Sound In Marketing Newsletter http://eepurl.com/gDxl6b.
Want your very own Make Sound On Purpose mug? You can find it here.
For further inquiries, email Jeanna at mailto:jeanna@dreamrproductions.com
The Sound In Marketing Podcast is produced by Dreamr Productions and hosted, written, and edited by Jeanna Isham. It is available on all the major podcast channels here https://pod.link/1467112373.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannaisham/
https://twitter.com/Jeanna_Isham
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Sound in Marketing podcast.
The Sound In Marketing podcastexplores and defines sound on purpose
in marketing and in advertising.
I'm your host Jeanna Isham, owner
and founder of Dreamr Productionsand Sound in Marketing Learning.
I create, consult and educate brandson the power
of sound in marketing.
(00:26):
As we close out season eight, sonic
branding,case studies, context and clarity.
I felt it appropriate
to encore an episode of theAD Infinitum podcast that I produced.
Stew Redwine, the executivecreative director at Oxford Road
and host of AD Infinitum,brought me in to produce this episode.
If you hadn't already discoveredor clicked on any of my show
(00:46):
notes mentioning it,
here is your chance to witnessor listen to some great content.
This episode is filled with special guestinterviews like the Intel Guy. (Intel sonic logo)
And the Apple Startup sound guy.(Apple Startup Sound)
As well as amazing informationyou can't get elsewhere.
(01:09):
It's a crash course in sonic branding,history and future tells.
It's my magnum opus, as one listenercalled it. In the race for brand attention.
Sound on purpose makes all the difference.
As heard in the Transaction Toneepisode, Sound Done Right (The Transaction Tone episode POS sound)
is a brand's best friend.
Sound done wrong(generic POS sound)
(01:30):
is a brand's worst nightmare.
So sit back, relaxand enjoy the state of sonic branding.
Take it away.
Stew. This is Ad Infinitum.
(01:58):
AD infinitum
is the award winning podcastsolely focused on audio ads.
The creatives who make them enter
the latest thinking that informs themhow the space is evolving.
And my favorite parta roundup of recent audio ads with analysis
by yours truly, Stew Redwineand each episode's guest.
But for the final episode of seasontwo of AD Infinitum.
(02:18):
We have a special treat in store for allYe Mighty Chief Audio officers.
Today, we're diving deep into somethingthat's been dramatically undervalued
in advertising pretty much for all time,which is sonic branding.
Only 16% of advertising is rememberedand correctly attributed.
That's across the board.But here's where it gets interesting.
(02:40):
Sonic brand cues deliver 7 to 8 times
betterbranded attention than ads without them.
That's a massive increase inwhat is a problematic space
that only 16% of advertising is rememberedand correctly attributed.
There is a incredible powerwhen it comes to sonic branding
(03:00):
and it's not just another asset, it'snot just something else to do.
It's not an afterthought,
because sound is processed in exactlythe same part of our brains as emotion
and memory.
Long story short, when we hear, we feeland we remember, and the numbers back
this up, 64% of listeners
feel a stronger pull to brandswith a cohesive sonic identity.
And we've seen here at Oxford Road 13%higher response rates for shows running
(03:22):
Sonic branding, and it jumps up to 30%when brands commit to heavy Sonic
branding versus Light or None.
Our sense of hearingand the way that Sonic branding interacts
with it, deliversfame fluency and feeling in reverse order.
The brand makes me feel good.The sounds make me feel good.
The brand is fluent,I understand it, I understand
it's the brandthat's communicating with me and fame.
(03:44):
It comes easily to mindand sound is a shortcut to all of that.
One fortune 100 company called Sonicbranding the most leveraged item
on their balance sheet.
That came from the AD Infinitum episode,where we featured Joel Beckerman
from Made Music talking aboutbranding with your eyes closed,
which is what really began, in a sense,the journey towards this episode.
(04:07):
Where to really unpack this?
We've brought together nine experts.
Nine is a good number.
You've got the nine writers of the Nazgulor the nine members of the Wu-Tang clan.
Herewe've got nine sonic branding experts,
including Jeanna Isham, who we workedwith to produce this episode.
From the writing to the interviewsand putting together the initial edit
(04:31):
Jeanna Isham of Dreamr Productions andthe host of Sound In marketing podcast.
Check it out.
Then we have RogerSho Gerhmann, Dallas Taylor, Colleen Fahey,
Joe Sauer, Joel Beckerman,Steve Keller, Walter Werzowa,
Jim Reekes,Lisa De Stefano, and Chelsea Campbell.
You're going to hear from them
throughout the episodeas we explore the state of Sonic branding.
(04:55):
Enjoythis special episode of AD Infinitum.
Take it away Jeanna Isham, owner and founderof Dreamr Productions and Sound
in Marketing Learning and host of Soundin Marketing and My Friend.
Enjoy. You can read along with mein your book.
You will know it is time to turn the page.
When you hear the chimes ring like this.
(05:16):
Sound
and branding go togetherlike a wink and a smile.
It's been a part of marketing
for hundreds of yearsand global culture for thousands.
We just haven't been paying very closeattention.
Before the days of TV commercials, radioand print ads, marketing happened
by speaking. Modern mediaand the printing press weren't around yet.
And the average person couldn't read.
(05:37):
So they shouted or saying what
they were sellingor telling the world about.
As early as the song dynasty,there were records of peddlers
in Peking using distinctive callsand songs to notify people
that they were coming down the road.
Different peddlers sold different things,so these calls told the people
if they even needed to step outsidetheir door.
(05:57):
This was a big deal as the streetsof Peking were a tangled mess back then.
Just walking to the nearby7-Eleven was not so easy to do.
Flash forward to modern days.
These distinctive calls still exist.
Roger Sho Gehrmann, VP of integrated
partnerships at SongTradr, remembersa similar story from his childhood
(06:18):
in Tokyo.
The sound of street vendorsthat would go past the house.
Either they were selling these roastedsweet potatoes, or they were selling
sweets like mochi,
and they'd be kind of saying the productout loud as they walk down the street.
If you think about it,have you had a similar experience?
What about this one?(ice cream truck song)
(06:38):
One could saythis would be an example of a sonic logo.
A sonic logo is usually something
that is shortmaximum up to a couple of seconds long.
Very distinctive.
It could take the form of a melodyor a sound effect,
or a spoken word or phrase,but we'll come back to that.
When you hear these calls, you instantly
(06:59):
know where you are, what the message is,and whether or not you are interested.
Sonic logos like these way back when.
Examples and Sonicbranding in general is one of the oldest
and most appreciated formsof storytelling.
Think of bird calls andanimal sounds for a minute.
Even there, you've got a story.
As David Attenborough says in the Netflixdocumentary Secret World of Sound.
(07:21):
For some animals, soundis the key to their survival.
They warn when there's a predator close,they tell their friends there's food
they make,come hither sounds and back up sounds.
The most dangerous sound in the wild.
Is no sound at all.
Sound is one of those thingsthat keeps you mindful and present,
(07:44):
and it reveals itself in every passingmicrosecond.
And that's a really powerful thing.
That's Dallas Taylor, host of the 20,000Hz
podcast and creative director at DefactoSound.
Things come alive when sound is addedand everything becomes much more vivid.
It almost feels like the picturehas been colored just by adding sound.
(08:07):
From a storytelling standpoint, thatcertainly happens just by adding in sound.
It brings personality and characterto this visual icon
that then representsthis whole entity behind it.
It can help heighten emotions,guide people
to understanding what the story's aboutand how they should feel about it.
That's Colleen Fahey, U.S.
(08:29):
managing director at SixièmeSon and coauthor of the book
Audio Branding Using Sound to BuildYour Brand.
You have something about to happen, andyou can build anticipation with the sound.
Then something scary happens and suddenly
you can make it more stressfuland a little bit more dissonant.
And then a solution arrives,and then suddenly
(08:51):
there is a glorious moment of success.
Sound can amplify,especially music can amplify
and guide your feelingsaround all the parts of storytelling
and make it much more satisfyingand much more emotionally complete.
If we are going to sell anything,we have to tell a story.
(09:11):
But not just any story, a branded story.
Stories are how we build relationshipsand trust
with a thing like products and businesses.
Sound stories help us to remain presentin what's happening right there
in that moment alone.
Storytelling through the voiceis something that our brains love.
(09:32):
Somethingthat you want to lean into biologically.
Why is it that soundstories are so delicious for our brains?
And why is it so important to incorporatethem into the customer's brand journey?
For this, I went to Joe Sauer,a quantitative researcher
focusing on the impact emotionshave on consumers preferences and choices.
(09:53):
Think
about how you became awareof a brand in the first place.
Odds are soundwas accompanied with that awareness.
You either saw an ad for it
that included a sonic logo,or a voiceover, or some catchy music
or word of mouth from a friendor family member or a colleague.
This isn't by accident.
At least a few marketers out theremake these sounds on purpose.
(10:15):
As we'll get into later.
Although the cat isn'tcompletely out of the bag yet,
branded sound has been foundto be specifically impactful
when it comesto getting into the consumer's brain fast.
And here's why.
Our brains are essentially lazy.
They like to avoid working.
As a survival mechanism,the more brain power or brain processing
(10:36):
I can conserve for higher order processes,the more likely I am to survive.
And so our brains use thingslike mnemonics and hints and heuristics
to draw conclusions.
Over time, that sound becomes familiar,which is when it really kicks
your brain into gear.
When something is very,very familiar to us, it tends to generate
a stronger emotional responsethan exactly the same sound.
(11:00):
The first time I heard itwhen it was unfamiliar.
Now you have a familiar brand story,a double whammy of brand equity.
It's certainly one of the wonders of musicand sound to be able to create stories.
That's JoelBeckerman, CEO and founder of Made Music.
How do you get a story across in 2.5
seconds or three seconds,or at most 3.5 seconds?
(11:22):
Good question.
If you look at Bach or Beethoven,there were certain examples of things
that they would do over and over again.
A lot of it was about tension and release.
If you feel a certain set of tensionand then a release from that, where
you're no longer feeling the tension.
That's a story.
It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
You can also talkabout the colors of the sounds.
(11:43):
There are specifickinds of sounds and chords
and melodic content that we all kind ofhave in our collective memory.
Some of those things go across cultures.
There's the pentatonic scale.
Create a melodythat's in pentatonic scale.
You can tell a story that actuallyis consistent throughout the world.
(12:03):
A global reach, hmm. Instantaneously.
It's primal. It's automatic.
It triggers our emotions and our instinctsbefore we even realize it.
And that's what really makes itsuch a powerful tool for grabbing
attentionand evoking an immediate response.
But over time, with maximum exposureand usage in the real world,
they come to encapsulate the essence ofthe brand in this little tiny sound bite.
(12:27):
Instantly recognizable,instantly memorable
and trigger a whole range of neuralassociations with that brand.
That was the end of the story.
So now we have a familiar brand storythat can touch a global community
and reach us within seconds,while also triggering a neurological
good vibe connection.
Pretty spectacularwhen you think about it.
(12:49):
But not all sound is good sound.
If you're not careful sound, just becomes noise.
It's important to follow the research.
When we test sounds using neural networkresearch methods,
we can quantify how good or bada sound really is.
Naturally occurring soundstend to generate more extreme responses
(13:09):
than any composedsounds do, or engineered sounds.
So what's the range between these goodand bad sound responses?
The strongest positive emotional responseis actually the laughter of a baby.
And the strongest negative responseis scream of pain.
And those are the extremes of the good badspectrum when you're composing sound.
(13:29):
Odds are, the emotional responsethat gets triggered will be somewhere
along that spectrum between a screamof pain on one hand and a baby's laughter.
