i

PRAISE FOR
Audio Branding

‘Audio Branding: Using sound to build your brand expertly combines the theory
and practice of sensory branding in a guide that will be essential to every
marketer. I highly recommend this book for your library.’ Martin Lindstrom,
New York Times bestselling author of Small Data and Buyology

‘This book rings true. Written by marketers, not musicians, it makes it clear why
a brand needs its own tailor-made musical vocabulary to thrive. Full of stories
and tips, supported by academic studies, and illustrated with cases, it’s a great
read. A must for anyone who is building or defending a brand today.’ Angela
Johnson, EVP, Worldwide Managing Director, Ogilvy

‘If you can conjure up Intel’s audio logo, you can start to understand the power
of distinctive proprietary sounds, strategically employed across your experiences
with that brand, cueing you to recall it with an emotionally positive response. Just
as a visual identity creates coherence across trans-media touchpoints, so does an
audio identity. Minsky and Fahey deliver a comprehensive guide to conceiving
and designing audio branding in the digital age. This book will help you design
with sound.’ Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor, Michael Graves College
at Kean University, author of Graphic Design Solutions, fifth edition,
Designing Brand Experiences, and Advertising by Design, third edition

‘We’ve created scores of audio branding concepts in our ideation sessions, but
it never occurred to me – nor did I have the tools – to create an audio branding
strategy for our clients. The heavens have opened up and the trumpets have
sounded, now that I understand the how and why of Audio Branding!’ Bryan
Mattimore, author of 21 Days to a Big Idea, and Cofounder and Chief Idea
Guy, The Growth Engine Co, An Innovation Agency

‘Audio Branding: Using sound to build your brand is a well-written, practical guide,
to a (curiously) nascent field, sprinkled with enough real-world case studies
and academic references to provide the reassurance you are on the right path.
Music and sound, congruent with other sensory experiences, have long played
a critical role in shaping our emotions, aiding recall, and affecting our decisions.
Why is it so few marketers sufficiently recognize this? Reading this book might
ii

just give your brand that competitive edge you are looking for.’ Andrew Wilson,
Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Atlanta Convention &
Visitors Bureau

‘Pardon the misappropriation of Lennon and McCartney, but brands today must
work harder than ever to be “Here, There and Everywhere”. In Audio Branding,
Minsky and Fahey offer a detailed look at why sound is an essential element in
this multi-modal, ever-changing effort. Through approachable prose punctuated
by a wide range of real-world examples, the authors explain the many creative
ways audio can be employed to better identify, differentiate and communicate
your brands, all while enhancing the core brand experience. As a long-time
advertising writer, brand strategist and sometimes tunesmith, I applaud their
performance in these pages.’ Chuck Kent, Contributing Editor, Branding
Magazine and Creator and Moderator of Branding Magazine’s The Branding
Roundtable

‘Minsky and Fahey provide a strategy for simply conveying brand essence in an
often overlooked, yet ubiquitous medium – sound. And at Siegel+Gale, we know
that simple brand experiences win customers’ hearts and wallets.’ Howard
Belk, Co-CEO, Chief Creative Officer, Siegel+Gale

‘Laurence Minksy and Colleen Fahey remind us that not only are brands
multisensory but of just how important sound is – in all its variations – to
creating those powerful communities that we call brands.’ Patrick Hanlon,
Founder and CEO, Thinktopia, and author of Primal Branding: Create zealots
for your brand, your company, and your future

‘What Minsky and Fahey have done is moved audio branding from an
afterthought in the creative process to a preeminent position which must
be considered forcefully whenever we sit down to make a campaign.’ Stan
Richards, Principal, The Richards Group

‘A highly practical and fun-to-read guide on a topic that really isn’t thought
about enough. Full of great ideas and examples that will really get you thinking.’
Daniel Rowles, CEO, Target Internet, author of Digital Branding and Mobile
Marketing, and co-author of Building Digital Culture

‘Marketing doesn’t have a blind spot. It’s deaf! Too many operate with the audio
dimension totally unleveraged. Read this book. Then listen for your own unique
audio opportunities.’ Bruce Bendinger, The Copy Workshop
 iii

Audio Branding
Using sound to build your brand

Laurence Minsky
Colleen Fahey
iv

Publisher’s note
Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book
is accurate at the time of going to press, and the publisher and authors cannot accept
responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused. No responsibility for loss or
damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action, as a result of the
material in this publication can be accepted by the editor, the publisher or the authors.

First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2017 by Kogan Page Limited

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review,
as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in
writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms
and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be
sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses:

2nd Floor, 45 Gee Street c/o Martin P Hill Consulting 4737/23 Ansari Road
London 122 W 27th St, 10th Floor Daryaganj
EC1V 3RS New York, NY 10001 New Delhi 110002
United Kingdom USA India

www.koganpage.com

© Laurence Minsky and Colleen Fahey, 2017

The right of Laurence Minsky and Colleen Fahey to be identified as the authors of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978 0 7494 7857 5

E-ISBN 978 0 7494 7858 2

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Minsky, Laurence, author. | Fahey, Colleen, author.

Title: Audio branding : using sound to build your brand / Laurence Minsky,
Colleen Fahey.
Description: 1st Edition. | New York : Kogan Page Ltd, [2017] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016058930 (print) | LCCN 2017003807 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780749478575 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9780749478582 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Branding (Marketing) | Music in advertising. |
Advertising–Brand name products. | Advertising–Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC HF5415.1255 .M56 2017 (print) | LCC HF5415.1255 (ebook) |
DDC 658.8/27–dc23

Typeset by Integra Software Services, Pondicherry

Print production managed by Jellyfish
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
 v

co n te n ts

About the authors ix

Foreword xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xvii

01 Wake up to the power of audio branding 1

You have an audio identity – whether you’re managing
it or not 2
Audio branding: it’s not just a sound – or a jingle – but
a system 3
Welcome to your worldwide language 7
On the horizon: the sound of the lifestyle gains
on the sound of the product 8
The easiest big thing a company can do for a brand 10
Guest perspective: Michaël Boumendil 11
Case: SNCF 16
References 17

02 Audio branding in the digital age 19

Welcome to the new marketing landscape 20
Defining the brand 24
The value of branding: some initial ways to determine it for
your brand 30
Guest perspective: Ben DiSanti and Ken Hicks 31
Case: Huggies 40
References 42

03 It’s time we came to our sensory marketing 45

Marketers have already set their sights on visual branding 46
What does taste mean in the world of sensory branding? 47
Let’s get in touch with the key idea behind tactile branding 48
Time to sniff out the status of olfactory branding 48
And now for some sound thoughts on auditory branding 50
vi Contents

So who should consider audio branding and why? 51

Guest perspective: Charles Spence 52
Case: Nestlé, La Roche-Posay and Louis XIII Cognac 59
References 61

04 Welcome to the world of audio branding 65

Resilience within a defined structure 66
Identify your brand’s touchpoints – especially where sound design
can improve the experience 66
Guest perspective: Ramón Vives Xiol 77
Case: MICHELIN 81
References 82

05 The search for your sound 85

Symbols, sounds, and structure 86
Universal vs local. Consistent vs varied 88
Six audio-branding dos and don’ts for marketers 89
Guest perspective: Mickey Brazeal 92
Case: Roland Garros/The French Tennis Open 97
References 99

06 What gets measured 103

Deconstruction and layering 105
Which creative execution? 106
A simple online questionnaire 108
Guest perspective: Gene Topper 111
Case: Intel 116
References 118

07 The audio-branding process 121

A familiar process but an exciting one 122
Brand briefing and analysis 122
Guest perspective: Neil Gains 131
Case: Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB) 134
References 137
 Contents vii

08 How to launch your audio brand 139

Launch approaches 140
More on the mighty Audio Style Guide 143
Audio Style Guide: an example 144
Guest perspective: Ellen Byron 149
Case: Renault 152
References 156

09 Maintaining and evolving your audio brand 157

United Airlines: a long off-and-on-again relationship with
Rhapsody in Blue 158
Counter-intuitive but true: protect your audio brand by not
playing it 160
Guest perspective: Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder 162
Case: AXA 171
References 175

10 Music and sound design in environments 177

The trapped audience for environmental music: the staff 178
What to do? Sorry to sound like a broken record: it’s all about
values 180
Bringing the shopper back to the spirit of the brand 182
Zoning and dayparting: creating specific moods within the same
environment 184
Environmental sounds: great opportunities for wit and
humour 186
Guest perspective: Mickey Brazeal 187
Case: Barnes-Jewish Hospital 198
References 200

Glossary 203
Index 207
viii

THIS PAGE IS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

 ix

A bout the authors

Laurence Minsky is recognized in both professional and academic circles

for his strategic and creative leadership, his broad-reaching industry experi-
ence and expertise in brand foundational development, brand advertising,
and brand activation, and for developing effective cross-channel solu-
tions that boost marketing ROI. He serves as an associate professor in the
Communication and Media Innovation Department of the School of Media
Arts at Columbia College Chicago and as a consultant for agencies, corpo-
rations, and nonprofits across the globe.
Laurence is also the co-author of The Activation Imperative: How to
build brands and business by inspiring action, executive editor of The Get
a Job Workshop: How to find your way to a creative career in advertising,
branding, collateral, digital, experiential and more, the author of How to
Succeed in Advertising When All You Have is Talent, Second Edition; and
a co-author of Advertising and the Business of Brands (Media Revolution
Edition). As an industry thought-leader, he has been published by the
Harvard Business Review, MarketingProfs, and others.
He has created marketing and communications solutions for many
blue-chip clients, including Laila Ali, Amazon, Bay Valley Foods, Beltone,
Black+Decker Spacemaker, Fleetwood Homes, Frito-Lay, George Foreman,
The Lakeside Collection, Lamin-Art, Mayo Medical Laboratories,
McDonald’s, Motorola, PetSmart, Spacelabs Healthcare, Taiwan External
Trade Development Council, United Airlines, United States Postal Service,
Westinghouse, Vita Foods, and more.
An award-winning creative with over 125 industry accolades to date,
he has served on the juries of many leading industry award shows and is
a long-standing member of the One Club for Art and Copy, the Authors
Guild, and the American Academy of Advertising.

Colleen Fahey Managing Director, Sixième Son USA, is a seasoned crea-

tive executive with deep expertise in branding and marketing at multiple
touchpoints.
When she learned of Sixième Son, a Paris audio branding agency that had
created over 300 audio brands, she approached them about expanding their
x About the Authors

borders to North America. Three years ago, she opened Sixième Son in the
US. Since then she has led Sixième Son’s audio branding initiatives for the
Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, Huggies, a major research hospital,
a college, a top-ten pharmaceutical company, and a global vaccine launch.
Throughout her career, Colleen has worked for major marketing organi-
zations as well as leading brands in the US, Europe, Latin America, and
Asia. Her past and present clients include: Atlanta, Huggies, McDonald’s,
­Frito-Lay, Visa, Target Stores, Citibank, US Centers for Disease Control,
Kellogg’s, and many brands in the Nestlé portfolio, including Purina,
Nesquik, Maggi, Nido, Pure Life Waters, Wonka, and Nestlé Ice Creams.
She began her career with Frankel, where she became Executive Creative
Director. She also ran a thriving business unit and simultaneously carried
executive responsibility for Human Resources and Employee Development,
managing over 150 mostly right-brained people.
Post the sale of Frankel to Publicis, Colleen moved onto a global Publicis
Worldwide strategic team based in Paris, where her role was to support the
network of agencies with branding, path-to-purchase, activation, and kids
marketing initiatives, with the goal of building the Nestlé’s business around
the world.
Raised in Madrid, she speaks fluent Spanish as well as conversational
French and pathetic Portuguese.
 xi

Foreword
Audio branding: a sound investment

Many brands are still operating in the past. As more ways of delivering
messages burst onto the scene, the need to offer coherent brand experiences
becomes more urgent. In the search for differential advantage, brands need
to take advantage of every opportunity to make their values understood.
Years ago, I wrote about the need to manage your atmospherics, discuss-
ing the idea that sales of your products are influenced, not just by your
reputation, but also by emotional and sensual cues in the environment.
Today the shopping environment has leaked out of physical spaces and
into your pocket, your lap, and onto your kitchen table. With this subtrac-
tion of the senses found in physical environments, the job of creating a
multifaceted brand connection gets even harder. It is critical that brand
values, position and personality find their way into all the places and envi-
ronments in which brand influence takes place.
Enter the mostly untapped language of sound and music. Sound and
music can deliver brand meaning and offer both functional cues and
emotional connections. Sound and music is available on all the new devices
that have supplanted or joined our physical environments.
As a result, today’s atmospherics must be designed for devices as well as
spaces.
Marketers have accepted that music and sound have key roles to play in
their integrated communications, but haven’t figured out how to devise an
auditory strategy – yet alone how to integrate distinctive soundscapes into
their marketing landscape.
That’s what this book aims to correct. Minsky and Fahey offer a tested
process by which to plan and implement the auditory atmospherics into
your brand. The case studies bring texture to their process. And the guest
perspectives help round out the academic support as well as demonstrate
opportunities for creating your audio brand.
xii Foreword

So sit back and read on, because if you care about your brands and
getting the most out of them, getting up to speed in the latest thinking in
audio branding will be well worth your time.

Philip Kotler, SC Johnson Distinguished Professor

of International Marketing,
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
 xiii

P reface
Why audio branding?

Laurence’s story
More than a decade ago, I started working on a campaign to revitalize a
regional pickle brand. Searching for a solution, research found an interest-
ing fact: our brand defied the normal lifecycle of pickles. You see, in the
typical lifecycle, a consumer opens a jar of pickles and enjoys or serves some
of them and then refrigerates. Occasionally, they return to enjoy more, but
slowly, the jar makes it to the back of the refrigerator and sits as the pickles
get soggy and tossed.
Then the pickle lifecycle started all over again with the purchase of the
next jar.
On the other hand, the brand I was to work on didn’t experience this
lifecycle. Rather, its primary consumers tended to eat up the entire jar, so
there was less waste. We decided to launch a campaign based on the idea of
‘the emptiest jar in the house’.
As part of this campaign, we also decided to run on radio rather than
on TV, with a heavier media buy on Thursdays as the key shopping days
approached. To bring our idea to life, the owner of the agency suggested we
develop an ‘audio icon’ of a fork dropping into the empty jar, which ended
every spot.
Needless to say, the campaign was a success. We took the failing brand,
turned it around, and made it the regional leader. It would even go on to
earn a 40 per cent share in some markets. Research showed that when our
competitors ran TV spots, consumers would credit these spots to us.
I was hooked.
The academic side of me took over and wanted to learn more about the
use of sound to build a brand.
In around 2012, I heard what Colleen was doing as the US managing
director of Sixième Son, the world’s leading audio-branding firm. I had
known her back in the 1990s when we both worked at an agency called
Frankel (now Arc Worldwide).
xiv Preface

At Frankel, Colleen served as the executive creative director and was

considered one of the world’s leading experts in kids’ marketing.
I was much lower on the agency totem pole, but then working to launch
the concept of marketing to employees – and the broader area of employee
branding – as a leader of an agency initiative called the ‘Walking Brand’.
I learned of Colleen’s activities through my then publisher, Bruce Bendinger
of the Copy Workshop, while I was working with him to develop the book
The Get a Job Workshop, a collection of essays from leading professionals
as well as exercises designed to serve as ‘a roadmap for the new career land-
scape’ in the creative areas of advertising and related marketing disciplines.
My publisher suggested I ask Colleen to donate an essay.
When we met about her essay, I asked Colleen to collaborate with me
on a digital article on audio branding for the Harvard Business Review. It
was my sneaky way of learning more about this intriguing area. (In fact, I
continually seek to collaborate with people who are smarter than me as a
way to learn and grow.)
Working with Colleen on the first article, I learned that my view of audio
branding was still very limited. The abilities and practice of audio branding
was much bigger, parallel to visual branding. I knew I needed to learn more
about this fascinating and effective yet vastly underutilized field.
We then co-wrote additional articles on audio branding, which were
published by places like MarketingProfs.com and the Data Driven Network.
I said that we should write a book on audio branding, particularly given
the lack of them on its benefits – and the process on how to create one.
Colleen said she was never really motivated to write a book, but when
Kogan Page came along, she came on board.
I hope you learn as much about audio branding as I have from Colleen. It’s
an interesting area and a truly powerful branding tool for smart marketers.
Join us and your brand story might be singing a whole new song.
(And, in the meantime, beyond the acknowledgements, I’d like to thank
Colleen for her dedication, drive, and willingness to share her expertise and
her husband for letting me steal her time – and my family for their under-
standing and giving me the time to write this book.)

Colleen’s story
At the tail end of 2011, I attended the first Audio Branding Congress ever
held in the USA. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect, but someone had
offered me a free admission and I had planned to be in New York anyway.
 Preface xv

Upon entering the hall at the Colombia University Faculty House, I felt
a surge of excitement. The bustling space was echoing with a din of enthu-
siastic conversation, which I soon realized was in English spoken in many
accents that had become familiar to me since my time on the global Nestlé
team at Publicis. I could identify the shadings of Dutch, French, British,
Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Indian, Scandinavian (I can’t distinguish
among the accents of the different Scandinavian nationalities) and German
and/or Austrian. Except for the people who had checked us in, I didn’t
detect any North American accents.
My trend-seeking antennae went up. What was going on here?
The first presentation outlined the state of the emerging audio-branding
world. Frankly, it was far from earth shattering, and the budgets were noth-
ing to write home about. I still couldn’t quite understand what exactly was
the point, but, as a marketer, I remained politely interested.
It was when the cases started to be presented that my spine began to
tingle. I had spent years teaching innovative marketing ideas, leading work-
shops and giving speeches to brand marketers and agencies all around the
world and I had completely missed this powerful concept: the idea that a
brand’s audio identity could and should be designed to be as meaningful
and coherent as its visual identity.
I felt as if I had been living in a cave. This way of thinking struck me as
a dead simple but profound and far-reaching idea that had been hiding in
the light of the sun.
A Brazilian audio-branding company, Zanna, had created an identity
for an over-the-counter pharmaceutical that conveyed a sense of maternal
caring and embedded a suggestion of the three-syllable name, Airela, into
its audio signature, and a sound for the national water company, Sabesp,
which suggested natural sources by making use of the instruments played
by indigenous rainforest peoples.
Audio Consulting Group from Germany presented the rich audio brand
they had created for UBS in a system that was so thorough that even the
‘pink noise’ as they called it (music that covered up the transaction conver-
sations but could only be heard if you listened closely) was part of the
unified audio identity. Their system included jazz, pop and several classical
variations, all beautifully related to each other.
The City of Vienna danced their presentation – and explained that the
casual nature of their city, along with its rich musical heritage, inspired them
to include the sound of an orchestra tuning up as part of their audio brand.
ING-DiBa-HC had a well-known and well-liked audio logo called
‘DiBa-DiBa-Du’ based on ‘Strangers in the Night’. They had evolved and
xvi Preface

modernized their audio brand by reinterpreting the melody and adding

rhythm surprise as well as a warm voice. This ensured that their new
customer orientation was communicated with an audio brand that wasn’t
too abrupt a change for the audience.
And Sixième Son presented the SNCF French railroad audio identity with
its familiar train station signal. The fact that this sound was created with
sensitivity toward the anxious mood of the traveller touched me. I began to
realize that with this discipline you could not only generate clearer brand
understanding but could improve people’s experience. I’ve always believed
that the core of good marketing is empathy and I felt that this company was
speaking my language.
I was on the edge of my seat. A former colleague who had joined me
in the mid-morning wasn’t experiencing the same epiphany. His interest
was drawn to the entertainment side of the music world. He fidgeted in his
chair, checked his messages, stepped out to make phone calls and, eventu-
ally, made arrangements to meet some friends in the suburbs and left early.
I, in contrast, decided to stop every other marketing pursuit and dedicate the
rest of my career to audio branding.
Michaël Boumendil of Sixième Son and I came to an agreement the
following year, and I opened Sixième Son in the US in September 2012. This
arrangement has given me plenty more chances to hear the SNCF station
signal and to aspire to create something equally iconic.
This book is based on our crash course in audio branding that has
continually taken place over the four years that followed. It’s not intended
to be academic or philosophical but to share the stories, the processes, the
applications and the best practices that will be helpful to a brand marketer
or agency partner who’s trying to gain an advantage in a competitive
marketplace.
See for yourself – or should we say hear? – and start discovering your
audio brand today. It might just be the difference you need to stand out in a
highly crowded marketplace and achieve your marketing goals.
 xvii

A ck n owledgeme n ts

Special thanks to Giannella Alvarez, Paul Bennett, Jane Berliss-Vincent, Janet

Borgerson, Casey Brazeal, Mickey Brazeal, Ellen Byron, Courtney Cashman,
Laurent Cochini, Ben DiSanti, Ella Duda, Caroline Fabrigas, Philippa
Fiszzon, Eric Freedman, Neil Gains, Julien Goris, Delphine Guerin, Anne
Hayward, Patrick Herron, Ken Hicks, Wilbert Hirsch, Brian Hodes, Susan
Hodgson, David Houle, Molly James-Lundak, Angela Johnson, Ivy Joseph,
Colin Kennedy, Kwang-Ku Kim, Philip Kotler, Carrie Leinonen, James Lucas,
Suzanne McBride, Alex de Miranda Silva, Margaret Murphy, Jasmin Naim,
Charlotte Owen, Andy Peart, Ariella Phillipo, Jonathan Phillipo, Jonathon
Price, Traci Ray, Uli Reese, Christopher Richert, Jonathan Schroeder, Victor
Siegel, Craig Sigele, Jodee Sorrentino, Charles Spence, Herman Tiemans,
Daina Todorovic, Gene Topper, Natasha Tulett, Ramón Vives Xiol, Jennifer
Volich, Joe Walsh, John Walther, Stanley Wearden, Claire White, Andrew
Wilson, Shelby Yastrow and, of course, our families, the blind peer review-
ers (some of whom we will never know, but who helped shape the content
in ways they’ll never know through their feedback on our proposal and
manuscript), as well as the Paris Sixième Son team who keep our spirits up
by sending new music files almost daily.
xviii

Dedicated to Michaël Boumendil, the founder of modern

audio branding.
Without his vision, insight, and innovations, this book would
not exist.
 1

Wake up 01
to the power
of audio branding
Brand-oriented companies across the world are just beginning to realize that
they must use logos wherever they come into contact with their prospects
and customers.
Obvious, you say?
Not entirely. Because while most – if not all – brand marketers are using
visual logos, it is still the dawn of the age of the audio logo.
Though there are a few audio logos that most people can recognize, like
those for Intel, and even fewer that they can hum, like McDonald’s, many
companies have overlooked the fact that, as media has moved into the digital
age, it has become audio-enabled. Gone is the sales flipchart, replaced by an
app with a dashboard. Lost is the morning printed newspaper, replaced by a
news site. Moved aside are paper posters, replaced by digital signage. And,
most importantly, the fastest-growing marketing platform right now is an
ever-present audio-enabled computer that fits in a pocket: the smartphone.
The time has come for brands to take sound seriously and to use its
exceptional power to be recognized and understood across all the points
that they come in contact with: their prospects, customers, employees, and
other key constituents.
In today’s world, brands must now treat sound with the same care and
discipline as they do their graphic standards and visual brand-building.
Because, just as graphics do, sound carries meaning. And just like prop-
erly employed visual branding programmes, the strategic use of sound can
play a pivotal role in positively differentiating a product or service, enhanc-
ing recall, creating preference, building trust, and perhaps most importantly,
increasing sales and marketing return on investment (ROI).
If you’re stuck in the visual-only branding world, you are competing with
one hand tied behind your back, weakening your efforts, because, as you’ll
see, cognitive studies show that relevant sounds and musical cues can truly
influence people in ways marketers want.
2 Audio Branding

You have an audio identity – whether

you’re managing it or not
Take a tour of your company in your mind. What music is playing on your
customer service line? What music is in your training videos? Your YouTube
videos? What ringtones do the sales reps use? Which songs were played at
your company meeting? What music played in your advertising last year? Is
it different this year?
Think of a typical brand. They probably used Chariots of Fire, Hunger
Games, or Star Wars themes for their sales or annual meetings, Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons for their on-hold music, an 80s’ or 90s’ pop song for their
commercials, the Dragnet theme for one training video and ‘Rock Around
the Clock’ for yet another, and perhaps a startling metallic ‘ping’ for the
app-opening sounds.
What is that example brand saying about itself?
Is it an energetic or aspirational brand? A classical and delicate brand?
A pop-culture brand? A technological brand? Is it reliable? In other words,
trustworthy?
Or is it a muddled, disoriented brand?
If the auditory selections don’t relate to each other in the world of sound,
you’re wasting branding opportunities right and left. In fact, you are like
our example: you are creating brand chaos and confusion.
In the visual sphere, your brand becomes more and more recognizable as
people see its familiar colours, typefaces, shapes, logos, and other imagery
used consistently, repeatedly, and frequently every time they encounter it.
The Graphic Style Guide lays out a system and a point-of-view. The logo
may be expressed a bit differently on a giant billboard than on a tiny busi-
ness card but it will conform to the same standards. The logo at the end
of a sales video will match the one in the commercials and on the website,
and on the packaging. Colours and fonts remain the same too. Nobody
would dare change IBM’s sturdy blue to vibrant orange so they could ‘infuse
energy’ into a sales meeting.
Why then, do some companies still use sounds from completely differ-
ent universes for their meetings, retail environments, on-hold music, apps,
videos, and other touchpoints? Why are they conscientious about branding
their graphics and sloppy with branding their music? And, why do they
think that advertising is the only medium that requires serious attention to
the musical selection?
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 3

It’s not hard to create a consistent but flexible audio universe that allows
for both serious business situations and fun, high-energy occasions – as well
as everything in between. It works like visual branding, but with some key
differences. We’ll explore the similarities and differences in the following
pages and lay out a manageable process for developing, launching, and
maintaining an audio brand for your products or services.