On the other hand,just like with our visual logos,
we want to repeat these branded soundsand songs so that they can be memorized.
So beware of screams.
Repetition helps with customer recall.
(13:50):
We've been doing this for years.
Remember the alphabet song?
We'll come back to that too.
The important thing hereis to find a good sound
and find waysto repeat it in a non annoying way.
Because humans recall and associatethese sounds fast,
like in a second, much fasterthan what we see.
When a sound wave enters
(14:11):
our ears, it's convertedinto electrical signals.
These electrical signalstravel almost instantly
to the part of our brainthat's responsible for interpreting sound.
When we see something, light entersour eye and it's converted
into electrical signalsin much the same way.
But these signals have to go throughmultiple stages.
It typically takes about 30 to 40milliseconds longer than sound processing.
(14:35):
3 to 4 tenths of a second doesn'tsound like a long time,
but in neurological terms and brainprocessing terms, that's an eternity.
The quickest wayto get a consumer's attention
through sound is through mnemonics.
Also known as Sonic logos.
A Sonic logos is short,distinctive sound, or a series of notes
that really represents a brand. The motifthat runs through your sonic identity.
(14:58):
The visual logo is made up of a color,an image, a font. A sonic logo, similarly,
is made up of different sonic elements,so timber, pitch, interval, and so on.
When they're initially used, tryto reflect the desired brand architecture.
People begin to recognize itfrom repetition. A distinctive
(15:18):
sonic asset that does for your ear.
What a visual logo does for your eye.
That's Steve Keller, audioalchemist and sonic strategy
director for studio Resonate at SiriusXM media.
When you hear it, you think of the brand.
However, operating off of just one elementlike the Sonic logo
(15:40):
isn't enough because the beautyand difficulty of sound in music
is that its fleeting. Soundis something that doesn't exist, exists,
and then it's gone,just floats off into the air.
The logo needs to play into somethingbigger,
something branded, and brandingdoesn't happen in siloed spaces.
(16:00):
This takes us to the allencompassing branding element that we call
sonic branding.
There are a lot of feelingson the truest definition of Sonic
branding, so much so that I've never foundjust one definition.
So I asked my intervieweesfor their definitions and I found some
common threads.
Sonic branding is essentially using sound
(16:22):
in a very deliberateand strategic way to either reinforce
or build or extend a brand's identityto bring a brand top of mind.
Sonic brandingis the audio encapsulation of visual
branding, instead of in colorsand typefaces and logos.
It's done in music, sound and voice.
(16:43):
Sonic branding coversthe entirety of music and sound
that you would hear across a brand, bothbranded and on brand music, and sound.
The components, the elements,the way that those elements are used
in a smart way, really.
Strategy first to focus onany one element is actually to miss out
(17:03):
on the full range of benefitsthat sonic branding and sonic identity
can bring to your company.
Just all about creating a cohesiveand intentional sound or soundscape
or melody that reflects a brand'sessence and values.
I took this opportunity
to consolidate my guests definitionsinto one big, all inclusive one.
(17:24):
They since approvedand have given their blessing.
This one
crosses all the T's and dots the I's.
Sonic branding is the strategicand consistent use of on brand sound
that evokes emotion, enhancesrecognition, reflects brand attributes,
reinforces values, and shapes the overall
(17:45):
brand identity.
And for the final word.
Let's turn to Stew Redwine,head of creative at Oxford Road
and host of AD Infinitum,aka what you're listening to right now.
Sonic branding is simply the expanded
answer to the question can they recognizeyour brand with their eyes closed?
(18:06):
Let's say it's yes.
Then Sonic branding expounds on that. Yes.
How do they recognize you with their eyesclosed?
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
(18:27):
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
It's about committing to your branding.
Finding those sound attributesthat connect with your brand, owning them,
believing in them,and acting on them over and over again.
(18:47):
It's the same as with a visual logo.
Eventually you just have to commitand go for it.
Here's Steve's advice on the idealswhen creating that good sonic strategy.
It should be congruent.Memorable. Distinct.
It should be flexibleto adapt to different use cases.
It should be appealing.
It should be likable.
That needs to be unable,not just in the sense of you're owning the
(19:11):
sonic space, but in the sense of you'reowning the assets themselves.
You're owning the intellectual property,the copyrights of all of these.
And then ideally, you are consistent
in the applicationof those across multiple channels.
And then you think about how you canbring them to life
in experiences, and you codify them insome type of a style
(19:34):
guide that becomes part of your brandbook, again, reinforcing consistency.
Although sonic branding may be a seminew word, it is in no way new.
The concept of sonic brandinghas been around for a long, long time.
I think Roger wins for the strangest birthof sonic branding example.
Sex workersused to wear a certain type of sandal
(19:56):
that would make a certain type of sound,as they would walk along
the stone streets of ancient Greece.
That is probably the first ever recorded
intentional branding ofa, I guess, a line of work.
Joel mentioned battle cries.
Sometimes it was to strike fearinto the heart of your enemy.
(20:17):
When you think about horns that were blownat the beginning of a battle
or something,
that specific
sound might be ownedby a particular tribe.
It's a very ancient practice.
Historically,there are tribes or communities
that used certain songsor rhythms to identify themselves,
(20:40):
and that's more of the natural practiceof sonic branding.
And we've continued to see itused through history to brand everything
from goods and servicesto communities, political parties
and anything else that you can think ofthat you can associate a sound with.
Although all of these examples are goodand there is no right answer,
(21:03):
I have dubbed Dallas's as the winner
which he tells me he stole from Stew Redwine.
Your name, and it's happenedto billions of times.
It's a sound that labels you,that you learned really early,
that that sound means me.
And then we get into a little bitmore modern day ish.
The earliest examples of Sonic branding
(21:23):
were really in the 20sand 30s in the radio era.
So if we've been using sonic brandingfor so long, but not calling it that,
what did we call it?
Radio ads were really miniature art forms.
The birthplace of the jingle was radioadvertising of the 1920s.
We called it a jingle.
(21:43):
The jingle was Baby Sonic branding,and we loved it.
Intentionally designed to be catchyand memorable.
It's in service of promoting a brandor a product or service.
Usually it containsthe name of the brand in it.
You can recall it easily,or you can sing along to it easily,
so it can createkind of a lasting impression.
(22:05):
Repetitive,designed to get into your brain
and keep you singing it longafter you're not hearing it.
They were super effective in their time.
They sort of went out of stylefor a little while,
and now we're starting to see themcreep back in.
And although they may seeminterchangeable, it gets a little more
complicated.
Jingles were popularwhen commercials were very long,
(22:26):
60s even 30s where you had timeto develop a verse and a chorus
and now you can't go on and onand on with your music.
You have to find waysto be more telegraphic,
or to put it in the backgroundof something else you're saying.
When you think about the impactof the growth of TV in the 60s and 70s,
(22:47):
and then through the 80s,we started to see jingles
be transformed into much shorter formsonic logos.
I think there's more of a focusnow on strategically using that jingle,
or strategically thinkingabout what the brief might be,
or how writers are sentin a specific direction.
So I think it's a little more refinedand a little bit more on
(23:08):
that new era of deeper strategic thinking,looking at measurement.
Audience research,
which was not really donequite as extensively back in the heyday.
Jinglesbecame more than just cute and fluffy.
They startedtaking on a more strategic tone.
This is when things got interesting.
Brands were attributing soundsto their identity, and they were doing it
(23:30):
consistentlyfor decades and generations on end.
The Swiss Railway, has a chime sound
that is used to signal the arrivaland departure of a train.
This one apparently goes back to 1905.
There's also a sound of the Royal Mailin the UK
(23:53):
a four notesound around the same time in the 20s.
The MGM lion.
That is an auditory signature,
and it dates back to the earliest daysof film production.
They're still using itand it's instantly recognizable.
If you hear that roar.
You know that that's signalingthat a movie is about to start.
(24:13):
The NBC chimes, the dum dum dum.
It was functional, and it also camefrom what people had on hand.
And I think it was used
tremendously effectively and continuesto be tremendously effective
with NBC for years and years and years.Wherever there was something
that was meant to be sold or an ideaor a message that meant to be conveyed.
(24:34):
There were creative people
trying to make things to associatewith those things, whether it was a color,
whether it was a picture,whether it was a sound.
So there's probably something out therethat's older that just hasn't
been documented.
People started calling itby name in the 60s.
Back then, it was used to describebranding in a radio context,
and then it sort of disappeared again.
(24:55):
It comes back up again in the 90s.
Five distinct tones hit our ears in
1994, bringing Sonic branding mainstream.(Intel Sonic Logo)
Intel
Pentiumprocessor chip created a Sonic logo.
Definitely like a chapter in the Sonicbranding book.
(25:18):
And everyone who had a TV in the 90s
heard it about ten times a day,possibly more.
It was pretty much the first big mnemonic.That’s Walter Werzowa.
Owner and founder of Musikvergnuegen and Health Tunes.
He also just happened to write.(Intel Sonic Logo)
Intel was trying to find
(25:40):
a way to describe a productthat wasn't something you could see,
smell, hear, touch. You can't saywhat Intel is in three seconds.
They used a sound that kind of soundedlike the inside of a computer.
As you could imagine, it,I knew I needed Intel inside,
even though I had no idea what a processorchip was, did, or looked like.
(26:04):
But music told me it was importantand so I had to have it.
Intel created - a tangible impressionof their very intangible product.
So how did such a small hint of musicmake its way into the corporate zeitgeist
and pop culture?
The task was we need some music for Intel.
(26:24):
It's a very short piece of music,and I've never thought of
writing a 32nd piece of music before.
And I realized you can't even saya smart sentence in that brief time.
And I tried to whistle melodiesand think of melodies.
Everything sounded forcedand not complete.
And I thought, this is just impossible.
(26:45):
I looked again at the boardand it had the tagline Intel inside.
Clearly in front of me.
And so I thought, if this was a song,it would be four notes, because it's
engineers, it has to be almostin a Germanic-like, orderly mathematical ...
very straight, organized, even, symmetric.
(27:08):
They wanted to have the musicas powerful positive as possible,
but with no aspect of cultural emotions.
And so I thought,
The fourth and the fifthis probably the most powerful.
Open two intervals we needed.
It was not really composed.
It was constructed.
And I think that's the strong ideabehind it, that you construct those things
(27:32):
and don't compose them. I was flabbergastedthat somebody needs that little music.
I was astonished how difficult it was.
I was super surprised I worked for three months on the sound.
I was lucky to find a methodologyto make it work, but a point where
everybody could recognize it, whistle
(27:55):
it and every two seconds it ran somewhere.
Then I thought,oh my God, this is impactful.
This is huge.
All of a sudden,a computer chip exploded into pop culture.
Those five notes made a comfy,
cozy home in the back of our brainsto be recalled at any moment.
Then we kind of forgot again.
90s advertising music wasn't exactlyfocused on long term brand identity.
(28:19):
They were in the moment.
Strategic use of sound wasn'treally as part of building a brand asset.
I think it was moreabout supporting a story in a commercial.
Although marketers may not have beenthinking too hard on sound strategy,
they did realize that music was catchywhen it was unique.
Marketers were playing around with brightneon colors that have no business
(28:42):
being together.
Neon pink and neon yellow, and shapesthat were just very overt.
And that also extended into music.
People were picking a lot of classic rock.
Everybody was using borrowed interest.
Instead of building your interest
in that brand itselfand what made that brand distinctive?
Everything was just like radicaland over-the-top
(29:04):
and just loud and lots of yellingand lots of distorted guitars
or synthesizers and just
anything that would just like, flashsonically to get your attention.