Audio branding: it’s not just a sound –

or a jingle – but a system
Welcome to the world of audio branding. Also referred to as sound brand-
ing, acoustic branding, and sonic branding, depending on the practitioner,
it is the systematic creation of an entire audio language for the brand based
on its essence, vision, values, promise, and personality – a language that gets
expressed across every point at which your brand interacts with your key
constituents, from the web and apps to trade shows and business meetings
to TV to the retail environment and even the product itself.
And just as the verbal or visual brand expression is optimized at each
point, the audio expressions are also sensitively adapted and optimized
across the spectrum, so they’re functionally and psychologically appropri-
ate to the medium and the audience mindset.
Conversations about audio branding with marketers who are new to this
idea, however, tend to get stuck down an advertising cul-de-sac. Often, they
focus on jingles of yesteryear – those cute little slogans put to music that
worked so well when commercials were 60 seconds long. And, while jingles
technically fall within the audio-branding arena, as they do employ sound,
people who focus on them are taking a very limited view of the discipline’s
opportunities and benefits. The music in an old-school jingle was typically
composed to support the words rather than to build the brand. So the music
doesn’t create much brand equity and has limited applications beyond media
advertising. And the lyrics are often merely a name and phone number or a
feature of the product or service, so they too have limited ability to convey
the brand character and extend the brand influence.
Other conversations tend to focus on the marketer’s frustration with
the fact that their ad agencies typically wait until the last minute and then
present them with three choices of licensable music, some of which is, inevi-
tably, too expensive. All of which is short-term, ad campaign-oriented rather
than long-term, brand-building-focused.
4 Audio Branding

These marketers – both in the business-to-business (B2B) and business-

to-consumer (B2C) arenas – forget that customers, partners, and employees
experience the brand at many auditory junctures.
In other words, audio branding is not just about the music in advertising
and the sounds at the end of it. Rather, it is about thoughtful and inspired
design, except instead of designing for sight, it requires designing for sound.
A few marketers might define audio branding as the distinctive sounds that
are ‘owned’ by the brand that are used in mostly non-advertising situations.
Some examples.
Samsung Galaxy plays an elegant bespoke ringtone; Nokia uses a now-
familiar snippet of a classical composition, Francisco Tárrega’s Grand Valse;
Harley roars with a branded ‘po-ta-to, po-ta-to, po-ta-to’ sound; Snapple
opens with a gratifying pop; and the Apple operating system comes to life
with a glowing start-up sound. These trademark sounds do exemplify the
brands but only represent the tip of the audio-branding iceberg.
While these sounds are within the realm of audio branding and capture
the analogy of ‘design’, the practice is actually more sophisticated than the
use of an isolated sound for packaging, the singular reliance of a quaint
jingle at the end of a TV or radio spot, or the choice of a simple and discrete
audio logo such as the notes attached to the ‘Intel Inside’ button. Parallel
to visual brand-building through visual design, the purposeful integration,
design, and usage of all the brand’s sounds are what makes the use of audio
branding so compelling. And like visual branding, the brand sounds and
music should be strategically employed across the entire experience, when-
ever possible, becoming a valuable asset of it. In fact, these sounds should be
so strong that listeners recall the brand and its emotional impressions when
they hear them, even without visual cues or words.
A UK example in which a consistent use of tailored music played a key
role was demonstrated by Barclaycard from 1991 to 1997 (Roberts, 2005).
According to the Barclay archives, their then-new agency (Barclays, 2016),
BMP DDB Needham, was responsible for spoof spy commercials played by
Rowan Atkinson. These spots featured an overconfident and supercilious
character that, much like James Bond, had his own music, a very recog-
nizable theme tune. Unlike Bond, this accident-prone character, ‘Richard
Latham’, created havoc: burning rugs, breaking teapots, mistaking a senior
MI5 official for a plumber. But his sidekick ‘Bough’, wielding a Barclaycard,
always got him out of trouble.
The series of mini-movie-like commercials became extremely popular.
The TV campaign was so long-running as to create a clear and recognizable
earprint.
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 5

‘During the 90s, people would hear the music and they’d run to the televi-
sion,’ said Angela Johnson, then business director overseeing the Barclaycard
business at the agency. Eventually, the popular character found his way into
the entertainment world with a film called Johnny English (Fahey, 2016).
A US brand that has gone further with their brand sound, and is often
cited by marketers, is United Airlines. The airline has used Rhapsody in
Blue since 1987 when they licensed George Gershwin’s famous piece for
$300,000 per year (Shales, 1987). Not only is the composition used in
advertising; it graces a long moving walkway to the play of multicoloured
lights in their Chicago terminal. Of course, travellers also hear the melody
on their airplanes, call centres, and even adapted to their pre-take-off safety
videos. Rhapsody in Blue is linked to the brand to such an extent that the
famous melody survived a merger with Continental Airlines, although the
United Airlines visual logo changed completely.
There will be an interesting crossroads when the music goes in to public
domain in the US in 2019 (AudioSparx, 2014). At that point it will become
freely available to any brand that covets it. That situation illustrates one of
the dangers of using licensed music rather than investing in the creation of
one’s own core audio DNA.
As in the case of United Airlines, branded music and sounds can play
both aesthetic and functional roles in most places where customers and
employees meet the brand. They can make a wait feel shorter, make a corri-
dor feel less interminable, add a sense of calm to an airport or train station,
give employees a feeling of belonging, bring excitement to an event, take
away the foreboding feeling of an unfamiliar parking lot (and providing a
cue for remembering where you had parked), clarify a story or idea in the
media advertising, all while subtly transmitting the essence and values of
the brand.
In other words, audio branding is equally important to environments as
to communication elements.
Walk into the admissions area of a university hospital and you’ll hear
the clatter of carts, the chatter of announcements, the buzz of phones…
everything that says, ‘You’re in an institutional environment’. Nothing to
say, ‘Welcome, friend’. No sounds to help convey the experience you wish
for the patient, family, or even staff, such as confidence, caring, optimism,
teamwork, or scientific rigour.
Enter the equally large Unibail-Rodamco shopping centre in Lyon, France,
and you get a different experience entirely. The music has been designed to
suggest that a magical experience is in store for you. All along the route
there are moments of auditory surprise, humour, and humanity. Plant walls
6 Audio Branding

carrying the sounds of birdsong and waterfalls, chairs whispering calm-

ing meditations, soothing music, or children’s stories, corridors scored at a
relaxed walking pace – all threaded with the sound of the brand.
And at a Lancôme Beauty Institute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a blogger
reports on the treatment rooms, ‘The music is original and specifically made
for Lancôme, designed to be in harmony with the motions used in the treat-
ment.’ It’s not the same old spa music. It supports both the experience and
the brand (Zatashah, 2010).
So you may wonder what links the hospital, the mall, and the beauty
institute. The answer is simple: all of them have the chance to use sounds
and music to change the way people view the setting, the brand, and their
experience. But while the shopping mall and beauty institute are using
auditory elements to their full potential, the hospital is missing a valuable
opportunity to use sound to create a positive connection with any of its vari-
ous target audiences.
The take-away: if your organization is like the hospital, you are probably
overlooking the power of audio to convey important messages and build
relationships.
But while the practice of comprehensive audio branding is still essentially
in its infancy – giving smart, visionary brands a unique opportunity to stand
out – there are places on the globe that are more advanced than others in the
use of audio branding. So if you are an international brand (or are not from
those countries, which we’ll identify in subsequent chapters), your competi-
tors may be one step ahead of you.
To start, note that Huggies and Baby Bell deployed new global audio
brands in 2016. L’Oréal’s brand for sensitive skincare, LaRoche-Posay,
debuted theirs in 2015. Peugeot added a new global audio identity as part
of its rebranding effort in 2014. AXA has used one since 2008 and Michelin
put one in place in 2010 (see Chapter 4 for a case study on their powerful
audio brand).
The healthcare sector is now paying attention too. Dengvaxia, the world’s
first licensed vaccine against dengue fever, is using a distinctive audio iden-
tity to carry its message to the tropical parts of the globe where the disease
is rampant.
A large US teaching hospital that competes for medical tourism patients
began to subtly introduce an audio vocabulary into their new commercials
with the vision that it would establish a base for the audio design of their
new building that’s now under construction.
Audio branding is also showing up in the business-to-business space.
Areva, the world’s largest provider of nuclear energy, uses an audio brand
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 7

and so does the city of Atlanta, which competes mightily for convention
business with larger and like-sized cities around the United States and the
world.

Welcome to your worldwide language

Why are international brands going to the trouble of framing their audio
identities?
Because music is a language that people all around the world can under-
stand. It carries universal meaning, which works at a symbolic rather than
an explicit level. No matter the culture where they grew up or the country
they’re from, people are similar in the way they decode the intention of
music and other sounds.
People around the world know if music feels optimistic or melancholy;
they can tell if it’s soothing or stressful; they can feel if it’s authoritative or
modest; they can identify if it’s fun and light-hearted or powerful and seri-
ous. That transcultural understanding is of real value to brands that operate
in multiple countries (or even in multilingual, multicultural countries).
There are both learned and innate reasons for this.
On the cultural side, people in every corner of the globe have been exposed
to the many movies and TV shows that share a musical vocabulary for setting
up the tense situations, heightening joyful ones, underscoring melancholy
scenes, and announcing triumph. The language of movie music has been well
learned by people across the globe, regardless of geographies and cultures.
Beyond movies, Western popular music has zipped around the globe at
increasing speed. And not just Western music originating in the West. In
2012 ‘Gangnam Style’ became the first music video to reach one billion
YouTube views and had topped the charts of more than 30 countries, includ-
ing Australia, Germany, Russia, Spain, and France.
Though it is becoming increasingly difficult to find cultures that haven’t
been exposed to Western music, field studies indicate that music commu-
nicates similar meanings even among people who haven’t previously been
exposed to it. In fact, people previously unexposed to Western music are
able to recognize ‘happiness’, ‘fear’ and ‘sadness’ in it.
Researcher Thomas Fritz, from the Max Planck Institute for Human
Cognitive and Brand Sciences in Germany believes this may help explain the
universal popularity of Western music (Sprey, 2009).
Fritz and his team conducted two experiments with a group of 21 Mafa,
remote farmers in Cameroon, Africa, who said they’d had no previous
8 Audio Branding

e­ xposure to Western music. They were exposed to 42 instrumental excerpts

of Western music with different tempos, pitch ranges, and rhythms including
classical, jazz, rock, and pop. A group of 20 Germans was used as a control.
They were then asked whether they thought each piece of music expressed
the emotions of ‘happiness,’ ‘sadness’ or ‘fear’ and to point to photos of faces
showing the relevant expressions. The Mafa’s ability to correctly identify the
Western music’s expression of the emotions was far greater than chance,
picking the ‘happy’ music, on average, 60 per cent of the time. Meanwhile,
the German control group, in contrast, scored 100 per cent with ‘happy’
music. As such, pieces with higher tempos were more likely to be classified
as ‘happy’ and songs with lower tempos as ‘fearful’ or ‘scary’.
‘Most likely the Mafa were picking up on the same “tone of voice”
cues used in human speech,’ said study team member Stefan Koelsch,
also from the Max Planck Institute. ‘Western music mimics the emotional
features of human speech, using the same melodic and rhythmic struc-
tures’ (Sprey, 2009).
The music that Peugeot adopted in 2014 has shown that meaning
delivered by an audio-brand identity has border-crossing abilities, too. A
quantitative test in five countries – France, Spain, UK, Russia and Brazil –
has shown that people hear the same connotations in the music. The sum
of the parts added up to a more modern, stylish, and emotional image for
the brand in all the countries, though the effect was stronger in countries in
which the brand was a more recent arrival than in countries where it had a
long-established image.

On the horizon: the sound of the lifestyle

gains on the sound of the product
As did Peugeot, which sought to bring more emotion and style into its brand
image, more and more brands are beginning to re-think their approach
to audio and, recently, there has been an evolution from sounds based in
function or product attributes, to sounds based in emotion and lifestyle.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the automotive sector.
The sector once expressed itself only in metallic and engine-like sounds.
The old BMW audio logo was a double-note that sounded like a hammer
hitting metal. It reflected the power, security, and boldness of the brand.
It was very recognizable and on-brand. But by 2014 the brand’s posi-
tion changed, and the metallic sound no longer reflected its new stance.
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 9

BMW moved to a more emotional audio universe that carries the idea of
power and conquest (BMW, 2013).
In the same category, a very different brand, Renault, was going through
a very similar evolution. The audio logo that accompanied its previous
tagline, ‘Drive the Change’, was punctuated by a metallic sound (Posada,
2012). But the new audio logo features a haunting tune and is carried by a
woman’s airy voice, which seems to contain a sigh, to convey the essence of
its new tagline, ‘Passion for Life’ (Sixième Son, 2015a).
As illustrated by the automotive category above, when it comes to audio,
sectors tend to get stuck in their traditional approaches and will default to
specific sound styles. These can be thought of as category codes.
One category may use big orchestral musical arrangements while another
category might use chimes. We’ve discovered that it’s often the category
leaders who break the mould and lead the way to new, more expansive
audio territories.
For a specific example, the transportation sector often employed bells,
chimes, or beeps that originated in the historical ringing to signal a train
approaching or leaving a station. Now rail lines, subways, and airlines
are using music that suggests the anticipation of the journey, the feeling
of fluid movement, or the magic of the city. For instance, in Spain, France,
Austria, Switzerland and Japan, you can find public transportation authori-
ties adding evocative sounds and music rather than beeps and bells. France’s
national railway, SNCF, implemented their recognizable audio identity in
2004, a case study that we’ll explore at the end of this chapter (Sixième
Son, 2015b); Spain’s RENFE launched their audio brand in 2006 (Audio
Branding Academy, 2012a); and the public transportation in Vienna intro-
duced theirs in 2012 (Audio Branding Academy, 2012b).
The same trend can be seen in the financial sector. To show stability and
deep resources, the financial sector tended toward classical music with large
orchestras. Then came the market slump in 2008 and 2009 and they had to
be less bombastic, a bit more humble. In banking, there has been a move-
ment toward lighter orchestral sounds and catchy pop tunes in an attempt
to convey less distance from their audience. An exception, however, is ING
Direct, France, which through a spacious composition containing few notes
and played on a glockenspiel expresses a friendly, uncomplicated brand that
promises ease-of-use.
And in the telecoms world, the audio identities tended to have been
connected to sounds of landline telephones. But with the advent of smart-
phones, led by Apple’s focus on lifestyle, the sounds have become more
human, featuring more glittering, luxurious sounds.
10 Audio Branding

The easiest big thing a company

can do for a brand
An audio identity can lend a coherent voice across touchpoints, geographies,
and product lifecycle. It captures the mind when the audience isn’t directly
paying attention. It allows a brand to stand out and be distinctive. It creates
brand value that grows over the years.
On the operational side, it can simplify the job of global and local market-
ing departments both in decision-making and in reduction of the complexity.
When the engineering department wants to know what sound to add to a
device, they have a framework; when the social media group needs to score
a video, they have a library to turn to; when a local agency needs to run
a promotional ad, they don’t have to negotiate a separate licence for the
music.
Given today’s omnichannel, audio-enabled, interconnected marketing
environment, as a brand leader you must ask yourself, ‘Can my customers
identify my brand with their eyes closed?’
If the answer is no, then you need this book. Just as the earliest visual
logos and branding programmes are iconic today, a wide variety of audio
brands will become truly iconic tomorrow. So, if you do not have an audio
brand, the time to get started is now. After all, done right, your efforts can
provide rewards for years to come.
In the following pages, we’re going to describe the process for creating
a powerful audio brand. We’ll start with a brief overview of where it fits in
the branding universe and go through maintaining and updating your audio
brand. It needn’t be scary. After all, there is much overlap with processes
and theories of traditional visual branding (but with a few key differences).
You should find Audio Branding: Using sound to build your brand to
be a practical guide for developing your audio brand, making it perfect
for chief marketing officers (CMOs) and their brand marketing teams in
both B2C and B2B environments as well as agencies specializing in brand-
ing, digital, social media, advertising, mobile, event marketing, and more.
Plus, with our focus on the practical over the theoretical, marketing, adver-
tising, branding, and, yes, music composition students should find Audio
Branding: Using sound to build your brand an approachable entry into this
emerging discipline – a discipline filled with a quickly growing range of
career opportunities.
So sit back and please enjoy whilst we immerse you in the power of audio
branding and the process of creating one.
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 11

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Michaël Boumendil

Music to your brand: the story of the first official audio-branding firm
and the birth of audio branding

Michaël Boumendil founded Sixième Son, the first sound design firm solely
dedicated to audio branding, in 1995.
Before Sixième Son, there were jingle houses that created songs for
the end of television and radio spots; there were companies that distrib-
uted canned, easy, non-objectionable music into elevators, retail outlets,
shopping centres, and more (the most historically famous company being
Muzak); and there were sound designers for movies, plays, and television
shows (as well as some events). And, yes, some brand-associated sound-
scapes, such as the NBC chimes here in the United States, became audio
icons.
But Boumendil and his team were the first to treat sound design as an
intentional branding mechanism, ‘creating unique and coherent musical
universes’, the same way graphic and experiential designers create visual
branding.
Join us as we explore how Boumendil got the idea for Sixième Son
and the founding of his agency, told in his own words. Please note that his
comments were edited for clarity.