It was all very distinctly 90s, but notnecessarily distinct brand by brand.
The focus was on fastand loud and energetic.
It's probably why we now have an attentionspan shorter than a goldfish.
(29:26):
That microsecond attention span
started happeningsignificantly in the 90s.
How can we orchestrate as much attentiongrabbing things second by second
during an entire 30 minute program,plus the advertisements?
I think the 90s were the early equivalentto thumbing very bright.
TikTok videos.
Sonic branding has gone through a lot ofevolutions evolved from the jingle to now
(29:51):
the Twitch economy, where attention spansare sub three seconds.
All of us have divided attentionthese days.
It's called continuous partial attention,and it was identified
by Linda Stonewhen she was working at Microsoft.
Our continuous partial attentionis just our reality now.
Our devices and technologiesare just going to distract us more
(30:12):
and more as the tech gets coolerand better.
But all is not lost.
This is actually great timingto demonstrate the power of sound.
Our sub three second attention spansare exactly where Sonic branding wins.
We don't need to combat our shortattention span.
Remember what we learned abouthow fast and efficient sound is?
We need to find our brand soundand communicate with it.
(30:35):
Why borrow a soundwhen you can make your very own?
Add something to this brand new worldof the Fast and Furious.
What happenedwhen Sonic branding appeared on the scene
was that suddenlyyou weren't thinking about something
that I can borrow from the culture,but what can I add to the culture?
Your brand and its best self.
And then a moment of accidentalsheer clarity.
(30:58):
My name is Jim Reekes.
I'm pretty wellknown for a couple of sounds.
One in particular is.(Apple Startup Sound)
And my camera.(Apple Screenshot click)
It's currentlythe sound of the Mac doing a screen shot.
It's also the sound on your iPhonewhen you take a photo.
Jim was the senior software architectat Apple back in the mid 90s.
(31:19):
I was pretty much the only person writingthe software for the audio at the time,
and I took it upon myselfto get rid of the startup sound.
I hated it.
As a musician, Jim saw a real problemwith the existing sound.
The previous engineer who designed itmathematically
created a perfect set of intervalsbased upon tri tones.
(31:41):
Literally, the most dissonant soundthat you could think of.
There was a cartoon calledQuickdraw McGraw, and he had an alter ego
called El Kabong, and he would hit youon the head with a guitar.
That sounded like all the stringsaround a tune.
And the Mac startup sound at that time was
an El Kabong sound.
(32:04):
I just had to replace it,and I set about designing a sound
that sounded like the Apple brand to me.
I had no input from anyone, and thenit got released. And the rest is history.
That sound is a great exampleof how you can put
character and identity into a productand a brand.
Now we are getting somewhere.
(32:24):
This was beyond catchy and unique.
A brand is the promise of your benefits.
It's what I think, it's what I feel.
It's what I have in my mind.
Even without ever usingor even experiencing your product.
It's the promise of your benefits.
You can help to convey that promisewith colors,
(32:44):
fonts, logos, and sound. Sonic branding,
iconic and equitable.
Jim shared his experience with friends.After I created the Startup Sound.
I got to meet one of my greatinspirations, Brian Eno.
One of the things that he isgreatly responsible for
is establishing ambient music.
(33:04):
We had a long conversationand I was describing to him
how I had just did a composition
that was
very difficult exercise of conveying
an emotional response within two seconds.
He thought it was a very interestingchallenge.
(33:25):
Microsoftfinds him and hires him to compose the windows
95 startup sound.(Windows Startup Sound)
After you buy something, sound continuesto play
a critical role in shaping your ongoingrelationship with that product.
That startup sound
is purposefully designed to reinforcethe feeling of having made a good choice.
(33:45):
Using music
to influence preference and choicewas nothing new to one specific industry.
They've been positioning their auditory
ROI safelyin the back of our minds for decades.
We all know them,and just like the Intel chip,
we never think about themtill we hear their sound.
Any guesses?
(34:05):
When you need insurance,you hear that jingle?
That's right. It's the insurance jingle.
They seemed to learn early on the powerto produce some positive feelings,
to connect with culture, and to make
their brands be preferred by listeners.
And that'swhy 20,000Hz did a whole episode about it.
(34:26):
Produced by yours truly.
Most insurance commercials
go out of their way to give youa feeling of comfort and support.
Think about the sloganslike a good neighbor.
State farm is there.
Nationwide is on your side.
Are you in good hands?
When you watch these ads,you're supposed to forget
about copays and deductibles and premiums.
(34:50):
Instead,you're supposed to feel like choosing this
company means they're personally goingto have your back.
One way to dothat is through a reassuring jingle.
Another is through a warm,friendly mascot.
Whether it's the Geico gecko, Flofrom Progressive or Jake from State Farm,
because this is such a nontangible service, personalization helps.
(35:13):
So bringing a human or even a duck (”Aflac”)
into the picture can helpit become more concrete and tangible.
When jingles like the
insurance jingle are done right,they are magic.
(Insurance Jingle Montage)
(35:33):
(Insurance Jingle Montage)And last for a long period of time.
But this only happens when you fullyunderstand the point and the purpose.
Sonic strategy.
For me, that's blending sound science
and soundart to help us make sound decisions.
This is what Steve calls audio alchemy.
In attempting to define what sonicidentity was or a sonic strategy,
(35:55):
I looked at this idea of the importanceof blending science and art.
This is not something that we have toguess at.
There are a lot of resourcesat our disposal to figure out
this perfect blend to effectivelyemotionalize
the sound. Cognitive,and auditory sciences.
Cross-modalism, psychophysics.
(36:17):
Psychoacoustics really can help us understand
how to combinesonic building blocks in ways
that can more accurately target emotionsthat we're trying to evoke.
Make things a little easier to rememberand associate.
It’s understanding the physiologyand how we're wired,
(36:39):
and how we can usesound to hack our other senses.
All of this extra work is worth it.
Music that matters
makes money.
But this doesn't happen all by accident.
Sonic KPIs are realand measurable. A sonic
KPI is a way that you're looking atmeasuring the impact of your
(37:01):
choices of sounds and how you use themon brand perception and behavior.
So when I think of sonic KPIs, Iusually think of them in three categories.
Number one, consumer perception
that could be related to identityand emotional connection,
the salience or the recall of the brand.
(37:23):
That's all related to perception.
Number two behavior lingeringtime in a retail environment.
How fast or how slowyou want consumers to move. Sales
and how your choice of soundor how you're using it in advertising
or in the marketplace could produce salesor engagement with the brand.
(37:46):
And another way, maybe looking forinformation with the brand, maybe it's
tied into a particular opportunityto click on a link
that served up with digital auditorypieces of advertising.
Number three equity.
Here I think of two thingsbrand equity as a whole.
And is your use of sound actually helping
(38:08):
to build into the brand equity?
But there's also KPIs for equity
that could be related to the sonic assetsthemselves.
Sonic logo that you can trademarkand copyright, or a brand anthem,
or particular pieces of sound designthat may be proprietary.
(38:29):
The more you use those,the more you build equity
that can be collateralized in other ways.
Think of a brand, thinks about KPIsin each of these areas, and thinks about
how is my choice of this voiceover,or this piece of music,
or this sound design, or this audiochannel going to serve these KPIs
(38:50):
that I have that probably ladderinto larger KPIs for the brand overall.
It really does have an impact.
Using sonic elements again and againteaches the consumer to remember you
through sound.
Learning this way is not new to us.
Recognition through repetition has beenhappening since we were 2 or 3 years old.
Give or take a few months.
Like the alphabet song, when you have kidsand you would not teach them
(39:16):
the alphabet by saying just rememberA, B, C, d, it wouldn't work.
But if you sing the song to them,they have it in five minutes.
This same repetition workswhen it comes to brand recognition.
The sound is much more than a marketingtool.
Pre-purchase.
It's that red thread
that runs through the entire customerjourney from that first impression.
(39:36):
When we become aware of a product to longafter we've purchased and used a product.
It brings back these memories.
The physiology is triggered again.
We have the association with the brand.
The more we hear it, the more familiarwe get to,
the more familiar we are with something,the more we tend to like it.
And that just becomesthis loop that reinforces these memories.
(39:58):
Music and sound and voicereally powerful memory triggers.
With a little bit of foresightand the right creators on board,
brands could use soundas part of their marketing toolkit.
It would be building blocksfor all their audio touchpoints.
And believe me, there are nowa lot of touchpoints. Branded audio cues
in customer service, such as the musicor sounds that play when you're on hold.
(40:21):
The unique notificationsounds that apps make.
Even somethingas simple as a distinctive sound
when you get a message from the brand,an order confirmation, a delivery update,
you've got mail.
A brand might be involvedin creating products,
hold music,corporate meetings, sponsorships.
It might show up in a waythat would not be expected.
There's digital content,social media, and podcasts.
(40:42):
Things like TikTok
And now it's kind of a whole new realmwhere branded music is showing up
and the list goes on and on and on.
All of these sounds reducefrustration, make interactions
(41:02):
seem more seamless, more enjoyable,and essentially enhance brand loyalty.
These things create a sense of continuityand connectedness.
A red thread of continuity that runsthrough your entire customer journey
means familiarity,a sense of welcomed predictability.
Jim. Use this idea of familiaritywhen he landed on the camera.
(41:22):
Click sound for Apple.
At the time,digital cameras were just coming about it.
They were using like beeps and buzzes andclicks and all of these little melodies
because the digital camera made no sound,which is why I very oppositely
did something I used what was expected,which was like the most unexpected thing.
That familiarity is compoundedwhen you own that sound.
(41:44):
It gives you that much more controland ability to transmit brand intent
through a sound.
You can't leave anything out of yourquiver a triggered moment in a Sonic logo.
I think it's an opportunity
that many people overlookas being able to recognize and own it.
That's Lisa DiStefano, former VP of brandmarketing and creative at Home Depot.
(42:06):
They turned that red thread orange.
You might recognize this.
It's the orange song.(The Orange Song)
Using borrowed interest exclusivelymakes your music message less vivid.
And it takes away your ability to play.
When people use license music, oftenpeople have another reference.
That's why people use it.
It gives you a feeling of connectivityto a certain moment, a memory.
(42:28):
We created that and that energy.
And now we get to riff on our own workand own it and be able to play with it
and manipulate it, you know, engagewith it and leverage it there.
Their Sonic anthem.
Which is gritty.
It's powerful.
It feels like it's moving you forward.
That's Chelsea Campbell, groupcreative director at Sirius XM.
(42:48):
That song makes me feel like getting stuffdone.
It feels like a ballad that you could work
to,that you could accomplish something to.
It's not just that it's catchyand on brand, it's that they owned it
literally and committedto it's congruency.
Commitment is as important,
if not more importantthan the individual assets themselves.
(43:09):
Is the brand's commitmentto using them over time, but
deploying them across multiplemarketing channels and reinforcing
these elements of the brand through TV,through audio advertising, through social.
That's how you create a strongbrand sonic ecosystem.
One brand working hard on building uptheir sonic ecosystem is Mastercard. (Mastercard sonic branding)
(43:45):
Its branded sounds are used in
both digital and physical storesto help improve the customer experience.
They have led the way in making peoplethink of their brands
more multi-sensory than just visual.
And the biggest sense that they leveragedwas Sonic
at the paymentterminals, their commercials.
They're reproducing it in different typesof music from different countries.
(44:10):
Most recently,they've even developed a haptic logo
for customers to feelwhile making purchases on their phones.
The strength of that identityis the consistency
that's the hero, and that'swhat makes it work.
CMO Raja.
Rajamanahar has been a huge supporterof sonic branding and sensory marketing
over the last few years.