It’s been 20 plus years since I created Sixième Son. Did I have a precise
idea in mind at that time? Both yes and no. I had the idea for Sixième Son
(as a loose concept), at the end of high school.
At the time, I was experiencing what might be called a fairly tough
separation. I’d been creating and performing a lot of music in those days
and a record company had offered me a contract. Though it was tempting,
I said no, because I did not want to become an artist with a big ego and
all the other encumbrances of that profession. And since I primarily find
inspiration in collaborating with others, a career as a performing artist
didn’t feel natural to me.
The idea of Sixième Son was actually imposed upon me. To be concrete,
I had a dream in which I saw myself selling brand identity. Instead of
coming up with a logo, I arrived at the client with something else: the sound.
Beyond that, when I watched commercials, the way brands used
music made no sense to me. The use of music was tactical, ad hoc. It was
12 Audio Branding

chosen to accompany or illustrate a message, but it was not created to

be the message. This seemed to be a waste because musical memory is
extremely strong. And for this reason, the musical memory that we provide
people with must be rewarding. In short, I liked the idea of exploring a new
approach to the use of music for brands.
At the time, I set this idea aside, but it continued to ripen in a corner of
my mind.
In those days, brands’ musical messages were not sufficiently distinc-
tive or differentiating. I came to realize that the challenge of a musical
message is not merely to create impact. It is essential that the music also
contain meaning. The challenge for a brand is not only to get noticed but to
get noticed for the right reasons. So I quickly discerned this distinction in
my mind.
I often draw a parallel with the way we dress. A strong sense of
personal identity goes into the clothing choices that we make.
When we get dressed in the morning, we encounter a double chal-
lenge. First, we want to be comfortable with how we see ourselves in the
mirror, but we also want to know that the impression made on others, and
conversely reflected back to us through their eyes, will be positive and
rewarding.
We also seek the quirk or ‘trademark’ if you will. I think of it this way: If
we were all uniform, no one would stand out. But these personal touches
help us differentiate ourselves. So it is for branding, too.
Every aspect of a brand contains both functional and emotional dimen-
sions. The basic idea of design is to ally the useful with the beautiful. The
challenge in brand design is to find a way to respond to the functional
aspects but not to let them dominate the thinking that leads to the brand’s
creative expression. That’s because, if we create a response to the func-
tion without taking the emotional dimension into account, it often crashes.
Realizing the importance of that duality was a key to my approach when I
created Sixième Son.
After some years, I had reached the stage where I was convinced that
the idea of audio identities for brands had merit. But what I didn’t know
was how to bring it to life.
I quickly realized it was all well and good to have an idea, but that would
not suffice. I decided to spend about three or four months getting in touch
with people from whom I could get feedback and recommendations.
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 13

All these interviews helped me to mature. I began to understand several

things.
First, I put my finger on what was to become our key ‘deliverable’ – a
change in people’s perceptions of the brand. I also realized that the value
of our work would not be music itself. The value of our work is in enriching
the link between the brand and its audience through the sound identity we
would create. The challenge would be to make beneficial and meaningful
music, so that it represents the brand values.
There was also the fundamental question of how work would be
created and delivered. Pretty soon, I realized I had to bring everything
in-house. That would be essential to the development of a sustainable
and comprehensive expertise. It sounds ambitious, but the surest way to
produce extraordinary results is to assemble a team of in-house creatives
paired with brand strategy consultants.
In those days in France, you were required to have 50,000 francs before
you could start a company. I didn’t have anywhere near that amount, so I
lived a double life. I carried out business meetings by day and, by night, I
played music in bars and at house parties to earn the money I needed to
open the company.
I gradually managed to raise the money for the creation of Sixième Son.
And in parallel, through my many meetings, I met two people who were to
become important to the launch of the agency. The first one was a crea-
tive person who had a musical expertise that was complementary to my
own. The second person was very enthusiastic about the concept of audio
branding and made it plain that he really wanted to help bring it to market.
This was also the basis for the organization as I had imagined it: a creative
part, together with a consultancy.
In fact, as our way of working evolved, we realized it would be impos-
sible to dissociate these two portions of the task. My role as a creator is to
say, ‘This is what I hear in my mind, these are my convictions.’ That’s how
it works with everyone in the creative team. From there, we dialogue, we
exchange, and we experiment.
At the end of the day, we at Sixième Son work like a laboratory in the
sense that no one works alone. It is extremely important to keep this bond
among the participants in the process. The intelligence of the solutions
comes from making sure there are no breaks in the cables uniting the
strategic and creative teams.
14 Audio Branding

Being extremely short of money, we started the business in a shared

office space in a distant and decidedly not chic area south-east of
Paris, Saint-Maur-des-Fosses. We were offered three months’ free rent.
It was so far from the centre that we could only book one meeting in the
entire day.
Despite all our client acquisition strategies, our first client resulted from
a night in a bar in which far too much alcohol had been consumed. My
colleague met a marketing person from MATIF, a futures exchange, who
was equally tipsy and, together, they decided his business needed audio
branding. The next day, we showed up at his offices sober to explain our
approach to music and sound design for brands.
We told him that, if the company didn’t feel happy with the work, they
wouldn’t have to pay a penny. Luckily, they did pay their bill in the end.
And, with that, we were on our way. And our first major client was Alstom,
which had been born from the merger of two previous companies and was
planning to launch its new brand name.
The idea of a different approach to music was brought to them by
their branding agency, CBA, who recommended us. The client had her
suspicions, but said that we would be granted one meeting. If they weren’t
persuaded then and there, we’d never be back.
We managed to convince her that our approach to music would embody
the philosophy, values, and personality of her brand. This, in turn, would
speed awareness, acceptance and understanding of the company itself.
With that formative project, we encountered obstacles that pushed us
to grow and become more professional. It was extremely hard and very
rewarding at the same time. It left a special imprint on our memories
because the project had all the traits of a difficult challenge: a very big
company, short deadlines, and a tough customer, because she, herself,
was under pressure, and, consequently, that engagement became the
crucible in which we clarified and refined our business approach.
At the end of the project, the client had begun to see us as a strategic
resource and as a sounding board for her ideas; she doubled our budget
and, more importantly, became our biggest advocate.
In the early days of Sixième Son, we primarily sought to nurture refer-
rals rather than to focus on making money. But when we began to work
with such a world-class enterprise as Alstom, inventors of the high-speed
train and the largest energy provider in France, we realized we would have
the opportunity to become who we imagined we would be.
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 15

But we would have to operationalize our vision, and fast.

To achieve our goal, we would have to invest in people, infrastructure,
technology, and knowledge. And we would have to put in place an organi-
zation dedicated to continuous improvement and constant learning both
musically and strategically.
We soon realized that our charging practices must also support our
aspirations, because we couldn’t sustain a vision of this size on piecework
projects. This led us to define our pricing strategy, which is a combination
of short- and long-term charges in the form of project and licensing fees.
This has allowed us to keep a team intact and, together as an organization,
add layers of knowledge and ever-growing perspective on business and
branding. This knowledge only builds as we work with more sectors, more
countries, more points of brand contact, and more technologies.
Finally, if I often repeat my conviction that what nourishes expertise
is the constant urge to learn, it is because the Sixième Son story proves
this to be true. There’s so much to learn from contact with others. Their
thoughts and reactions can us help work our way through to new methods
and solutions. At Sixième Son, the more we advance, the more we are able
to live up to the ideals we talk about. Conversely, the more experience we
gather, the better we learn how to talk about what we do.

Guest biography

Michaël Boumendil is Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer

of Sixieme Son. A musician, composer, producer and branding expert,
Michaël founded Sixième Son in 1995 and, with it, invented the concept of
branded audio identities and musical design for companies. At the age of
23, he foresaw a new horizon in the application of music to serve brand
communications. Today, Sixieme Son has become the leader in audio
branding with clients spanning the globe. The agency’s unique expertise
is widely recognized in the world of branding and communication. And
Michaël, who speaks French, English, Spanish, and Italian, spends a lot of
his time on airplanes nurturing his ever-growing company.
16 Audio Branding

C A SE SNCF

Sound study: a case study of a ‘moving’ audio brand

Now that we have met the founder of modern audio branding, let’s look at one
of their well-known audio-branding projects – the French national railway, SNCF.
In conjunction with Sixième Son, SNCF launched an audio-branding initiative
in 2005 for two key reasons. First, already in competition with airlines, they were
also beginning to compete with German and Italian railroads. Second, consum-
ers, when asked, associated SNCF with ‘strikes and delays’.
They started their initiative by conducting a study of all the audio in their
competitive set, revealing a lack of distinctiveness. They then created an audio
DNA with the goal of communicating their leadership along with the comfort and
caring that distinguished the brand.
It was introduced with a film that drew the connection between the compa-
ny’s heritage and its new position.
To bring the audio DNA to life, the music was interpreted in various ways. The
station messages, for example, took into account travellers’ anxiety. For those,
the music was calm and reassuring.
Though the TV end frame uses the same tune, it has a more authoritative
sound with more emphasis on rhythm.
The customer service line draws from the same audio DNA, but provides
surprises and variety to make the wait feel shorter. And the now-familiar music
was also adapted to the needs of meetings, corporate messages, brand advertis-
ing, and communications needs all throughout the company.
While the audio DNA has remained intact, the expression has evolved since
its launch, in keeping with the developing brand. The first appearance in 2005,
for instance, had to capture the idea of leadership, which led to a dynamic and
authoritative musical universe, employing a rhythmic approach and a distinctive
sound. Then in 2008, to emphasize the brand’s eco-mobility, the instrumentation
became more natural and acoustic.
And finally, in 2012, the brand needed to impart its new vision of simple,
direct, and easy mobility, so sounds were simplified and a whoosh of speed
was introduced. SNCF made a bold decision to give up the usual codes of the
category and create something to which no link to the past existed, but that
underscored its then current leadership and brand values. As a result, the audio
brand has turned into a significant asset for SNCF. For instance, they found that
they are correctly identified in testing by 92 per cent of the listeners – and that
 Wake Up to the Power of Audio Branding 17

88 per cent of these listeners correctly identified the brand upon hearing just
two notes. Perhaps more significantly, 71 per cent of them now see the brand as
being ‘attractive’ or ‘very attractive’, and SNCF has experienced an 18 per cent
increase in the perception of leadership.
The SNCF audio logo then caught the attention of the legendary David Gilmour
of Pink Floyd and became the inspiration for the title track of his first album
in a decade, Rattle that Lock. ‘I recorded it on my smartphone at the TGV Aix
station… Every time I travel in France by train, which happens quite often on
holiday or with my profession, when I hear that little music “papalala” in the
Gare du Nord or Gare de Lyon, it makes me want to sing and dance,’ he recalled
(Samuel, 2015).
After Gilmour heard the four-note SNCF tune over a public-address system,
he called Sixième Son and asked to talk with Michaël Boumendil, who was so
convinced it was his friends playing a prank on him that he didn’t return the call.
After getting a second message, Boumendil did call the number and was so star-
tled to hear his rock hero’s voice on the other end of the line that he immediately
hung up.
Gilmour was calling to obtain permission to integrate the tune of the station
signal into his song and to offer Boumendil the opportunity to co-author the
piece. Together with SNCF, they reached an agreement and within a couple
of years, the song ‘Rattle that Lock’ broke at number one in France and the
UK and as of 2016 the music video has received well over four million views
(Gilmour, 2015).
In an interview by Jack Marshall in the Wall Street Journal, Christophe
Fanichet, Head of Communications and Information for SNCF said, ‘David Gilmour
is a bit of a living legend. Like everywhere, there are a lot of David Gilmour and
Pink Floyd fans within SNCF. The song is a kind of tribute to our jingle and we are
touched that it has inspired such a musician’ (Marshall, 2015).