Raja and the Mastercard teameven released an album with tracks
(44:34):
all inspired by its sonic identity.
(Mastercard Album)
Ten artists from all over the worldintegrated the Mastercard Sonic logo
into their custom built songsinspired by the sound.
This album demonstrates the vibrancyof sound branding usage, while
also supporting up and coming artistsfrom all different cultures and countries.
(44:56):
McDonald's is another great exampleof branded sound.
Their sonic identity has been building uptheir brand equity for decades
(I’m Lovin’ It sonic logo)
Trojan horse type of marketing,where they got
Justin Timberlaketo make a whole song called I'm Lovin’ It.
After JT fans fully embracedthe song as his the truth was revealed.
(45:20):
Surprise!
I'm Lovin’ It was actually McDonald's in disguise
and it's been around for over 20 years.
It is constantly reinventingand adapting itself.
You could put it inany sort of instrumentation or voice.
I believe.
Even just any language to sayI'm Lovin’ It
could be adaptableinto virtually any country.
(45:40):
And I think that's brilliant.
It remains relevant and onbrand to Mickey D's all over the world.
I think it's one of the gold standards.
You know, it came from a jingle inand of itself was really a good solution.
But if people had just kept bangingthat exact version over and over
and over again,it would have gotten tired after a while.
But I think the reinvention of it
(46:01):
that's consistent with the particularmessaging or the particular way
that a communication is being broughtforward, just the fact that it's done
in so many different ways,and each one of them sort of
has some kind of an elementof the brand personality of McDonald's.
I think that reallymakes it a complete home run
(Montage of I’m Lovin’ It versioning)
(46:21):
(Montage of I’m Lovin’ It versioning)but everything has room for improvement.
The one downsideis it really only works in advertising.
There are so many others now,and I think more as we moved into digital
and products and activations,the less that becomes sort of relevant
in those other touchpoints.McDonald's might be better off
(46:41):
if they had one soundthat always came home to
and then let everybody play oneconsistent, recognizable element.
But they have a wonderful,welcoming, casual, friendly
sound that, as far as a melody, worksvery well for them.
If you want a fuller story,check out the 20,000Hz Podcast episode.
I'm Lovin’ It! Great breakdown.
(47:04):
Another company using Sonicbranding in a clever way is Coca-Cola.
They don't have a Sonic logo per se.
At least not one that they've stuck with,but they do have a strong branded sound.
Their highly immersive
sensorial experiences are supportedby their highly strategic sound design.
(47:26):
I think they do a magnificent jobof making the sensory
aspects of their brandcome to life through sound.
When you see a Coke ad, you hear it too.
They have the openingof their bottle sound
that makes you feel the refreshment,and you can hear the pouring liquid.
You can hear the bubbles, just like theirvisual imagery where it's so sensory.
(47:50):
They're always emphasizingthe sensual aspect of their brand.
They do it very welland with great discipline through sound.
That process of classical conditioning,where the Coke brand always appeared
in advertising
associated with the sound, createsa familiarity of the two together.
The visual logo, visual identity,and sonic identity.
(48:10):
Do all these sounds sound differentthan a Pepsi or a Dr. Pepper?
Nope.
In fact, that sound you heardis actually a Shasta Cola I recorded. Tricked you!
But it doesn't matter.
Coca Cola attributedthat sound to its brand
first. The sound of a cap coming offand the soda fizzing
is not unique to Coke,but they own it because of the heft
(48:33):
that they've put into the marketplaceto associate their brand with that sound.
Coca Cola embracesthe senses to the nth degree.
Even though a lot of creativityis happening,
no brand that I know of has fully exploredevery audio touchpoint
and every opportunity for branded sound,yet. Not too surprising since
new technology and social media platformsare hitting the market constantly.
(48:59):
New forms of sound in marketing
and branding are being inventedand defined every single day.
There is an increase in engagementwith Sonic media in general.
Podcasts have exploded.
Streaming radio has changedlistening behavior and also the use
of smart assistants and voiceactivated technologies.
(49:20):
We are moving forward fastwhen it comes to voice tech.
Voice AI in particular.
I know that AI raisesall sorts of ethical questions
and we'll get back to thatin a little bit.
But for now, let's focus on how incredible
of an opportunitythis is from a creative standpoint.
It's amazing because it just meansthat you'll be able to
(49:41):
or you can now generativelycreate voices on the fly.
That sounds basically natural.
On the less controversial side of things.
We have voice assistants.
And boy, did we get used to that fast.
It's not all about screens anymore.
It's inevitable that we start moving awayfrom a society that's completely glued
to screens everywhereand putting screens in everything.
(50:04):
I think that voice technologymay have been a big factor.
People could talk to devicesand they would say, tell me the news.
Tell me the weather.
And then they would still keep talkingand they'd say,
give me some music or put on WBEZ.
There was podcasts becoming so popular.
(50:25):
Audio is very good at getting attention.
Much better than all the thingsthat are trying to get into your eyes.
Brands are exploring the possibilitieswithin their smaller ecosystems as well.
Some brands have developed exclusive
sound experiences for customers,for loyal customers, for high value
customers, things like audio contentthat's only available after purchase.
(50:47):
Balenciaga has created a songthat actually is able to be unlocked
and downloaded
only based on a QR tag on their shirt,paired with one on the receipt.
These are sounds that are focusedon deepening that emotional bond
and making you feellike you're part of a community.
It cuts to the core
of the human experience a sense of strong,positive emotion and belonging.
(51:07):
This is just a new takeon theater of the mind.
We can use theater of the mindto paint pictures
in people's minds,to transport listeners to faraway places.
The fact that no one hasthis powerful audio first and audio
only social figured out yetshould be exciting and liberating.
Your brand could come up with somethingcompletely new
(51:28):
and wildly differentthat no one else has ever heard.
And you could be the first one to do it.
Maybe audio only and social audiosounds too new or big.
Let's step back for a minuteand think about mascots and spokespersons.
Have you considered your brand voiceliteral brand voice yet?
It could be as simpleas casting the right personality.
(51:51):
Think of Flo from progressive.
Progressive was the first to offer onlinequoting or Jake from State Farm
like a good neighbor. State Farm is there.
These actors voices are now so synonymouswith the brand
that your brain automatically goes therewhen you hear them.
Sometimes it's the way the brand's nameis spoken or the CTA is delivered.
The rhythm and inflection, like “oh oh
(52:14):
O’Reilley’s” or “1-877 Kars for kids”.
As we've discussed, multi-sensoryexperiences are a big deal.
We don't experience thingsone sense at a time.
You can hear a sound from behind you,or from beneath you, or from above you.
You don't have to be looking at it.
It's very easy to take inwhen your attention is divided.
(52:37):
That holds truefor both personal and brand experiences.
We can shut our eyes,but we can't close our ears.
We're always reacting to the soundsthat are going on around us,
even if we've shut outother senses in the process.
I'm about to use a big word.
Stay with me. Psycho acoustics.
This is the study of how sound affects uswithin our environment.
(53:00):
Sound design impactsour perception of the world
and the environment as we moveand hear sounds around us.
We can use psycho acousticsto impact our listeners perception.
Maybe your industry or brand isn'tso sensory.
Maybe you can't incorporateevery single sense, every single time,
but it doesn't meanconsidering them isn't relevant.
(53:20):
We are constantly multi-sensory beings.
We can't switch off most of our sensesmost of the time.
We're always looking at somethingor hearing something.
We're always processing these thingsconstantly and singling
those out as like individualthings is something that we do
when we talk about themand we write about them,
but we experience thesethings all at the same time.
(53:45):
When it comes tobuilding our sonic identity specifically,
there are two basic elementsto pay special attention to.
Congruency and consistencyare the two basic elements
of any sonic branding approach.
How these assets are used.
How they're combined, and how we thinkabout the consistent use of them over
(54:06):
time.
The more congruent your sound iswith other parts of your brand
and your branding,the more it will amplify that experience.
The other piece is the consistency.
You can have some congruent choices,but if you're not consistent
with those choicesin all the places on the consumer journey,
(54:26):
then you're losing impactof actually building a brand.
It may just be a collection of soundsthat maybe they fit together sonically,
but without that consistency,
it's not going to buildthose memory devices that you need.
So that's a lot of stuff. Let's recap.
We've learned
(54:47):
Sonic branding is beyondjust catchy and fun.
It's meaningful and incredibly functional.
When we're talking about sonic identity,
it's more than justa compositional exercise.
It's more than just sound design.
It's powerful, memorable,and incredibly persuasive.
It's versatile, unending,and constantly being reinvented.
(55:09):
It's a must have in a brand's toolkit.
So with all this possibility,why hasn't Sonic branding caught on?
Personally, I believethat the biggest reason is education.
We've been staring
at the standard visual branding,failing to notice anything else.
But when we do take the time to noticesound.
(55:29):
We realize
that it's been on the brand's journeythe whole time.
Sound is really an integralpart of the entire customer
journey, every step of the journeyinfluencing how people perceive,
feel about and interactwith a brand from start to finish.
You don't have to be a sound designeror musician or a neuroscientist
to understand that sound matters.
(55:51):
The tone of voice in a customer serviceagent - the sound of the product
itself, the ambient music that's playingduring your shopping experience,
whether the shopping experienceis in a physical store or even online,
the sounds that the app makeswhen you go to pay for a product,
all of those sounds have an impacton how you feel about the transaction
(56:12):
that you're undergoing,whether it's shopping or buying,
and how you feel about the brandor the product that you're shopping for
or that you happen to be buying.
When people begin to hear and recognizeand trust
the sound, it's adding to the brand valuethat you have in the marketplace.
(56:32):
That was the end of the story.
We now have centuries of case studiesand research to draw from, incredible
technologies to make our branded soundsas unique or familiar as we want,
and more platforms to utilizethan we know what to do with.
If there was only one thing to drawfrom this episode,
it is this- Sounddone right is a brand's best friend.
(56:54):
Like the brand sayingwelcome to the experience
every single time you use it.
That is essentially the holy grailof marketing and product experience
these days.
Sound done wrong.
Is the brand's worst nightmare.
Thank you to RogerSho Gehrmann, Dallas Taylor, Colleen Fahey,
Joe Sauer, Joel Beckerman,Steve Keller, Walter Werzowa,
(57:18):
Jim Reekes, Lisa DiStefano,and Chelsea Campbell for helping
tell the story in the most completeway possible. And a ton of thanks to Jeanna
Isham for the hours and hoursof scripting, interviewing, and editing.
And thank you to Zach Hahn,mixer and sound designer of AD Infinitum,
for working with Jeanna and myselfin putting this all together.
(57:40):
And of course, thank you to our producers,Ezra Fox and Caitlin Spring,
without whomwe would not have ad infinitum.
And check out Jeanna Isham’s other work.
Her podcast, Sound in Marketingis fantastic and there are not a ton
of resources out there when it comes tohow does sonic branding work?
How does sound in marketing work?
So check out her podcastSound In Marketing.
(58:01):
Thanks again.
Jeanna Isham, and to all ye mighty chiefaudio officers out there.
In the words of Daniel M Jackson,
from the preface to his bookSonic Branding, which I highly recommend.
Quote I hope you enjoy learning about thisnew and exciting discipline,
and that you reward the worldwith more and more better Sonic branding.
(58:24):
For years to come.
I couldn't agree more.
And rememberto have fun making the ads work.
I hope you're enjoying the show.
Be sure
to subscribe to the Sound In Marketingmonthly newsletter for episode releases.
Sonic branding resources.
News, and new swag.
Big thanks to Stew Redwine, Oxford Roadand Ad Infinitum for reaching out
(58:47):
and giving me the chanceto write about something that I love.