References
Audio Branding Academy (2012a) RENFE Sound Branding [online] Audio-
branding-academy.org, http://audio-branding-academy.org/aba/congress/2012-2/
case-submissions/renfe/ [accessed 30 December 2015]
Audio Branding Academy (2012b) Wiener Linien Sound Branding [online] Audio-
branding-academy.org, http://audio-branding-academy.org/aba/wiener-linien/
[accessed 30 December 2015]
18 Audio Branding

AudioSparx (2014) Knowledge Base Article: KB2421 [online] AudioSparx.com,

https://www.audiosparx.com/sa/faq_article.cfm/kbarticle_iid.2421 [accessed 9
April 2016]
Barclays (2016) Stories [online] archive.barclays.com, https://www.archive.
barclays.com/items/show/5404 [accessed 28 September 2016]
BMW (2013) CarPark: BMW New Sound Logo [online] https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=74UVjXOyvWM [accessed 29 December 2015]
Fahey, C (2016) Interview with Angela Johnson
Gilmour, D (2015) David Gilmour: Rattle that Lock (official music video) [online]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ [accessed 28 March 2016]
Marshall, J (2015) Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Samples Brand Jingle for New
Single [blog] The Wall Street Journal – CMO Today, http://blogs.wsj.com/
cmo/2015/08/03/pink-floyds-david-gilmour-samples-brand-jingle-for-new-single/
[accessed 3 August 2015]
Posada, Nestor Daniel (2012) Jingle Renault [online] https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=2eeJjhaZdVw [accessed 30 December 2015]
Roberts, T (2005) My Favorite Campaign: Barclaycard series was a credit to
advertising, Campaign [online] http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/510006/
favourite-campaign—barclaycard-series-credit-advertising# [accessed 1 October
2016]
Samuel, H (2015) French national rail jingle inspiration behind Pink Floyd
legend David Gilmour’s new single [online] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
worldnews/europe/france/11747453/French-national-rail-jingle-inspiration-
behind-Pink-Floyd-legend-David-Gilmours-new-single.html [accessed 14
October 2016]
Shales, T (1987) Gershwin’s Rhapsody Perfect Pitch? Commercializing a clas-
sic to sell United’s friendly skies, The Washington Post [online] https://www.
washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/11/25/gershwins-­rhapsody-
perfect-pitch-commercializing-a-classic-to-sell-uniteds-friendly-skies/
fff855e7-4a7f-4d40-80d6-260c06c59147/ [accessed 9 April 2016]
Sixième Son (2015a) Renault-Signature Sonore / Audio Logo [online] https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=sqVtN4OFY3k [accessed 30 December 2015]
Sixième Son (2015b) SNCF: An audio identity that has become the sound of France
itself, Client Cases [online] Sixième Son.com, http://www.sixiemeson.com/en/
audio-identity-sncf.html [accessed 30 December 2015]
Sprey, K (2009) Music really is a universal language, New Atlas [online] http://
newatlas.com/western-music-universal-language/11246/ [accessed 1 October
2009]
Zatashah, P (2010) LANCÔME Beauty Institute, Frog + Princess Blog [online]
https://frogandprincess.wordpress.com/tag/lancome-beauty-institute/ [accessed
23 January 2017]
 19

Audio branding 02
in the digital age
In the first chapter, we saw how the use of sound is a powerful but under-
utilized branding tool. But is branding even important today and, if so, what
do you need as the foundation of a strong brand?
We raise these two questions because with today’s nearly pure transpar-
ency powered by online search and the accessibility of consumer reviews,
some argue that branding has lost its importance and that the pulling power
of brands is now over (Lee, 2015). They argue that search and content
marketing is the way to market and point to some select examples of organ-
izations that built their company by online sales using these marketing
approaches. It’s easy to fall into the trap of claiming they are universal.
However, these businesses are building brand images whether they like it
or not or have decided to consciously shape them.
Yes, people research and shop online. But that doesn’t mean they suspend
their prior knowledge and impressions and make decisions based on hard
facts.
And, yes, for some shoppers, a brand image isn’t important. For example,
audiences who are more knowledgeable about a particular area are more
likely to discount the power of brands in those areas and look at functional-
ity – such as doctors, who are more likely to use generic medicines than are
general consumers of over-the-counter medicines, or professional chefs who
are more comfortable using unbranded ingredients than are home cooks
(Bronnenberg et al, 2015).
But these customers are able to take a very functional approach to their
shopping (Bronnenberg et al, 2015). For the rest, brands provide a power-
ful shortcut. As Julia Tang Peters, one of our former colleagues, leadership
expert, psychologist (she’s a licensed family therapist), business advisor, and
author of Pivot Points: Five decisions every leader must make, likes to point
out, branding creates cognitive bias (Minsky, 2016).
Also, people buy more than functionality or features. We’re truly emotional
animals and, when in doubt, select the stronger brand (Hollis, 2007). What’s
more, consumers also select and adopt brands because they help them convey
a statement about themselves (Wellington, 2016).
20 Audio Branding

So it’s no wonder that branding is one of the top concerns of CEOs and
CMOs, and smart firms are investing as much as ever on their branding
initiatives – especially online. In the digital area alone, US advertisers are
spending approximately ‘$17.46 billion on branding, or 41.6 per cent of
total digital spend and by 2017, [the online] branding spend is expected to
grow to $29.33 billion, or a 48.5 per cent share’ (eMarketer, 2013).
In other words, as the marketplace becomes ever more crowded, brand-
ing is now playing an even more important strategic role. The rules have
changed. But so has branding (a reason, perhaps, why the aforementioned
marketing pundits got it wrong). And, perhaps another reason the pundits
got it wrong is that most B2B and B2C organizations have not evolved their
branding tools, so they’re arguably seeing less advantage as a result of their
efforts – if they’re realizing any advantage at all (Rodgers, 2008).
Meanwhile, Laurence’s recent book with William Rosen, The Activation
Imperative, detailed how CMOs are requiring better short-term results
and accountability, but also showed marketers how to build their brands
while building businesses, reminding readers that marketers need ‘to create
a programme that so clearly and uniquely embodies the brand that even
without a logo, audiences would know that it was an effort from the brand
and not one of its competitors’ (Rosen and Minsky, 2017).
The book also cautions marketers that ‘while today’s consumers are
playing a larger and more active role in defining brand meaning (a role
many would say consumers have always played, albeit less visibly), market-
ers cannot abdicate their responsibility for communicating with intention
and providing consumers with the tools, cues, and information they need to
understand and value the brand’ (Rosen and Minsky, 2017).

Welcome to the new marketing landscape

So how else has the overall marketing landscape changed? And what does
it mean for the use of audio branding? Consider these small and not-so-
small ways.

The landscape goes digital

First, the landscape is going digital and, with digital, comes sound. Today,
people are conditioned to take in sight and sound together. The media expe-
rience is seldom a printed page; audiences are accustomed to audio-enabled
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 21

devices (even though brands continue to spend fortunes on their visual iden-
tities and leave their audio identities to the various agencies and suppliers
who create their videos, telephone hold music, commercials, and events).

New promotional avenues open up

Second, as mentioned in Chapter 1, marketers now have more avenues than
ever to promote your brand message and convey what you are about, creat-
ing more ways where customers can connect with you – and others – and
making your job harder.
While we have already explored the growth of marketing touchpoints in
the first chapter, what we failed to mention is that with this growth came the
growth of various marketing specialists – both as agencies and as independ-
ent contractors. As every marketer is aware, gone are the days of managing
three suppliers: a mainline advertising agency primarily focused on the big-
budget media and generating the big idea; the public relations firm that
helped build connections with the media, investors, internal audiences, and
others; and the promotions firm that helped drive immediate sales through
the use of incentives along the distribution channels and with consumers –
replaced today by an overbooked calendar of managing an ever-growing list
of marketing sub-specialties.
Yes, some marketers are still keeping their mainline advertising agency,
public relations firm, and promotions firm on retainers, but they’re also
retaining a wide number of other marketing specialists, depending on their
needs and marketing strategy.
They might also retain a firm for the targeted markets. In the United
States, it can include the African–American or urban market, Hispanic,
Asian, even smaller populations such as people from Russia or Poland, as
well as other groups, including GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender
and queer or questioning), as well as the visual brand design firm, social
media company, website or online agency, the pay-per-click firm, and more –
up to 12 or more agencies in all. Count in the regional agencies for national
brands or suppliers spread across countries or continents for international
brands and some firms can have as many as 30, 40, or even 50 different
agencies.
Plus, there are the data scientists, customer relationship management
experts, and others, either as in-house employees, part of the many agencies,
or independent contractors. All with their own agendas and ways of driving
business. But whatever the situation, they all need coordination.
22 Audio Branding

Whew. Marketing has certainly become more complicated and dispersed.

And every brand experience from the website to the app to the store or
sales call to the trade show to the packaging to the product or service itself
as well as every touchpoint in between needs to seamlessly convey the same
promise, personality, values, and experience. (Yet, the PR agency chooses
music for the video news releases that’s completely different from the event
agency’s selection and that is again significantly different from your digital
agency’s choice for the YouTube videos.)
But like using a splattering of layout formats, fonts, and colours in the
visual expression, this haphazard use of sound is clearly not optimal. Julie
Winther of the Copenhagen Business School, in her deeply researched thesis,
‘Sound Brand Fit’, reminds readers that, ‘Repeated repetitions improve
recognition while having (positive) impact on affect judgements (Peretz
et al, 1998). The repeated exposure of a stimulus leads to increased ease of
processing, which in turn is attributed to pleasantness and liking’ (Griffith
and Mitchell, 2008). This underscores the advantages of orchestrating your
touchpoints, both visual and verbal, to work in harmony with each other to
emphasize the good intentions of your brand.

Continuous partial attention

Third, our attention span has been shrinking since 2000, and is now
shorter than the attention span of a goldfish, going from 12 seconds then to
8 seconds now (Weinreich et al, 2008).
According to writer and speaker Linda Stone, most people are now living
in a state of ‘continuous partial attention’ (Stone, nd) – paying attention to a
range of sources of information all at the same time, but only at a superficial
level. With both Apple and Microsoft on her resumé, she describes the state
as being ‘always-on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace’ and ‘involves an artificial
sense of constant crisis’ (Stone, nd).
Consider how one ‘watches’ content these days. The TV or video may
be rolling along but the temptation to avert your eyes comes from every
­direction. You might get a ping from your social media app, a bleep indi-
cating an appointment is approaching, a ding from an e-mail that needs an
answer, the triple-beep signalling popcorn in the microwave is ready, the
melodious tone of the dryer saying the laundry’s done, or the buzz of your
phone, all guiding your attention.
Molly James-Lundak, a marketing executive at a leading pharmaceuti-
cal company, once described a moment in which she was vaguely aware of
a commercial in the background while doing other things (Fahey, 2016a).
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 23

It was only when she heard the tagline at the spot’s end that she realized that
it was a commercial she had directly been involved in. And it was for one of
her company’s key products.
How often are you actually looking at what you are hearing? If you are
like most today, you’re always multitasking. Then consider which sense is
more involved in causing the urge to act or react; is it sight or is it hearing?
If you suspect it’s hearing, then you have noticed that people have been
busy teaching themselves to understand multiple audio cues that come in at
an almost subconscious level, cues that may be quite subtle but are present
and helpful, nonetheless. (Again, a reason for creating an audio brand; sorry,
but we can’t stop talking about its benefits.)

Differentiation through sound

Finally, related to continuous partial attention, today’s consumers are visu-
ally assaulted on every front, so, consequently, much of it gets tuned out.
Meanwhile, marketers intuitively understand the need to provide a
consistent experience. They know that customers don’t differentiate the
brand offline and online. So, of course, branding is even more important
because it ties everything together. And, not wanting to sound like an old-
school broken record, there’s one very powerful branding tool to help
marketers achieve this goal and gain advantage on this levelled playing field:
sound. It is fast and memorable. It conveys meaning and underscores your
brand’s distinction. And it helps you overcome the gauntlet of your audi-
ence’s multiple, everyday distractions.
So, with our ever increasingly audio-enabled-environment (Snathanam et al,
2012) the strategic use of sound can play an important role in positively
differentiating your product or service, enhancing recall, creating prefer-
ence, building trust, and even increasing sales.
One way to be recognizable is to make sure your sound territory is
consistent across all your places of customer interaction. Does your on-hold
music define your brand? Does your sampling booth? Does your app? When
someone crosses your threshold or even opens a piece of your content, do
they experience a transition from the outside world to your unique world?
A sound that subtly conveys your meaning?
Why do microwaves, ATMs, and refuse trucks emit the harsh ‘beep, beep,
beep?’ Yes, ATMs want to remind us not to leave our cash or our card
and refuse trucks need to warn us when they’re backing up, but couldn’t
your appliance have its own family of unique, branded sounds? Couldn’t
your ATM have a sound reflecting back to your audio DNA (trustworthy?
24 Audio Branding

friendly and accessible? Deeply experienced and global?). After all, what
you decide to say through music and other sounds can be easily compre-
hended by customers.
But the sounds, just like the overall marketing programmes we mentioned,
need to support your brand and convey where it’s from with or without the
visual logo. So what do you need for a strong audio brand? The requirements
are actually the same as for a strong visual brand – and the descriptions and
underlying foundation must be the same.

Defining the brand

When we begin working with clients to develop their audio brands, we
encounter many different approaches to brand definition and varied levels
of brand understanding. This range doesn’t need to be an obstacle. The
audio-branding process itself helps the client teams define what their brands
represent, especially in terms of values, aspirations and personality. This
occurs not only through competitive benchmarking but by the very nature
of the medium.
By exploring a brand through a symbolic language, like music, rather than
a literal one, like words, we can tease out surprisingly subtle distinctions
in broad language like ‘leadership’, ‘advancement’, ‘precision’, ‘hospitality’,
‘mobility’ or ‘performance’.