Let's do it again sometime, shall we?
All links will be provided in the shownotes.
Let's make this world of soundmore intriguing, more unique, and
more and more on brand.
Welcome to the Sound in Marketing podcast.
The Sound In Marketing podcastexplores and defines sound on purpose
in marketing and in advertising.
I'm your host Jeanna Isham, owner
and founder of Dreamr Productionsand Sound in Marketing Learning.
I create, consult and educate brandson the power
of sound in marketing.
(00:26):
As we close out season eight, sonic
branding,case studies, context and clarity.
I felt it appropriate
to encore an episode of theAD Infinitum podcast that I produced.
Stew Redwine, the executivecreative director at Oxford Road
and host of AD Infinitum,brought me in to produce this episode.
If you hadn't already discoveredor clicked on any of my show
(00:46):
notes mentioning it,
here is your chance to witnessor listen to some great content.
This episode is filled with special guestinterviews like the Intel Guy. (Intel sonic logo)
And the Apple Startup sound guy.(Apple Startup Sound)
As well as amazing informationyou can't get elsewhere.
(01:09):
It's a crash course in sonic branding,history and future tells.
It's my magnum opus, as one listenercalled it. In the race for brand attention.
Sound on purpose makes all the difference.
As heard in the Transaction Toneepisode, Sound Done Right (The Transaction Tone episode POS sound)
is a brand's best friend.
Sound done wrong(generic POS sound)
(01:30):
is a brand's worst nightmare.
So sit back, relaxand enjoy the state of sonic branding.
Take it away.
Stew. This is Ad Infinitum.
(01:58):
AD infinitum
is the award winning podcastsolely focused on audio ads.
The creatives who make them enter
the latest thinking that informs themhow the space is evolving.
And my favorite parta roundup of recent audio ads with analysis
by yours truly, Stew Redwineand each episode's guest.
But for the final episode of seasontwo of AD Infinitum.
(02:18):
We have a special treat in store for allYe Mighty Chief Audio officers.
Today, we're diving deep into somethingthat's been dramatically undervalued
in advertising pretty much for all time,which is sonic branding.
Only 16% of advertising is rememberedand correctly attributed.
That's across the board.But here's where it gets interesting.
(02:40):
Sonic brand cues deliver 7 to 8 times
betterbranded attention than ads without them.
That's a massive increase inwhat is a problematic space
that only 16% of advertising is rememberedand correctly attributed.
There is a incredible powerwhen it comes to sonic branding
(03:00):
and it's not just another asset, it'snot just something else to do.
It's not an afterthought,
because sound is processed in exactlythe same part of our brains as emotion
and memory.
Long story short, when we hear, we feeland we remember, and the numbers back
this up, 64% of listeners
feel a stronger pull to brandswith a cohesive sonic identity.
And we've seen here at Oxford Road 13%higher response rates for shows running
(03:22):
Sonic branding, and it jumps up to 30%when brands commit to heavy Sonic
branding versus Light or None.
Our sense of hearingand the way that Sonic branding interacts
with it, deliversfame fluency and feeling in reverse order.
The brand makes me feel good.The sounds make me feel good.
The brand is fluent,I understand it, I understand
it's the brandthat's communicating with me and fame.
(03:44):
It comes easily to mindand sound is a shortcut to all of that.
One fortune 100 company called Sonicbranding the most leveraged item
on their balance sheet.
That came from the AD Infinitum episode,where we featured Joel Beckerman
from Made Music talking aboutbranding with your eyes closed,
which is what really began, in a sense,the journey towards this episode.
(04:07):
Where to really unpack this?
We've brought together nine experts.
Nine is a good number.
You've got the nine writers of the Nazgulor the nine members of the Wu-Tang clan.
Herewe've got nine sonic branding experts,
including Jeanna Isham, who we workedwith to produce this episode.
From the writing to the interviewsand putting together the initial edit
(04:31):
Jeanna Isham of Dreamr Productions andthe host of Sound In marketing podcast.
Check it out.
Then we have RogerSho Gerhmann, Dallas Taylor, Colleen Fahey,
Joe Sauer, Joel Beckerman,Steve Keller, Walter Werzowa,
Jim Reekes,Lisa De Stefano, and Chelsea Campbell.
You're going to hear from them
throughout the episodeas we explore the state of Sonic branding.
(04:55):
Enjoythis special episode of AD Infinitum.
Take it away Jeanna Isham, owner and founderof Dreamr Productions and Sound
in Marketing Learning and host of Soundin Marketing and My Friend.
Enjoy. You can read along with mein your book.
You will know it is time to turn the page.
When you hear the chimes ring like this.
(05:16):
Sound
and branding go togetherlike a wink and a smile.
It's been a part of marketing
for hundreds of yearsand global culture for thousands.
We just haven't been paying very closeattention.
Before the days of TV commercials, radioand print ads, marketing happened
by speaking. Modern mediaand the printing press weren't around yet.
And the average person couldn't read.
(05:37):
So they shouted or saying what
they were sellingor telling the world about.
As early as the song dynasty,there were records of peddlers
in Peking using distinctive callsand songs to notify people
that they were coming down the road.
Different peddlers sold different things,so these calls told the people
if they even needed to step outsidetheir door.
(05:57):
This was a big deal as the streetsof Peking were a tangled mess back then.
Just walking to the nearby7-Eleven was not so easy to do.
Flash forward to modern days.
These distinctive calls still exist.
Roger Sho Gehrmann, VP of integrated
partnerships at SongTradr, remembersa similar story from his childhood
(06:18):
in Tokyo.
The sound of street vendorsthat would go past the house.
Either they were selling these roastedsweet potatoes, or they were selling
sweets like mochi,
and they'd be kind of saying the productout loud as they walk down the street.
If you think about it,have you had a similar experience?
What about this one?(ice cream truck song)
(06:38):
One could saythis would be an example of a sonic logo.
A sonic logo is usually something
that is shortmaximum up to a couple of seconds long.
Very distinctive.
It could take the form of a melodyor a sound effect,
or a spoken word or phrase,but we'll come back to that.
When you hear these calls, you instantly
(06:59):
know where you are, what the message is,and whether or not you are interested.
Sonic logos like these way back when.
Examples and Sonicbranding in general is one of the oldest
and most appreciated formsof storytelling.
Think of bird calls andanimal sounds for a minute.
Even there, you've got a story.
As David Attenborough says in the Netflixdocumentary Secret World of Sound.
(07:21):
For some animals, soundis the key to their survival.
They warn when there's a predator close,they tell their friends there's food
they make,come hither sounds and back up sounds.
The most dangerous sound in the wild.
Is no sound at all.
Sound is one of those thingsthat keeps you mindful and present,
(07:44):
and it reveals itself in every passingmicrosecond.
And that's a really powerful thing.
That's Dallas Taylor, host of the 20,000Hz
podcast and creative director at DefactoSound.
Things come alive when sound is addedand everything becomes much more vivid.
It almost feels like the picturehas been colored just by adding sound.
(08:07):
From a storytelling standpoint, thatcertainly happens just by adding in sound.
It brings personality and characterto this visual icon
that then representsthis whole entity behind it.
It can help heighten emotions,guide people
to understanding what the story's aboutand how they should feel about it.
That's Colleen Fahey, U.S.
(08:29):
managing director at SixièmeSon and coauthor of the book
Audio Branding Using Sound to BuildYour Brand.
You have something about to happen, andyou can build anticipation with the sound.
Then something scary happens and suddenly
you can make it more stressfuland a little bit more dissonant.
And then a solution arrives,and then suddenly
(08:51):
there is a glorious moment of success.
Sound can amplify,especially music can amplify
and guide your feelingsaround all the parts of storytelling
and make it much more satisfyingand much more emotionally complete.
If we are going to sell anything,we have to tell a story.
(09:11):
But not just any story, a branded story.
Stories are how we build relationshipsand trust
with a thing like products and businesses.
Sound stories help us to remain presentin what's happening right there
in that moment alone.
Storytelling through the voiceis something that our brains love.
(09:32):
Somethingthat you want to lean into biologically.
Why is it that soundstories are so delicious for our brains?
And why is it so important to incorporatethem into the customer's brand journey?
For this, I went to Joe Sauer,a quantitative researcher
focusing on the impact emotionshave on consumers preferences and choices.
(09:53):
Think
about how you became awareof a brand in the first place.
Odds are soundwas accompanied with that awareness.
You either saw an ad for it
that included a sonic logo,or a voiceover, or some catchy music
or word of mouth from a friendor family member or a colleague.
This isn't by accident.
At least a few marketers out theremake these sounds on purpose.
(10:15):
As we'll get into later.
Although the cat isn'tcompletely out of the bag yet,
branded sound has been foundto be specifically impactful
when it comesto getting into the consumer's brain fast.
And here's why.
Our brains are essentially lazy.
They like to avoid working.
As a survival mechanism,the more brain power or brain processing
(10:36):
I can conserve for higher order processes,the more likely I am to survive.
And so our brains use thingslike mnemonics and hints and heuristics
to draw conclusions.
Over time, that sound becomes familiar,which is when it really kicks
your brain into gear.
When something is very,very familiar to us, it tends to generate
a stronger emotional responsethan exactly the same sound.
(11:00):
The first time I heard itwhen it was unfamiliar.
Now you have a familiar brand story,a double whammy of brand equity.
It's certainly one of the wonders of musicand sound to be able to create stories.
That's JoelBeckerman, CEO and founder of Made Music.
How do you get a story across in 2.5
seconds or three seconds,or at most 3.5 seconds?
(11:22):
Good question.
If you look at Bach or Beethoven,there were certain examples of things
that they would do over and over again.
A lot of it was about tension and release.
If you feel a certain set of tensionand then a release from that, where
you're no longer feeling the tension.
That's a story.
It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
You can also talkabout the colors of the sounds.
(11:43):
There are specifickinds of sounds and chords
and melodic content that we all kind ofhave in our collective memory.
Some of those things go across cultures.
There's the pentatonic scale.
Create a melodythat's in pentatonic scale.
You can tell a story that actuallyis consistent throughout the world.
(12:03):
A global reach, hmm. Instantaneously.
It's primal. It's automatic.
It triggers our emotions and our instinctsbefore we even realize it.
And that's what really makes itsuch a powerful tool for grabbing
attentionand evoking an immediate response.
But over time, with maximum exposureand usage in the real world,
they come to encapsulate the essence ofthe brand in this little tiny sound bite.
(12:27):
Instantly recognizable,instantly memorable
and trigger a whole range of neuralassociations with that brand.
That was the end of the story.
So now we have a familiar brand storythat can touch a global community
and reach us within seconds,while also triggering a neurological
good vibe connection.
Pretty spectacularwhen you think about it.
(12:49):
But not all sound is good sound.
If you're not careful sound, just becomes noise.
It's important to follow the research.
When we test sounds using neural networkresearch methods,
we can quantify how good or bada sound really is.
Naturally occurring soundstend to generate more extreme responses
(13:09):
than any composedsounds do, or engineered sounds.
So what's the range between these goodand bad sound responses?
The strongest positive emotional responseis actually the laughter of a baby.
And the strongest negative responseis scream of pain.
And those are the extremes of the good badspectrum when you're composing sound.
(13:29):
Odds are, the emotional responsethat gets triggered will be somewhere
along that spectrum between a screamof pain on one hand and a baby's laughter.
On the other hand,just like with our visual logos,
we want to repeat these branded soundsand songs so that they can be memorized.
So beware of screams.
Repetition helps with customer recall.
(13:50):
We've been doing this for years.
Remember the alphabet song?
We'll come back to that too.
The important thing hereis to find a good sound
and find waysto repeat it in a non annoying way.
Because humans recall and associatethese sounds fast,
like in a second, much fasterthan what we see.
When a sound wave enters
(14:11):
our ears, it's convertedinto electrical signals.
These electrical signalstravel almost instantly
to the part of our brainthat's responsible for interpreting sound.
When we see something, light entersour eye and it's converted
into electrical signalsin much the same way.
But these signals have to go throughmultiple stages.
It typically takes about 30 to 40milliseconds longer than sound processing.
(14:35):
3 to 4 tenths of a second doesn'tsound like a long time,
but in neurological terms and brainprocessing terms, that's an eternity.
The quickest wayto get a consumer's attention
through sound is through mnemonics.
Also known as Sonic logos.
A Sonic logos is short,distinctive sound, or a series of notes
that really represents a brand. The motifthat runs through your sonic identity.
(14:58):
The visual logo is made up of a color,an image, a font. A sonic logo, similarly,
is made up of different sonic elements,so timber, pitch, interval, and so on.
When they're initially used, tryto reflect the desired brand architecture.
People begin to recognize itfrom repetition. A distinctive
(15:18):
sonic asset that does for your ear.
What a visual logo does for your eye.
That's Steve Keller, audioalchemist and sonic strategy
director for studio Resonate at SiriusXM media.
When you hear it, you think of the brand.
However, operating off of just one elementlike the Sonic logo
(15:40):
isn't enough because the beautyand difficulty of sound in music
is that its fleeting. Soundis something that doesn't exist, exists,
and then it's gone,just floats off into the air.
The logo needs to play into somethingbigger,
something branded, and brandingdoesn't happen in siloed spaces.
(16:00):
This takes us to the allencompassing branding element that we call
sonic branding.
There are a lot of feelingson the truest definition of Sonic
branding, so much so that I've never foundjust one definition.
So I asked my intervieweesfor their definitions and I found some
common threads.
Sonic branding is essentially using sound
(16:22):
in a very deliberateand strategic way to either reinforce
or build or extend a brand's identityto bring a brand top of mind.
Sonic brandingis the audio encapsulation of visual
branding, instead of in colorsand typefaces and logos.
It's done in music, sound and voice.
(16:43):
Sonic branding coversthe entirety of music and sound
that you would hear across a brand, bothbranded and on brand music, and sound.
The components, the elements,the way that those elements are used
in a smart way, really.
Strategy first to focus onany one element is actually to miss out
(17:03):
on the full range of benefitsthat sonic branding and sonic identity
can bring to your company.
Just all about creating a cohesiveand intentional sound or soundscape
or melody that reflects a brand'sessence and values.
I took this opportunity
to consolidate my guests definitionsinto one big, all inclusive one.
(17:24):
They since approvedand have given their blessing.
This one
crosses all the T's and dots the I's.
Sonic branding is the strategicand consistent use of on brand sound
that evokes emotion, enhancesrecognition, reflects brand attributes,
reinforces values, and shapes the overall
(17:45):
brand identity.
And for the final word.
Let's turn to Stew Redwine,head of creative at Oxford Road
and host of AD Infinitum,aka what you're listening to right now.
Sonic branding is simply the expanded
answer to the question can they recognizeyour brand with their eyes closed?
(18:06):
Let's say it's yes.
Then Sonic branding expounds on that. Yes.
How do they recognize you with their eyesclosed?
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
(18:27):
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
(montage of sonic branding and logos)
It's about committing to your branding.
Finding those sound attributesthat connect with your brand, owning them,
believing in them,and acting on them over and over again.
(18:47):
It's the same as with a visual logo.
Eventually you just have to commitand go for it.
Here's Steve's advice on the idealswhen creating that good sonic strategy.
It should be congruent.Memorable. Distinct.
It should be flexibleto adapt to different use cases.
It should be appealing.
It should be likable.
That needs to be unable,not just in the sense of you're owning the
(19:11):
sonic space, but in the sense of you'reowning the assets themselves.
You're owning the intellectual property,the copyrights of all of these.
And then ideally, you are consistent
in the applicationof those across multiple channels.
And then you think about how you canbring them to life
in experiences, and you codify them insome type of a style
(19:34):
guide that becomes part of your brandbook, again, reinforcing consistency.
Although sonic branding may be a seminew word, it is in no way new.
The concept of sonic brandinghas been around for a long, long time.
I think Roger wins for the strangest birthof sonic branding example.
Sex workersused to wear a certain type of sandal
(19:56):
that would make a certain type of sound,as they would walk along
the stone streets of ancient Greece.
That is probably the first ever recorded
intentional branding ofa, I guess, a line of work.
Joel mentioned battle cries.
Sometimes it was to strike fearinto the heart of your enemy.
(20:17):
When you think about horns that were blownat the beginning of a battle
or something,
that specific
sound might be ownedby a particular tribe.
It's a very ancient practice.
Historically,there are tribes or communities
that used certain songsor rhythms to identify themselves,
(20:40):
and that's more of the natural practiceof sonic branding.
And we've continued to see itused through history to brand everything
from goods and servicesto communities, political parties
and anything else that you can think ofthat you can associate a sound with.
Although all of these examples are goodand there is no right answer,
(21:03):
I have dubbed Dallas's as the winner
which he tells me he stole from Stew Redwine.
Your name, and it's happenedto billions of times.
It's a sound that labels you,that you learned really early,
that that sound means me.
And then we get into a little bitmore modern day ish.
The earliest examples of Sonic branding
(21:23):
were really in the 20sand 30s in the radio era.
So if we've been using sonic brandingfor so long, but not calling it that,
what did we call it?
Radio ads were really miniature art forms.
The birthplace of the jingle was radioadvertising of the 1920s.
We called it a jingle.
(21:43):
The jingle was Baby Sonic branding,and we loved it.
Intentionally designed to be catchyand memorable.
It's in service of promoting a brandor a product or service.
Usually it containsthe name of the brand in it.
You can recall it easily,or you can sing along to it easily,
so it can createkind of a lasting impression.
(22:05):
Repetitive,designed to get into your brain
and keep you singing it longafter you're not hearing it.
They were super effective in their time.
They sort of went out of stylefor a little while,
and now we're starting to see themcreep back in.
And although they may seeminterchangeable, it gets a little more
complicated.
Jingles were popularwhen commercials were very long,
(22:26):
60s even 30s where you had timeto develop a verse and a chorus
and now you can't go on and onand on with your music.
You have to find waysto be more telegraphic,
or to put it in the backgroundof something else you're saying.
When you think about the impactof the growth of TV in the 60s and 70s,
(22:47):
and then through the 80s,we started to see jingles
be transformed into much shorter formsonic logos.
I think there's more of a focusnow on strategically using that jingle,
or strategically thinkingabout what the brief might be,
or how writers are sentin a specific direction.
So I think it's a little more refinedand a little bit more on
(23:08):
that new era of deeper strategic thinking,looking at measurement.
Audience research,
which was not really donequite as extensively back in the heyday.
Jinglesbecame more than just cute and fluffy.
They startedtaking on a more strategic tone.
This is when things got interesting.
Brands were attributing soundsto their identity, and they were doing it
(23:30):
consistentlyfor decades and generations on end.
The Swiss Railway, has a chime sound
that is used to signal the arrivaland departure of a train.
This one apparently goes back to 1905.
There's also a sound of the Royal Mailin the UK
(23:53):
a four notesound around the same time in the 20s.
The MGM lion.
That is an auditory signature,
and it dates back to the earliest daysof film production.
They're still using itand it's instantly recognizable.
If you hear that roar.
You know that that's signalingthat a movie is about to start.
(24:13):
The NBC chimes, the dum dum dum.
It was functional, and it also camefrom what people had on hand.
And I think it was used
tremendously effectively and continuesto be tremendously effective
with NBC for years and years and years.Wherever there was something
that was meant to be sold or an ideaor a message that meant to be conveyed.
(24:34):
There were creative people
trying to make things to associatewith those things, whether it was a color,
whether it was a picture,whether it was a sound.
So there's probably something out therethat's older that just hasn't
been documented.
People started calling itby name in the 60s.
Back then, it was used to describebranding in a radio context,
and then it sort of disappeared again.
(24:55):
It comes back up again in the 90s.
Five distinct tones hit our ears in
1994, bringing Sonic branding mainstream.(Intel Sonic Logo)
Intel
Pentiumprocessor chip created a Sonic logo.
Definitely like a chapter in the Sonicbranding book.
(25:18):
And everyone who had a TV in the 90s
heard it about ten times a day,possibly more.
It was pretty much the first big mnemonic.That’s Walter Werzowa.
Owner and founder of Musikvergnuegen and Health Tunes.
He also just happened to write.(Intel Sonic Logo)
Intel was trying to find
(25:40):
a way to describe a productthat wasn't something you could see,
smell, hear, touch. You can't saywhat Intel is in three seconds.
They used a sound that kind of soundedlike the inside of a computer.
As you could imagine, it,I knew I needed Intel inside,
even though I had no idea what a processorchip was, did, or looked like.
(26:04):
But music told me it was importantand so I had to have it.
Intel created - a tangible impressionof their very intangible product.
So how did such a small hint of musicmake its way into the corporate zeitgeist
and pop culture?
The task was we need some music for Intel.
(26:24):
It's a very short piece of music,and I've never thought of
writing a 32nd piece of music before.
And I realized you can't even saya smart sentence in that brief time.
And I tried to whistle melodiesand think of melodies.
Everything sounded forcedand not complete.
And I thought, this is just impossible.
(26:45):
I looked again at the boardand it had the tagline Intel inside.
Clearly in front of me.
And so I thought, if this was a song,it would be four notes, because it's
engineers, it has to be almostin a Germanic-like, orderly mathematical ...
very straight, organized, even, symmetric.
(27:08):
They wanted to have the musicas powerful positive as possible,
but with no aspect of cultural emotions.
And so I thought,
The fourth and the fifthis probably the most powerful.
Open two intervals we needed.
It was not really composed.
It was constructed.
And I think that's the strong ideabehind it, that you construct those things
(27:32):
and don't compose them. I was flabbergastedthat somebody needs that little music.
I was astonished how difficult it was.
I was super surprised I worked for three months on the sound.
I was lucky to find a methodologyto make it work, but a point where
everybody could recognize it, whistle
(27:55):
it and every two seconds it ran somewhere.
Then I thought,oh my God, this is impactful.
This is huge.
All of a sudden,a computer chip exploded into pop culture.
Those five notes made a comfy,
cozy home in the back of our brainsto be recalled at any moment.
Then we kind of forgot again.
90s advertising music wasn't exactlyfocused on long term brand identity.
(28:19):
They were in the moment.
Strategic use of sound wasn'treally as part of building a brand asset.
I think it was moreabout supporting a story in a commercial.
Although marketers may not have beenthinking too hard on sound strategy,
they did realize that music was catchywhen it was unique.
Marketers were playing around with brightneon colors that have no business
(28:42):
being together.
Neon pink and neon yellow, and shapesthat were just very overt.
And that also extended into music.
People were picking a lot of classic rock.
Everybody was using borrowed interest.
Instead of building your interest
in that brand itselfand what made that brand distinctive?
Everything was just like radicaland over-the-top
(29:04):
and just loud and lots of yellingand lots of distorted guitars
or synthesizers and just
anything that would just like, flashsonically to get your attention.
It was all very distinctly 90s, but notnecessarily distinct brand by brand.
The focus was on fastand loud and energetic.
It's probably why we now have an attentionspan shorter than a goldfish.