Branding best practice

Though Sixième Son works flexibly with brands at every level of

development, Laurence Minsky has helped many companies define and
activate their brand’s foundations. In case your brand is at that early
stage, has lost some of its energy, or was developed over time without the
benefit of a strategic process, here is some of the best practice you should
consider implementing for your brand.
Start with the brand essence or promise. (Some marketers use brand
essence and others use brand promise. Either works.) It’s the core or
centre of the brand. Everything else in the brand foundation must ladder
out from the essence.
A useful exercise is to try to arrive at a two-word brand essence. The two
words define the outer boundaries of the brand and are often bordering on
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 25

the oxymoronic, defining the range of the brand’s personality. It’s been said
that Walmart’s brand essence is ‘Servant Leader’. As you can see, one part
is about serving and the other is about the opposite end of the spectrum,
leading, which creates tension. In their communications, they focus on
serving customers (such as their product range or the famed greeter) or on
leadership (including lowest prices) or on leading through serving.
On the other hand, it’s been said that the brand for the US discount
store Target is ‘Affordable Style’, again seemingly at odds with each other,
which ladders to their consumer-facing tagline, ‘Expect more. Pay less’.
And it is translated in-store to their wider aisles and more fashionable
items, which is not traditionally expected in a discount store.
Any given piece of communication might focus on the idea behind one
of the words and another communication might be more focused on the
interplay of the two words. Like a human personality, a brand essence or
promise gives play to the brand actions and range to the brand behaviours,
enabling it to appropriately adjust to the situation.
The two words of the essence should convey robust, intuitive meaning
to stakeholders within the organization, serving as a guide for judging the
branding elements, any piece of communication, and even product and
service choices, but they should not be used in the messaging as a tag
or campaign theme. That is because campaigns change, but the essence
should be enduring.
If the essence is used as a tagline and, later, the campaign runs its due
course, the essence could lose its power and energy and company can
flounder. For instance, McDonald’s long ago reportedly used the guide of
‘Food, Folks, and Fun’ as the core focus of their messaging strategy. But
then they adopted ‘Food, Folks, and Fun’ as their campaign tagline. And
when the campaign came to an end, they couldn’t use these words anymore
as the guideline and the company had to search for new ones (Elliot, 1991).
Rather, the brand essence or promise should solely work as an internal
guide – and can even guide product development. Susan Hoffman, a
Wieden & Kennedy creative legend who has worked on Nike since shortly
after the shoe’s beginning, has a story that sheds light on that usage of a
brand essence.
To start, Hoffman considers Nike’s brand essence to be ‘Performance
Sports’ (Minsky, 2007).
Since you probably already know Nike’s long-term tagline, ‘Just Do It’,
you know that performance sport was never used as their brand signifier.
26 Audio Branding

Most of their messaging either focuses on an athletic performance (or the

athlete within you), on sports (or, more likely a specific sport and/or an
athlete associated with the sport), or something combining the two. Says
Hoffman:

When they started doing sunglasses, I wondered how that fit the brand. But
if you think about it, you need good equipment – shoes, glasses, hat, or gloves –
whether you are a runner or a skier. On the other hand, Nike lost their focus
when they had a jewellery line. That was years ago, and it was a total mistake.
Some guy had designed all this jewellery, and Nike got all excited. But if you
define the brand as ‘performance sports’, whether it’s in their communication
or in their product, it’s clear what works and what doesn’t: jewellery doesn’t,
sunglasses do.
Source: Minsky, 2007

Other firms embrace a short declarative sentence of what the brand offers
as their brand essence. And a few organizations use a longer essence
statement. Each method has merit, as long as it works for the organization
as a way to guide the development of the communications and other brand
decision-making.
Whichever format you use, it should provide both direction and clarity
as well as enable overall consistency within situational flexibility, so the
brand will properly ‘behave’ within the environment.
The next needed areas of a brand foundation include the mission (also
called ‘purpose’) and vision, the shorter and clearer, the better. Think of
mission as your internal motivation beyond money, just as a missionary
is set on some goal – wipe out disease; empower humanity in some new
way; create happiness or some other emotion – and the vision as where
you want to go or what you want to be as a brand.
Again, there are other models and we are open to them just so long as
they provide a compass to your stakeholders and the people charged with
bringing your brand to life.
We also need to determine its positioning – where does it sit compared
to alternatives? This is key. Even if the brand features a new-to-the-world
concept, it needs to take sales from somewhere – except, perhaps, media,
which seems to be ever expanding (eMarketer, 2015). So what will people
eliminate to buy the new brand, why is it better, and how does it deliver on
its overall promise? The statement should identify its audience, competitive
set, promise or benefit, and the ‘proof points’ that enable people to believe
the brand will deliver on the promise.
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 27

Finally, the brand needs to determine the personality or brand

character, tenor, tonality, manner, and range of expression, so the team
can get a sense of how the brand should behave.
We call this part the building blocks for the brand’s DNA.
From these come the creative implications. For the visual branding
elements, it means the logo design and usage, branded colours, font
choices, photography or illustration style, the signifier or tagline, and more –
even the language and grammar choices should be determined (formal or
informal, contractions or no contractions).
For the audio part of branding, it’s the instrumentation options, range of
the rhythm and tempo, the use of harmonies or layers, the textures and the
type of melody. We call the short composition that defines all of this the
Audio DNA.
But you should note that the brand foundation works across all the
senses, even taste, smell, touch. Just how they’re brought to life through
the creative implications changes across the various senses.

The brand foundation acts as the starting point for creating your branding
elements – whether it’s visual, auditory, tactile, or olfactory.
As branding professionals, we’re frequently called in when it comes time
to rebrand a company or to refresh an older brand.
For many firms, the competitive situation has changed, the product mix
has changed, or the brand execution was not well maintained. Or, more dras-
tically, the company has been bought, sold or merged with another company
(and the value of the brand was not part of the equation for the acquisition).
So totally rebranding might be a consideration point. But we recommend
you approach this deliberation cautiously and hesitantly. The first instinct
should be to extend, revive, update, or fix your current branding. (Either
way – starting a new one or extending your old one, the audio-branding
process can help.)
In case you’re considering rebranding, here are seven key reasons compan-
ies rebrand and three ways to tell if the effort was successful (note that the
success criteria can work with existing brands as well):

1 You might not need to rebrand or refresh. It all depends on how you want
your audience to view you. So the first question is: how is your brand
being perceived? If you like the current perception, keep going. But if you
have never formally defined its DNA, you might need to identify your
28 Audio Branding

key messaging to ensure that the brand is consistently conveyed in the

future. If you don’t like the way your brand is being perceived, however,
then you might need to change it (or better define it). In other words, you
will need to rebrand and create the tools, cues, and other information
to enable your audience to correctly understand you and emotionally
connect with your brand.
One client’s marketing, according to their research, was seen as being
disorganized, dated, and generic, and their sales presentation as less than
professional. If they had been okay with maintaining this not-so-positive
image, then a rebranding or refresh effort wouldn’t have been required.
But, not surprisingly, this organization didn’t like to be seen in those
terms. So they looked at the underlying brand foundation and created a
new foundation and strategy, one that helped make them seem current,
unique, organized, and professional in all aspects of their business. And
they used it to bring consistency across their marketing and sales efforts.
2 If you’re growing, but not as fast as your competitors, then you are losing
share. And if it’s not your product or service that’s causing the lag, then it
could be your brand or the way you are activating your brand. First, look
at all the channels you’re using. Are they the right ones and are they driving
prospects closer to the transaction? Second, look at the value you’re creat-
ing with your marketing. Can you find it? If you answered yes to both and
it is still not enough, then it might be time to rebrand, better define your
brand and/or make sure you execute it consistently across all your touch-
points (an area where having an audio brand can help). After all, changing
your story or telling it better is the first step toward changing the outcomes.
3 All things being equal, a stronger brand will win a ‘coin toss’ between
seemingly identical products or services – and, perhaps just as impor-
tantly, a strong brand can keep others with better financial positions from
entering the category. So a good place to look if your brand is effective
and strong is at those times when there is a coin toss. All other things
being equal, are you winning more than your share?
4 People use brand cues to develop impressions and make decisions. If
your brand imagery or messaging is dated and/or inconsistent, they will
determine that your processes and/or your solutions are dated or lacking
quality. So if you’re seen as being behind the times, but your solutions are
up-to-date or even innovative, then you need to change the impressions
so they’re in line with reality. (On the other hand, if your solutions or
products are dated or lacking, then you should stay the course with your
brand – at least until you fix the problems.)
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 29

5 If your people are not in alignment, prospects will be get a different ‘vibe’
from different people. Branding aligns goals and objectives across your
business units. And it helps bring the messaging together. By developing
communications and marketing tactics that align with an appropriate
brand platform, you can do more with less, because they will all work
with each other instead of against each other.
6 If your goal is to expand and be a leader, the company would need to
attract more world-class talent, which is harder without a strong brand.
In fact, branding has been shown to help business create an appealing
culture that attracts and retains world-class talent (Hall, 2014).
7 If the company is ever to be sold, the owner would want to get the most
for it and branding has been shown to help increase market cap – ie it
will help you get more money. In fact, according to the Harvard Business
Review, the ‘branding’ typically contributes between 0.5 per cent for an
unmanaged B2B brand to over 20 per cent for a well-managed B2B brand
to the value of the company. And the average is around 7 per cent of
the company’s value. In other words, on average for all B2B companies,
if your brand is contributing 7 per cent to the value of your company,
you’re ahead of the pack; if your brand is contributing below 7 per cent
to the value of the company, you’re below the pack (Gregory and Sexton,
2007).

The HBR article also pointed out that ‘a fraction of a percentage of brand
equity can mean hundreds of millions of dollars in value’.
All of these reasons are indications that a marketer might want to focus
on the branding of his or her product or service.
Can we tell how much more in the event of a sale? No. As we know,
marketing is fluid. Other issues and new competitive actions can come
into play.
Can we tell if it would turn around the loss of market share or stop
lagging sales? No, again marketing is fluid. Because competitors are react-
ing in real time, the end result might be that the company doesn’t slide as
much.
Can we tell you how much a company will make as a result of rebrand-
ing? No, but we can assure you that in many instances, the cost of not acting
could be greater.
Which brings us to the next point: possible metrics.
The big question is which metric to use? Please note that most of the
research on metrics and the development of them have been within the
consumer area, although many translate to B2B.
30 Audio Branding

The value of branding: some initial ways

to determine it for your brand
In selecting the key metrics, you’ll also need to keep in mind that brand-
ing refresh efforts tend to take between three and five years before results
become truly noticeable, but some metrics can give clues earlier. So here are
what we consider to be three of the top options to consider:

1 Company valuation. We already talked about brand valuation when

discussing the reasons for rebranding (see point 7 on p 29). This would
take the longest time to get data after the refresh, but you might be able
to identify where your brand stands today against its competitors.
2 Close rate. For this to be a successful metric, sales must truly adopt the
new brand messaging and the experience from one salesperson to the
next must be consistent (as well as from the rest of the representatives
from the company).
3 Perceived price/value. Through either qualitative and quantitative research,
you can determine the price/value perception. One way to do this is to
ask people what they’d pay for a generic version of your product and
then ask what they’d pay for one under your company’s brand; calculate
the difference and multiply by the size of the potential audience. (While
the actual process is a little more sophisticated than described here, you
get the idea.) This is one of the most prevalent metrics for measuring the
strength of consumer brands, but is also used for B2B brands. Since it can
be researched using projective techniques, evidence can be gathered earlier.

Other metrics could be unsolicited enquiries (although this also depends

on the success of marketing communication programmes that reinforce
the branding as well as taking into account activation programmes that
can help generate leads even without strong branding); attitude toward the
company; and more.
Consistent execution of all elements, when contemporary and appropri-
ate, of the brand contributes to its valuation, from the logo and colours to
the imagery and sounds. So while audio branding is still an emerging area,
we bet the sound of your brand, if appropriate, will contribute to the metrics
we suggested (as well as others).
So now that we have briefly explored the broader state of overall branding
today as well as when you might want to rebrand, let’s now explore where
audio branding fits into the broader field of sensory marketing. We think
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 31

you’ll like what you will hear. So come along and join us in the next chapter,
where we will provide a brief overview of sensory marketing.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Ben DiSanti and Ken Hicks

The emotional shopper: building the brand image through an emotional

connection along the shopper’s journey

Branding is all about consistency and emotionality, an area that many

numbers-driven marketers find hard to approach. And, ultimately, a
brand’s marketing activities need to result in a transaction. So we asked
our colleagues at DiSanti Hicks + Partners, Ben DiSanti and Ken Hicks, to
talk about their insights into how branding and emotionality influence the
shopping experience, an obvious benefit of employing an audio strategy as
part of your branding toolbox. Here is what our colleagues had to say.