(29:26):
That microsecond attention span
started happeningsignificantly in the 90s.
How can we orchestrate as much attentiongrabbing things second by second
during an entire 30 minute program,plus the advertisements?
I think the 90s were the early equivalentto thumbing very bright.
TikTok videos.
Sonic branding has gone through a lot ofevolutions evolved from the jingle to now
(29:51):
the Twitch economy, where attention spansare sub three seconds.
All of us have divided attentionthese days.
It's called continuous partial attention,and it was identified
by Linda Stonewhen she was working at Microsoft.
Our continuous partial attentionis just our reality now.
Our devices and technologiesare just going to distract us more
(30:12):
and more as the tech gets coolerand better.
But all is not lost.
This is actually great timingto demonstrate the power of sound.
Our sub three second attention spansare exactly where Sonic branding wins.
We don't need to combat our shortattention span.
Remember what we learned abouthow fast and efficient sound is?
We need to find our brand soundand communicate with it.
(30:35):
Why borrow a soundwhen you can make your very own?
Add something to this brand new worldof the Fast and Furious.
What happenedwhen Sonic branding appeared on the scene
was that suddenlyyou weren't thinking about something
that I can borrow from the culture,but what can I add to the culture?
Your brand and its best self.
And then a moment of accidentalsheer clarity.
(30:58):
My name is Jim Reekes.
I'm pretty wellknown for a couple of sounds.
One in particular is.(Apple Startup Sound)
And my camera.(Apple Screenshot click)
It's currentlythe sound of the Mac doing a screen shot.
It's also the sound on your iPhonewhen you take a photo.
Jim was the senior software architectat Apple back in the mid 90s.
(31:19):
I was pretty much the only person writingthe software for the audio at the time,
and I took it upon myselfto get rid of the startup sound.
I hated it.
As a musician, Jim saw a real problemwith the existing sound.
The previous engineer who designed itmathematically
created a perfect set of intervalsbased upon tri tones.
(31:41):
Literally, the most dissonant soundthat you could think of.
There was a cartoon calledQuickdraw McGraw, and he had an alter ego
called El Kabong, and he would hit youon the head with a guitar.
That sounded like all the stringsaround a tune.
And the Mac startup sound at that time was
an El Kabong sound.
(32:04):
I just had to replace it,and I set about designing a sound
that sounded like the Apple brand to me.
I had no input from anyone, and thenit got released. And the rest is history.
That sound is a great exampleof how you can put
character and identity into a productand a brand.
Now we are getting somewhere.
(32:24):
This was beyond catchy and unique.
A brand is the promise of your benefits.
It's what I think, it's what I feel.
It's what I have in my mind.
Even without ever usingor even experiencing your product.
It's the promise of your benefits.
You can help to convey that promisewith colors,
(32:44):
fonts, logos, and sound. Sonic branding,
iconic and equitable.
Jim shared his experience with friends.After I created the Startup Sound.
I got to meet one of my greatinspirations, Brian Eno.
One of the things that he isgreatly responsible for
is establishing ambient music.
(33:04):
We had a long conversationand I was describing to him
how I had just did a composition
that was
very difficult exercise of conveying
an emotional response within two seconds.
He thought it was a very interestingchallenge.
(33:25):
Microsoftfinds him and hires him to compose the windows
95 startup sound.(Windows Startup Sound)
After you buy something, sound continuesto play
a critical role in shaping your ongoingrelationship with that product.
That startup sound
is purposefully designed to reinforcethe feeling of having made a good choice.
(33:45):
Using music
to influence preference and choicewas nothing new to one specific industry.
They've been positioning their auditory
ROI safelyin the back of our minds for decades.
We all know them,and just like the Intel chip,
we never think about themtill we hear their sound.
Any guesses?
(34:05):
When you need insurance,you hear that jingle?
That's right. It's the insurance jingle.
They seemed to learn early on the powerto produce some positive feelings,
to connect with culture, and to make
their brands be preferred by listeners.
And that'swhy 20,000Hz did a whole episode about it.
(34:26):
Produced by yours truly.
Most insurance commercials
go out of their way to give youa feeling of comfort and support.
Think about the sloganslike a good neighbor.
State farm is there.
Nationwide is on your side.
Are you in good hands?
When you watch these ads,you're supposed to forget
about copays and deductibles and premiums.
(34:50):
Instead,you're supposed to feel like choosing this
company means they're personally goingto have your back.
One way to dothat is through a reassuring jingle.
Another is through a warm,friendly mascot.
Whether it's the Geico gecko, Flofrom Progressive or Jake from State Farm,
because this is such a nontangible service, personalization helps.
(35:13):
So bringing a human or even a duck (”Aflac”)
into the picture can helpit become more concrete and tangible.
When jingles like the
insurance jingle are done right,they are magic.
(Insurance Jingle Montage)
(35:33):
(Insurance Jingle Montage)And last for a long period of time.
But this only happens when you fullyunderstand the point and the purpose.
Sonic strategy.
For me, that's blending sound science
and soundart to help us make sound decisions.
This is what Steve calls audio alchemy.
In attempting to define what sonicidentity was or a sonic strategy,
(35:55):
I looked at this idea of the importanceof blending science and art.
This is not something that we have toguess at.
There are a lot of resourcesat our disposal to figure out
this perfect blend to effectivelyemotionalize
the sound. Cognitive,and auditory sciences.
Cross-modalism, psychophysics.
(36:17):
Psychoacoustics really can help us understand
how to combinesonic building blocks in ways
that can more accurately target emotionsthat we're trying to evoke.
Make things a little easier to rememberand associate.
It’s understanding the physiologyand how we're wired,
(36:39):
and how we can usesound to hack our other senses.
All of this extra work is worth it.
Music that matters
makes money.
But this doesn't happen all by accident.
Sonic KPIs are realand measurable. A sonic
KPI is a way that you're looking atmeasuring the impact of your
(37:01):
choices of sounds and how you use themon brand perception and behavior.
So when I think of sonic KPIs, Iusually think of them in three categories.
Number one, consumer perception
that could be related to identityand emotional connection,
the salience or the recall of the brand.
(37:23):
That's all related to perception.
Number two behavior lingeringtime in a retail environment.
How fast or how slowyou want consumers to move. Sales
and how your choice of soundor how you're using it in advertising
or in the marketplace could produce salesor engagement with the brand.
(37:46):
And another way, maybe looking forinformation with the brand, maybe it's
tied into a particular opportunityto click on a link
that served up with digital auditorypieces of advertising.
Number three equity.
Here I think of two thingsbrand equity as a whole.
And is your use of sound actually helping
(38:08):
to build into the brand equity?
But there's also KPIs for equity
that could be related to the sonic assetsthemselves.
Sonic logo that you can trademarkand copyright, or a brand anthem,
or particular pieces of sound designthat may be proprietary.
(38:29):
The more you use those,the more you build equity
that can be collateralized in other ways.
Think of a brand, thinks about KPIsin each of these areas, and thinks about
how is my choice of this voiceover,or this piece of music,
or this sound design, or this audiochannel going to serve these KPIs
(38:50):
that I have that probably ladderinto larger KPIs for the brand overall.
It really does have an impact.
Using sonic elements again and againteaches the consumer to remember you
through sound.
Learning this way is not new to us.
Recognition through repetition has beenhappening since we were 2 or 3 years old.
Give or take a few months.
Like the alphabet song, when you have kidsand you would not teach them
(39:16):
the alphabet by saying just rememberA, B, C, d, it wouldn't work.
But if you sing the song to them,they have it in five minutes.
This same repetition workswhen it comes to brand recognition.
The sound is much more than a marketingtool.
Pre-purchase.
It's that red thread
that runs through the entire customerjourney from that first impression.
(39:36):
When we become aware of a product to longafter we've purchased and used a product.
It brings back these memories.
The physiology is triggered again.
We have the association with the brand.
The more we hear it, the more familiarwe get to,
the more familiar we are with something,the more we tend to like it.
And that just becomesthis loop that reinforces these memories.
(39:58):
Music and sound and voicereally powerful memory triggers.
With a little bit of foresightand the right creators on board,
brands could use soundas part of their marketing toolkit.
It would be building blocksfor all their audio touchpoints.
And believe me, there are nowa lot of touchpoints. Branded audio cues
in customer service, such as the musicor sounds that play when you're on hold.
(40:21):
The unique notificationsounds that apps make.
Even somethingas simple as a distinctive sound
when you get a message from the brand,an order confirmation, a delivery update,
you've got mail.
A brand might be involvedin creating products,
hold music,corporate meetings, sponsorships.
It might show up in a waythat would not be expected.
There's digital content,social media, and podcasts.
(40:42):
Things like TikTok
And now it's kind of a whole new realmwhere branded music is showing up
and the list goes on and on and on.
All of these sounds reducefrustration, make interactions
(41:02):
seem more seamless, more enjoyable,and essentially enhance brand loyalty.
These things create a sense of continuityand connectedness.
A red thread of continuity that runsthrough your entire customer journey
means familiarity,a sense of welcomed predictability.
Jim. Use this idea of familiaritywhen he landed on the camera.
(41:22):
Click sound for Apple.
At the time,digital cameras were just coming about it.
They were using like beeps and buzzes andclicks and all of these little melodies
because the digital camera made no sound,which is why I very oppositely
did something I used what was expected,which was like the most unexpected thing.
That familiarity is compoundedwhen you own that sound.
(41:44):
It gives you that much more controland ability to transmit brand intent
through a sound.
You can't leave anything out of yourquiver a triggered moment in a Sonic logo.
I think it's an opportunity
that many people overlookas being able to recognize and own it.
That's Lisa DiStefano, former VP of brandmarketing and creative at Home Depot.
(42:06):
They turned that red thread orange.
You might recognize this.
It's the orange song.(The Orange Song)
Using borrowed interest exclusivelymakes your music message less vivid.
And it takes away your ability to play.
When people use license music, oftenpeople have another reference.
That's why people use it.
It gives you a feeling of connectivityto a certain moment, a memory.
(42:28):
We created that and that energy.
And now we get to riff on our own workand own it and be able to play with it
and manipulate it, you know, engagewith it and leverage it there.
Their Sonic anthem.
Which is gritty.
It's powerful.
It feels like it's moving you forward.
That's Chelsea Campbell, groupcreative director at Sirius XM.
(42:48):
That song makes me feel like getting stuffdone.
It feels like a ballad that you could work
to,that you could accomplish something to.
It's not just that it's catchyand on brand, it's that they owned it
literally and committedto it's congruency.
Commitment is as important,
if not more importantthan the individual assets themselves.
(43:09):
Is the brand's commitmentto using them over time, but
deploying them across multiplemarketing channels and reinforcing
these elements of the brand through TV,through audio advertising, through social.
That's how you create a strongbrand sonic ecosystem.
One brand working hard on building uptheir sonic ecosystem is Mastercard. (Mastercard sonic branding)
(43:45):
Its branded sounds are used in
both digital and physical storesto help improve the customer experience.
They have led the way in making peoplethink of their brands
more multi-sensory than just visual.
And the biggest sense that they leveragedwas Sonic
at the paymentterminals, their commercials.
They're reproducing it in different typesof music from different countries.
(44:10):
Most recently,they've even developed a haptic logo
for customers to feelwhile making purchases on their phones.
The strength of that identityis the consistency
that's the hero, and that'swhat makes it work.
CMO Raja.
Rajamanahar has been a huge supporterof sonic branding and sensory marketing
over the last few years.
Raja and the Mastercard teameven released an album with tracks
(44:34):
all inspired by its sonic identity.
(Mastercard Album)
Ten artists from all over the worldintegrated the Mastercard Sonic logo
into their custom built songsinspired by the sound.