Let’s start with a basic, but powerful, statistic: shoppers tend to spend
9 per cent more when they are happy. This has been reported by
BrainJuicer in past shopper research (Johnson, 2012) as well as more
recent shopper research by TNS (Tolboom, 2013).
This is a very simple and straightforward piece of data, but it is one
that is overlooked time and again by retailers. BrainJuicer has shown
that within several retail channels – from grocery stores, to DIY outlets,
to electronics purveyors – there are multiple instances where initial
interactions upon entering these environments have been negative.
In a UK grocery setting, one observed example was when shoppers
reached the trolley (shopping cart) area and discovered they didn’t have
the proper change, which created a hold-up right as they entered the store.
This led to a moment of frustration, and happened to be followed by
additional negative encounters within the first few departments inside
the store such as produce that was out of stock or did not look fresh, or
displays that were shoddily organized. This set the tone for a negative
shopping experience, in many instances causing shoppers to approach
their visit as a chore which they had to force their way through to
completion. Further evidence of this is that shoppers are significantly more
likely to be happy at the end of their shopping trip than at the beginning
(Allchin, 2010).
Compare this to a shopping experience at a store like Target, where
in many cases the entry is clean, trolleys are easily accessible, the
32 Audio Branding

Dollar Spot, full of impulse-purchase items, is right there as you walk in,
encouraging a quick look, to be followed by wide lanes and well-displayed
merchandise. This approach has helped Target connect with their
shoppers on a deeper, more emotional level, building shopper appeal over
the years. The mere design of the store says to the shoppers, ‘I understand
you’, which is all about creating emotional connections.
During recent research we conducted for a local dry-cleaning chain,
our team discovered customers faced a negative emotional engagement.
Not surprisingly, most people do not like to clean laundry and see it as a
chore, much like other household chores.
Currently dry-cleaners only address a portion of this problem, but it
involves customers having to make two trips to the store. So in essence,
this became an additional chore to cleaning clothes at home. Our
qualitative and quantitative research highlighted negative emotions related
to interactions with this brand – even though the service at the store was
very positive.
In an effort to change this, we worked with the client to position their
operation in a much broader way. The charge was to eliminate the chore
of clothes cleaning. We found there is a certain segment of the population
that expressed a high degree of emotional interest in and intent for this
offering.
In addition, there was evidence that this opportunity has even greater
potential once early adopters are aboard. There is a high degree of
likelihood that this initiative will grow beyond current expectations –
similar to how the bottled water category grew. Bottled water was once
thought to be unnecessary; however, it is estimated to reach US $279.65
billion by 2020 (Transparency Market Research, 2015).
Another example of how retailers can better connect with their
shoppers, leading to happier engagements, is the work by The Hershey
Company for Publix. Within this supermarket chain located in the south-
east United States, Hershey created a confectionery section where you
are greeted by huge visuals of your favourite confection icons (M&Ms,
Reese Cups, Hershey Kisses). These very icons engage the shopper’s
emotions and turn what could be a functional ‘search and find’ exercise
into an interaction with characters, all the while guiding them to their
preferred choice. Even if just for a brief moment, this experience provides
an enjoyable lift (although it could have been further improved by
introducing the sound footprint for these brands).
This effort shows how we can bring emotion into what is typically
viewed as an impulse category at the store. However, it is important to
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 33

note that emotional bonds with brands must be formed outside the store
in order to have them pay off in-store. Conversations with marketing
executives from the confectionery category as well as current campaigns
by both Wrigley and The Hershey Company prove this:
●● Extra Gum exhibits success by forming a bond with the consumers/
shoppers early on – long before they ever enter the store. One recent
campaign shows a boy and girl meeting in school, and every time they
see each other, the boy captures the moment by drawing on an Extra Gum
wrapper. Eventually, he reveals the history of their relationship through the
series of drawings presented to the girl, all leading up to him on bended
knee asking for her hand in marriage. As she lowers the drawing, she
sees her beau right there in front of her with ring in hand. This, along with
other ads in the overall campaign, significantly improved sales for Extra.
●● For Hershey, their S’mores programme is a successful effort at the store
to bring together three brands (Hershey’s Chocolate Bars, Honey Maid
Graham Crackers, Jet Puff Marshmallows) into a display that evokes
sitting-around-the-campfire memories of creating these sandwiches of
melted chocolate and marshmallows, and anticipated memories among
shoppers. The lifestyle visuals in-store act as emotional triggers to
activate purchase in the moment. This programme continues to show
returns year-after-year for all brands involved.
Christopher Brace, Founder and CEO of Syntegrate Consulting, states there
are two ways to move a shopper to act within a retail setting – manipulate
them or inspire them (Shopper Intelligence, 2015).
Brand marketers typically default to manipulation tactics – think about
all the coupons and discount offers that continue to pervade contact
points. Moving to inspiration is a more challenging space; however, it
has been proven to produce a longer bond with the brand. Think about
the Apple Store which most refer to as a great example where sales per
square foot is not the main determinant of what is displayed where.
Building inspiration into grocery, mass, drug, or convenience store
settings can certainly be more challenging. However, according to Geert
Van Aelst (Head of Marketing for the Südzucker Group, Belgium) this effort
can be guided by one simple screen: ‘What would you tell your mother?’
His point: we tend to be very emotional, demonstrative, and authentic
when conversing with mum. This can lead to many new and different ideas
for in-store connections with shoppers.
For Geert, storytelling is key. Given the short interaction time at retail,
the story has to be created earlier in the shopper journey – prior to
34 Audio Branding

entering the store. Geert, in his marketing for the brand T-Sugars, employs
a character (T-man) as a way to serve up a common baking ingredient in
an unexpected and memorable way. The joy experienced watching these
ads creates a stamp that can then be carried into retail settings – again
acting as an emotional trigger for the brand at shelf. According to Geert,
‘people recognize and identify with this’ (the T-man character). (But just
think how an audio brand could have further aided this connection from
pre-shop to shop.)
Drew Iddings (former Marketing Director for The Hershey Company)
echoes the point about engaging shoppers prior to entering the store. In
fact, he states, ‘the emotional connections before and after shopping are
necessary to help your brand/product stand out from the others (at shelf)
when that quick impulse decision is made’.
Thus, activation at store becomes more of a spark, or reminder, of a bond
built prior to entering and reinforced through product usage after purchase.
One emotional area where this really comes to life is through seasonal
sets. According to Drew, the goal is to ‘become an expert of the seasons’.
Confectionery is, in many cases, an anchor of seasonal sets. Hershey
embraces this and acts as an advisor for retailer seasonal sets based
on their knowledge of the shopper and how they approach shopping
differently from one season to the next. Displays become extremely
important for overcoming holiday distractions, and using strong emotional
ties to a season can almost instantaneously engage and draw shoppers
in – eg the use of iconic visuals like Kisses Christmas Bells which many
people have fond memories of from holiday ads.
Beyond seasonal in-store marketing, brands can work with retailers
to draw upon heartstrings in other ways as well. Extra Gum is about
connections. Working with Kroger, Wrigley was able to leverage this along
with their retail partner’s passion for supporting US troops, to bring the
two together and create an emotional bond with shoppers. The ‘Honouring
Our Heroes’ programme allows people to share messages with those in
the military. At store, visuals of positive interactions – eg a wife hugging
her military husband, along with a message inviting customers to buy one
pack in order to share a pack with a hero – resonated with Kroger and its
shoppers. Lena Lewis (Senior Manager, Shopper Marketing at Wrigley)
stated that this programme was ‘very successful at evoking emotion in an
impulse category, and ultimately driving sales’.
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 35

Infusing shopper inspiration into the engagement

Success for retailers in building connections to their brands will be tied to

utilizing a combination of both manipulation and inspiration.
Interestingly, both of these ways can be associated with emotional
engagements; only one can be associated with a functional engagement.
Yet, most current activity by brands or retailers focuses on the functional
area (coupons, discounts etc), as these are direct and tangible
approaches.
Emotional engagement entails more thought, and many times more
collaboration, and it often leads to more long-term results. Just think about
most loved brands and retailers today, and what you are likely to find is
that there is a passion for each brand among the shoppers and buyers –
eg iPhone, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Apple Store, the Disney store, even
Trader Joe’s or a local chain like Chicago-based Mariano’s.
Establishing this emotional link during the shopping experience
requires deciding which functional interactions can be converted to
emotional engagements to drive more fulfilling actions within the store
environment.
As a roadmap for satisfying shopper interactions, the thinking process
must begin with Occasions, which drive all retailer visits.
Occasions can be broken down into functional and emotional
groupings. Functional occasions are dominated by rational thought as
shown in Figure 2.1 (overleaf) under the ‘How Shoppers Think’ heading.
Emotional interactions are underscored by feelings – as exhibited with the
questions under ‘How Shoppers Feel’.
When the shopper is in functional mode, they can be susceptible to
manipulative tactics. We’ve all experienced these – eg price discounts,
promotions, coupons etc. Their purpose is to entice shoppers at that
last moment to consider and/or choose one brand over another. There
is extensive evidence across many brands and categories that these
marketing tactics accomplish their task. However, we have found through
a vast number of discussions with shoppers over the years that they do
little more than perpetuate switching behaviour without significantly
building a brand bond. Although this can move volume at points in time, it
has a short-term effect, and shoppers revert back to rote behaviours when
the incentive is no longer available.
36 Audio Branding

Figure 2.1 Functional and emotional groupings of the Occasion

SOPHISTICATION

How Shoppers Think How Shoppers Feel

Does the benefit meet my needs? Is the category important in my life?
How much do I need? Can I relate to the message? Is it me?
How much does it cost? Does it fit my occasion?
Will it last? Is it a brand I trust?
How many calories? Does it please my senses?
Source DHP, 2016 (used with permission)

Those brands/products that create emotional engagements with

shoppers have been shown to develop deeper, more profitable
relationships. A Gallup study revealed that fully engaged customers
represent an average 23 per cent premium in terms of share of wallet,
profitability, revenue, and relationship growth compared to the average
customer (Sorenson and Adkins, 2014).
By providing sensory cues and storytelling around brands and their
categories, brand marketers can stimulate memories, which tend to lead to
deeper interactions. This moves shoppers beyond just a price focus. This
was shown in research conducted by TMS and BrainJuicer in 2013 where
a visual sensory cue (bee mascot) on Honey Nut Cheerios packaging drew
attention to the brand in the aisle even though it was displayed on the
bottom shelf, and the emotional uplift was linked with an increase in sales
(Path-to-Purchase Institute, 2013).
Multisensory triggers within the retail space act as a magnet to
attract one brand over another. Developing more of these multisensory
engagements – especially audio, one of the most powerful senses in
retail – across the retail environment leads to a more positive shopping
experience overall. Additional examples of the power of the senses to
attract shoppers and build brand/product image include:
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 37

●● The store perimeter. This area of grocery retail typically includes

departments like produce, deli, meats, bakery, etc. Historically, this
section contributed 30 per cent of store profits. It continues to gain
favour and sales while the centre-of-store struggles. It is no surprise
that this is happening as the perimeter provides a more multisensory
shopping experience – appealing to sound, smell, and touch in addition
to sight. One major US grocery retailer utilizes sight, sound, and touch
to provide freshness cues in their produce section. Lightning and
thunder warn shoppers that water misters will turn on shortly. They
serve as a warning sign, but more importantly, they engage shoppers by
heightening the image of freshness which creates a positive emotional
interaction. This in-store experience directly lifts the image of this retail
brand. When asking shoppers about their impressions of retailers, they
will typically respond by describing these types of interactions with
products from perimeter departments.
●● Asian Paints. The challenge here was to move the Indian culture
to embrace colour within their homes. Interestingly, this culture
incorporates colour in clothing, but homes tend to be very stark. In
fact, a key insight that drove a change in the company’s retail strategy
was that in India consumers are afraid of colour when decorating
their homes. To change this, Asian Paints, along with their agency
Fitch, created a ‘walk-in home décor magazine’ where shoppers could
interact with colours in a multisensory environment – rooms immersed
in the colour of the shopper’s choice; displays where shoppers
could touch and feel blocks in almost any imaginable colour etc. The
showroom was structured to be an ultimate colour playground. The
twist here was that shoppers could not purchase paint tins from this
store – they simply interacted with colour on a new level. The power of
this sensory engagement led to a 35 per cent increase in sales of paint
tins from adjacent dealer stores (Fitch, nd).
●● Cinnabon. The power of smell can create both positive and negative
experiences that affect brand image and retail sales. Baked goods
company Cinnabon knows this all too well. Many of their locations are
in open-air mall settings, and the aroma of their cinnamon rolls acts as
a magnet, drawing shoppers in. A test in which the company moved
their ovens to the back of the store led to a significant decrease in sales
(Nassauer, 2014).
38 Audio Branding

●● Starbucks. Around a decade ago, Starbucks offered breakfast

sandwiches, and when they were introduced, the company soon
learned that the aroma of these items overwhelmed the very item that
put them on the map – coffee. Founder Howard Schultz initially vowed to
remove these items from the menu, but the product development team
was able to mitigate the smell of the breakfast sandwiches to the point
where coffee remained the pre-eminent aroma that greeted customers
upon entering the Starbucks store. This small operational change
preserved the emotional brand connection with customers while still
providing a logical complement to their core product (Nocera, 2008).
●● Burberry. This prominent clothing retailer built much of its image on
weather elements – specifically rain. They have incorporated this
throughout all brand touchpoints, including fashion shows, and have
successfully taken a negative (dark, gloomy, rainy weather) and
transformed it into a positive sensory interaction. Rain is a major part
of their fashion shows. The key here is that rain engages the senses
of sight, smell, touch and sound. In addition, it stimulates memories
within shoppers. The end result is a brand whose image is constantly
reinforced through impactful sensory engagements that form new
memories – all leading to an evergreen brand (Lamb, 2012).
●● Abercrombie & Fitch. When we think of loud club music, each of us
holds a distinct image, although they differ from person to person.
Retailers like US clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch have learned to
leverage this to their advantage. Based on the observation that younger
people can withstand loud music for longer periods of time than adults,
they use loud club music to ensure that younger shoppers spend more
time in stores like A&F, or other similar retailers like Hollister, and, in
so doing, reinforce the image that these retailers appeal to a younger
target (Kahn, 2016).
Thus, one clear link to building or fortifying a brand bond is through
establishing strong emotionally-driven interactions in a retail setting –
whether online or in-store.
One proven way to establish these types of engagements is by
focusing on providing displays, programmes, or communication efforts
that are multisensory in nature. These engagements move shoppers from
functional mode into more of an emotional space.
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 39

Lena Lewis indicates it is also important to take into account a

shopper’s approach to different retail environments. The example here is
Costco. ‘Shoppers are on the hunt here – looking for new things’, says Ms
Lewis. As a result, working with a retailer like Costco to introduce new
products via a multisensory sampling experience can increase trial and
purchase. ‘This is where shoppers are most open to an experience of this
type.’
These multisensory exchanges stimulate the emotional centres of the
brain, stirring up memories, resulting in a deeper, enduring impression of
the brand during the shopping experience and amplifying the brand bond
beyond what is available through behavioural analysis alone. Current
efforts around emotional engagements relate to testing how well this
additive component improves predictive modelling and thus developing a
system that provides both emotional and behavioural learning aspects to
drive shopper interaction.
In the end, the benefits of building emotional connections along the
path-to-purchase can be summed up with a short poem:

Give people a nudge and their choices will budge

Smell, sound, and vision can shift a decision
How prices are laid out affects what gets paid out
So frame offers right for shopper delight.
Source: John Kearon, BrainJuicer, The Future of Insights, 2016

In other words, the brand image can be built effectively by establishing the
emotional connections with consumers. Leveraging human senses at retail
is a powerful way to accomplish this – especially where shoppers’ time
and attention are limited.