This album demonstrates the vibrancyof sound branding usage, while
also supporting up and coming artistsfrom all different cultures and countries.
(44:56):
McDonald's is another great exampleof branded sound.
Their sonic identity has been building uptheir brand equity for decades
(I’m Lovin’ It sonic logo)
Trojan horse type of marketing,where they got
Justin Timberlaketo make a whole song called I'm Lovin’ It.
After JT fans fully embracedthe song as his the truth was revealed.
(45:20):
Surprise!
I'm Lovin’ It was actually McDonald's in disguise
and it's been around for over 20 years.
It is constantly reinventingand adapting itself.
You could put it inany sort of instrumentation or voice.
I believe.
Even just any language to sayI'm Lovin’ It
could be adaptableinto virtually any country.
(45:40):
And I think that's brilliant.
It remains relevant and onbrand to Mickey D's all over the world.
I think it's one of the gold standards.
You know, it came from a jingle inand of itself was really a good solution.
But if people had just kept bangingthat exact version over and over
and over again,it would have gotten tired after a while.
But I think the reinvention of it
(46:01):
that's consistent with the particularmessaging or the particular way
that a communication is being broughtforward, just the fact that it's done
in so many different ways,and each one of them sort of
has some kind of an elementof the brand personality of McDonald's.
I think that reallymakes it a complete home run
(Montage of I’m Lovin’ It versioning)
(46:21):
(Montage of I’m Lovin’ It versioning)but everything has room for improvement.
The one downsideis it really only works in advertising.
There are so many others now,and I think more as we moved into digital
and products and activations,the less that becomes sort of relevant
in those other touchpoints.McDonald's might be better off
(46:41):
if they had one soundthat always came home to
and then let everybody play oneconsistent, recognizable element.
But they have a wonderful,welcoming, casual, friendly
sound that, as far as a melody, worksvery well for them.
If you want a fuller story,check out the 20,000Hz Podcast episode.
I'm Lovin’ It! Great breakdown.
(47:04):
Another company using Sonicbranding in a clever way is Coca-Cola.
They don't have a Sonic logo per se.
At least not one that they've stuck with,but they do have a strong branded sound.
Their highly immersive
sensorial experiences are supportedby their highly strategic sound design.
(47:26):
I think they do a magnificent jobof making the sensory
aspects of their brandcome to life through sound.
When you see a Coke ad, you hear it too.
They have the openingof their bottle sound
that makes you feel the refreshment,and you can hear the pouring liquid.
You can hear the bubbles, just like theirvisual imagery where it's so sensory.
(47:50):
They're always emphasizingthe sensual aspect of their brand.
They do it very welland with great discipline through sound.
That process of classical conditioning,where the Coke brand always appeared
in advertising
associated with the sound, createsa familiarity of the two together.
The visual logo, visual identity,and sonic identity.
(48:10):
Do all these sounds sound differentthan a Pepsi or a Dr. Pepper?
Nope.
In fact, that sound you heardis actually a Shasta Cola I recorded. Tricked you!
But it doesn't matter.
Coca Cola attributedthat sound to its brand
first. The sound of a cap coming offand the soda fizzing
is not unique to Coke,but they own it because of the heft
(48:33):
that they've put into the marketplaceto associate their brand with that sound.
Coca Cola embracesthe senses to the nth degree.
Even though a lot of creativityis happening,
no brand that I know of has fully exploredevery audio touchpoint
and every opportunity for branded sound,yet. Not too surprising since
new technology and social media platformsare hitting the market constantly.
(48:59):
New forms of sound in marketing
and branding are being inventedand defined every single day.
There is an increase in engagementwith Sonic media in general.
Podcasts have exploded.
Streaming radio has changedlistening behavior and also the use
of smart assistants and voiceactivated technologies.
(49:20):
We are moving forward fastwhen it comes to voice tech.
Voice AI in particular.
I know that AI raisesall sorts of ethical questions
and we'll get back to thatin a little bit.
But for now, let's focus on how incredible
of an opportunitythis is from a creative standpoint.
It's amazing because it just meansthat you'll be able to
(49:41):
or you can now generativelycreate voices on the fly.
That sounds basically natural.
On the less controversial side of things.
We have voice assistants.
And boy, did we get used to that fast.
It's not all about screens anymore.
It's inevitable that we start moving awayfrom a society that's completely glued
to screens everywhereand putting screens in everything.
(50:04):
I think that voice technologymay have been a big factor.
People could talk to devicesand they would say, tell me the news.
Tell me the weather.
And then they would still keep talkingand they'd say,
give me some music or put on WBEZ.
There was podcasts becoming so popular.
(50:25):
Audio is very good at getting attention.
Much better than all the thingsthat are trying to get into your eyes.
Brands are exploring the possibilitieswithin their smaller ecosystems as well.
Some brands have developed exclusive
sound experiences for customers,for loyal customers, for high value
customers, things like audio contentthat's only available after purchase.
(50:47):
Balenciaga has created a songthat actually is able to be unlocked
and downloaded
only based on a QR tag on their shirt,paired with one on the receipt.
These are sounds that are focusedon deepening that emotional bond
and making you feellike you're part of a community.
It cuts to the core
of the human experience a sense of strong,positive emotion and belonging.
(51:07):
This is just a new takeon theater of the mind.
We can use theater of the mindto paint pictures
in people's minds,to transport listeners to faraway places.
The fact that no one hasthis powerful audio first and audio
only social figured out yetshould be exciting and liberating.
Your brand could come up with somethingcompletely new
(51:28):
and wildly differentthat no one else has ever heard.
And you could be the first one to do it.
Maybe audio only and social audiosounds too new or big.
Let's step back for a minuteand think about mascots and spokespersons.
Have you considered your brand voiceliteral brand voice yet?
It could be as simpleas casting the right personality.
(51:51):
Think of Flo from progressive.
Progressive was the first to offer onlinequoting or Jake from State Farm
like a good neighbor. State Farm is there.
These actors voices are now so synonymouswith the brand
that your brain automatically goes therewhen you hear them.
Sometimes it's the way the brand's nameis spoken or the CTA is delivered.
The rhythm and inflection, like “oh oh
(52:14):
O’Reilley’s” or “1-877 Kars for kids”.
As we've discussed, multi-sensoryexperiences are a big deal.
We don't experience thingsone sense at a time.
You can hear a sound from behind you,or from beneath you, or from above you.
You don't have to be looking at it.
It's very easy to take inwhen your attention is divided.
(52:37):
That holds truefor both personal and brand experiences.
We can shut our eyes,but we can't close our ears.
We're always reacting to the soundsthat are going on around us,
even if we've shut outother senses in the process.
I'm about to use a big word.
Stay with me. Psycho acoustics.
This is the study of how sound affects uswithin our environment.
(53:00):
Sound design impactsour perception of the world
and the environment as we moveand hear sounds around us.
We can use psycho acousticsto impact our listeners perception.
Maybe your industry or brand isn'tso sensory.
Maybe you can't incorporateevery single sense, every single time,
but it doesn't meanconsidering them isn't relevant.
(53:20):
We are constantly multi-sensory beings.
We can't switch off most of our sensesmost of the time.
We're always looking at somethingor hearing something.
We're always processing these thingsconstantly and singling
those out as like individualthings is something that we do
when we talk about themand we write about them,
but we experience thesethings all at the same time.
(53:45):
When it comes tobuilding our sonic identity specifically,
there are two basic elementsto pay special attention to.
Congruency and consistencyare the two basic elements
of any sonic branding approach.
How these assets are used.
How they're combined, and how we thinkabout the consistent use of them over
(54:06):
time.
The more congruent your sound iswith other parts of your brand
and your branding,the more it will amplify that experience.
The other piece is the consistency.
You can have some congruent choices,but if you're not consistent
with those choicesin all the places on the consumer journey,
(54:26):
then you're losing impactof actually building a brand.
It may just be a collection of soundsthat maybe they fit together sonically,
but without that consistency,
it's not going to buildthose memory devices that you need.
So that's a lot of stuff. Let's recap.
We've learned
(54:47):
Sonic branding is beyondjust catchy and fun.
It's meaningful and incredibly functional.
When we're talking about sonic identity,
it's more than justa compositional exercise.
It's more than just sound design.
It's powerful, memorable,and incredibly persuasive.
It's versatile, unending,and constantly being reinvented.
(55:09):
It's a must have in a brand's toolkit.
So with all this possibility,why hasn't Sonic branding caught on?
Personally, I believethat the biggest reason is education.
We've been staring
at the standard visual branding,failing to notice anything else.
But when we do take the time to noticesound.
(55:29):
We realize
that it's been on the brand's journeythe whole time.
Sound is really an integralpart of the entire customer
journey, every step of the journeyinfluencing how people perceive,
feel about and interactwith a brand from start to finish.
You don't have to be a sound designeror musician or a neuroscientist
to understand that sound matters.
(55:51):
The tone of voice in a customer serviceagent - the sound of the product
itself, the ambient music that's playingduring your shopping experience,
whether the shopping experienceis in a physical store or even online,
the sounds that the app makeswhen you go to pay for a product,
all of those sounds have an impacton how you feel about the transaction
(56:12):
that you're undergoing,whether it's shopping or buying,
and how you feel about the brandor the product that you're shopping for
or that you happen to be buying.
When people begin to hear and recognizeand trust
the sound, it's adding to the brand valuethat you have in the marketplace.
(56:32):
That was the end of the story.
We now have centuries of case studiesand research to draw from, incredible
technologies to make our branded soundsas unique or familiar as we want,
and more platforms to utilizethan we know what to do with.
If there was only one thing to drawfrom this episode,
it is this- Sounddone right is a brand's best friend.
(56:54):
Like the brand sayingwelcome to the experience
every single time you use it.
That is essentially the holy grailof marketing and product experience
these days.
Sound done wrong.
Is the brand's worst nightmare.
Thank you to RogerSho Gehrmann, Dallas Taylor, Colleen Fahey,
Joe Sauer, Joel Beckerman,Steve Keller, Walter Werzowa,
(57:18):
Jim Reekes, Lisa DiStefano,and Chelsea Campbell for helping
tell the story in the most completeway possible. And a ton of thanks to Jeanna
Isham for the hours and hoursof scripting, interviewing, and editing.
And thank you to Zach Hahn,mixer and sound designer of AD Infinitum,
for working with Jeanna and myselfin putting this all together.
(57:40):
And of course, thank you to our producers,Ezra Fox and Caitlin Spring,
without whomwe would not have ad infinitum.
And check out Jeanna Isham’s other work.
Her podcast, Sound in Marketingis fantastic and there are not a ton
of resources out there when it comes tohow does sonic branding work?
How does sound in marketing work?
So check out her podcastSound In Marketing.
(58:01):
Thanks again.
Jeanna Isham, and to all ye mighty chiefaudio officers out there.
In the words of Daniel M Jackson,
from the preface to his bookSonic Branding, which I highly recommend.
Quote I hope you enjoy learning about thisnew and exciting discipline,
and that you reward the worldwith more and more better Sonic branding.
(58:24):
For years to come.
I couldn't agree more.
And rememberto have fun making the ads work.
I hope you're enjoying the show.
Be sure
to subscribe to the Sound In Marketingmonthly newsletter for episode releases.
Sonic branding resources.
News, and new swag.
Big thanks to Stew Redwine, Oxford Roadand Ad Infinitum for reaching out
(58:47):
and giving me the chanceto write about something that I love.
Let's do it again sometime, shall we?
All links will be provided in the shownotes.
Let's make this world of soundmore intriguing, more unique, and
more and more on brand.
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