Guest biographies

Ben DiSanti is Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Curiosity

Seeker, DiSanti Hicks + Partners, where he leads the data analytics and
segmentation practice. As a senior-level strategic planner, he launched
the planning departments at four different agencies, where he has worked
with such clients as Coca-Cola, Walmart, Bank of America, Facebook, and
many others. His pioneering work for McDonald’s Restaurants created a
40 Audio Branding

zone marketing communications strategy that has been adopted by other

quick service restaurants (QSRs) and has influenced many consumer
packaged goods (CPGs) and service brands around the world. Ben
holds a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from
Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. During down-time,
he loves to hop on his road bike and ride through the countryside.

Ken Hicks is Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Client Solutions Partner,

DiSanti Hicks + Partners. He has held senior-level positions at several
agencies including Arc/Burnett and The Marketing Store, serving such
clients as Coca-Cola, MillerCoors, McDonald’s, Brown-Forman, General
Mills, Redbox, United, AT&T, Whirlpool, and Ford Motor Company. Ken is
a graduate of the University of Michigan and holds a master’s degree in
Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University’s
Medill School of Journalism. He is also frequently to be found lecturing
up-and-coming students at many different US universities including Exeter,
Northwestern, DePaul, and St Joseph.

Ca s e Huggies

The sound of the bond between a mother and her baby

How does audio branding contribute to an overall branding effort? We got a

glimpse into the answer in our case study for SNCF, but let’s dig a little deeper
by looking at a recent case study for Huggies. This extensively global Kimberly-
Clark brand, Huggies, had recently introduced a new positioning, one that put
greater emphasis on the emotional connection between mother and baby.
Their advertising agency, Ogilvy, was working to bring consistency to their
client’s messaging as well as to their far-flung logos and colours. The markets
had largely embraced the idea of a charming logo animation, internally called
‘Hugging Gs’, but there was a lack of consistency about its use.
In the end frames, the graphic appeared in different colours with different
backgrounds. Every time a logo animated onto the screen, it was accompanied by
different music: whistling, guitar or just background music fading away as the logo
appeared. No branded earprint was left to accompany the warmth of the visual.
An audio audit of the category revealed that the whole sector was overusing
innocuous acoustic guitar. To some extent, Huggies TV commercials and branded
 Audio Branding in the Digital Age 41

content shared this trend, but the brand didn’t use any sound consistently from
place to place. And they use many audio approaches; for example, strings and
piano in the USA, energetic guitar in Latin America, licensed pop music in Israel,
harpsichord in Russia, soft feminine voice in Australia. Much of the music lacked
energy or narrative intent.
The issue was: how to provide a flexible system that could work in many
countries and deliver a touching message about the connection between mother
and child, but give the markets flexibility to adapt it to suit a range of purchasers
from mothers of newborns to mums of toddlers as well as a range of content from
highly emotional stories to very functional messaging about absorption and fit.
Enter Ogilvy’s Managing Director for the Huggies account, Angela Johnson,
who felt that audio branding would provide a previously untapped solution.
One that had the potential to underscore the connection message, unify the
global markets, amplify people’s emotions, and create coherence among the
communications to a wide variety of targets.
The clients and agency formed a Listening Committee that included people from
design and marketing, represented both diapers and baby-wipes brands, and was
populated by two Europeans (UK and Spain), a Latin American, and US marketing
staff. On the central Sixième Son team were a Canadian, a Frenchman (father of
five young children), and an American who had grown up in Spain. Together, the
combined teams worked through the musical yesses and nos that would capture
the values and character of the brand to inform the composers/sound designers
who would take on the challenge of creating the concepts for the audio DNA.
Of the five alternatives that were created and presented to the listening
committee, one stood out as more distinctive and specific to the meaning the
team sought to convey. It began with a mother humming to her newborn in very
gentle tones and the unformed sound of a newborn responding. Then, during the
course of this 40-second recording, the voice of the child became clearer and at
the end of it, the mother is singing and the child is responding with the same tune.
The goal was to develop an audio identity that would work as a system,
appropriate for all target audiences. The audio identity features the interplay
between the voices of mother and child and reflects the duality of the brand; a
reassuring quality for newborns and an active quality for toddlers.
The audio identity was quickly embraced by the markets and, within the first
six months, had been adapted to new campaigns in many countries throughout
the globe in ways that demonstrate the system’s immense flexibility:

●● Russia used both music and the voices of mother and child, even adding some
baby sounds of their own to score a commercial featuring highly active and
vocal babies.
42 Audio Branding

●● Brazil sought to use only the end frame in which the visual logo animates onto
the screen accompanied by the brand’s music and laughter.
●● Ogilvy Argentina, on behalf of several Latin American markets, scored a
series of 30-second commercials as well short-form digital ads. In one, the
dramatic moment that unified the campaign was the instant in which the
mother lets go of the baby’s hand and the baby takes steps to explore the
world on his or her own. This moment was intensified by adding musical
tension to the score followed by a blooming of energy and confidence.

Given that their spots carried a good deal of copy, Argentina left out the mum and
baby voices and simply had an instrumental version of branded music scored to
emphasize the mother’s ambivalence and subsequent relief, leading into the child’s
joyful exploration. These commercials have been eagerly adopted by neighbouring
countries and may also be used in Central America and the Caribbean.
Says Johnson:

The Huggies audio brand brings an immediate smile to everyone who hears it. At
first the creatives were sceptical of the idea of a global brand sound, but the music
itself and the flexibility with which it can be applied won them over fast. Sixième Son
brought a rigorous process to the creation, which helped align the stakeholders and
arrive at an audio identity that will build brand’s power for years to come.
Source: Fahey, 2016b

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 45

It’s time 03
we came to our
sensory marketing
Sight. Sound. Smell. Touch. And taste. That’s it. The five senses – our simple
inputs for knowing and interpreting the world. The combination of them,
married with our memories, is all we have for interpreting our experiences.
All these senses can be used for branding and marketing to some degree. But
some are more powerful for that than others.
We already discussed in the previous two chapters the power of audio
branding as well as the overriding prevalence of visual branding in the
marketing world today.
But given the richness of today’s media environment and the truly fierce
competition for attention and transactions, brands need to deploy all their
tools to truly stand out from the pack. As a result of this changing envi-
ronment, there seems to be a growing interest in sensory branding and
marketing (Hulten, 2015).
Of course, you, our readers, should agree; otherwise, you wouldn’t be
engrossed in this book – one that explores one of the most powerful, yet
currently underutilized, sensory branding opportunities: sound and music.
But before we go too far, what is the broader area of sensory branding
and where does the use of sound fit into this bigger picture? Also, can the
other senses be used for branding – and, if so, how? While we can’t answer
these questions deeply – some of the other forms of sensory marketing and
branding require long books to themselves – we can provide some direction
and considerations.
Let’s start with a definition. In Sensory Marketing: Theoretical and empir-
ical grounds, Hulten defines sensory marketing as ‘a service process that
focuses on sensory strategies and stimuli with the goal of creating a multi-
sensory brand experience, in supporting the individual’s identity creation
46 Audio Branding

through the mind and the five senses to generate consumer value, consumer
experiences, and the brand as an image’ (Hulten, 2015, p 106).
Most of his points conform to the generally accepted view of branding –
that branding as an exercise helps people express their self-image and values
while building the individual brand’s image and values as well.
But as we unpack Hulten’s definition, we want to point out that he also
states that the marketer should also consider that branding is a service that
creates consumer value, a point often overlooked.
In addition, the use of sensory stimuli is as experiential as using the actual
product or service and it is ultimately the coming together of the sensory
inputs that provides the message. As Neil Gains (whom you’ll meet more
fully in Chapter 7) pointed out in his book Brand esSense, ‘Most senses
comprise multiple feedback systems and are ultimately integrated in the
brain’ (Gains, 2013).
Now to answer the other questions in our list above, let’s take a brief
look at the different areas of branding, starting with the most popular one –
visual branding.

Marketers have already set their sights

on visual branding
At the last count, there were nearly 1,000 books under ‘branding’ on
Amazon.com. Most are either on strategy, which we covered in the previous
chapter, or on logo design and identity systems.
In fact, visual branding is a well-understood area and we bet that you
are well-versed in the strategic and executional thinking behind it. After all,
‘sight is the sense that is most used by humans to get an understanding of
the surrounding environment’ (Hulten, 2015). As a result, sight is ‘the most
used sense in branding’ (Gains, 2013).
The issue: visual inputs need to be processed to be fully understood
(Hulten, 2015) and, thus, could be filtered out by the individual. Additionally,
as we have already explained, by being used to death, the visual landscape is
truly cluttered, so it becomes harder to set your brand apart.
Of course, we’re not arguing that marketers should stop developing and
maintaining their visual branding elements. Rather, we believe marketers
should make the most of every brand touchpoint and every form of sensory
input, placing the use of the taste, touch, smell, and sounds in their brand
toolbox as well.
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 47

Needless to say, some senses provide more branding opportunities than

others. Let’s now move to one that is rather limited, although powerful – taste.

What does taste mean in the world

of sensory branding?
Unless it’s a food product, physical taste typically isn’t a consideration for
any marketer’s branding effort. After all, what marketer would want people
licking the walls of the retail environment? (We should, of course, remind
marketers that taste as an aesthetic concept should always be considered,
but that is a different discussion.)
Physical taste is a result of chemical reactions being initiated at receptors
in the mouth, and are limited to sweet, sour, salt, and bitter, though others
add the taste of ‘umami’ (savoury) as well. While the individual taste sensa-
tions might have specific meanings – such as ‘sweet’ for energy and ‘bitter’
for poison (Gains, 2013, pp 37–39) – the actual understanding of a taste is
the combination of the chemical reactions as well as the scent, the tactile
inputs (such as the temperature and texture), memory, context (which is
why people can enjoy the ‘warning’ taste of sour in candy), expectations,
and more – including, as we will see in Charles Spence’s guest contribution
later in this chapter, sound. In other words, the perception of taste is really
a multisensory experience.
Because of this combination, ‘name, presentation, environment, scent,
sound and texture must all be considered when branding with taste’
(Olfactory Evangelist, 2014).
What’s more, taste can be a strong component in creating multisensory
experiences. For instance, look at the personal clothing stylist company
Trunk Club whose Chicago ‘Clubhouse’ (ie retail location) offers ‘compli-
mentary beer, wine, and spirits’ to shoppers (Trunk Club, 2016), as well as
other retailers who serve food or drinks during the shopping experience.
And even beyond the retail setting, Kia Motors invites consumers to expe-
rience it through taste by posting appropriate recipes on its website (Kia
Motors, 2016).
Why are these important? Because as a marketing blogger points out,
‘Taste is linked to emotional states, and so it can alter mood and brand
perception’ (Olfactory Evangelist, 2014).
Let’s keep it in mind as we touch briefly on the next of the five sensory
‘inputs’ – touch.
48 Audio Branding

Let’s get in touch with the key idea behind

tactile branding
Another sense that’s great for marketers to consider engaging is that of
touch, particularly for retail environments – including the packaging and
product – as well as in restaurants, hotels, and other physical locations,
enabling people to gain key sensory information such as shape, texture,
temperature, firmness, and other qualities that could help the individual
interpret the merits of the brand and the experience.
But engaging the tactile sense can also be used in conveying experiences
as well. How? Easy. Take Marriott Hotels for instance. Through Oculus Rift
technology, they enabled guests to experience selected travel destinations,
adding heaters to simulate the sun and water sprayers to convey being near
an attractive body of water (Marriott Hotels, 2014; Brown, 2016) as well
as, of course, sound.
However, for the tactile input to happen, the consumer must take the
action. The brand, on the other hand, can only make the experience available.
As a result, we suspect the strategic use of this sense for mass brand-
ing purposes is more limited, like taste, and is perhaps more powerful as a
branding tool once the consumer is aware of the product or service and is
now intrigued enough to test his or her hypothesis about it, reinforcing what
the individual first learned through the senses of sound, smell, and sight.
Therefore, of course, the tactile branding elements should be consistent
with the overall brand essence and values, bringing them to life while re-
inforcing the qualities conveyed first through visual, sound, and even olfac-
tory branding.

Time to sniff out the status of olfactory

branding
As we just discussed, for an individual to experience the physical taste of
a brand, they must act and put the food item in their mouth. Likewise, for
a person to experience the physical textures of a brand – touch branding –
they must actually touch the item or thing. In other words, for both of these
forms of branding, an action is required by the individual to experience taste
and touch forms of branding. On the other hand, an individual can smell
the scent of a brand without needing to take any action. In other words, the
individual can be passive and still experience the brand. And, like sound,
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 49

marketers can tap into the sense of smell even when the customer is staring
at something else or they have their eyes closed. Additionally, unlike touch
and taste, many people can experience the scent at the same time.
And the sense of smell is important to humanity’s survival, affecting
everything from our perceived taste in food – it serves as a warning against
consuming rotten things and sets the stage for enjoyable meals – to our
sexual selection. The sense of smell plays this key role, because, as Gains
explains, it’s ‘the only sense with a straight line to our emotions, as the olfac-
tory bulb is directly connected to the limbic system (the centre of the brain’s
emotions)’ (Gains, 2013). And, it’s the one that is considered to be highly
connected to our memory.
What’s more, the use of scenting can work to influence behaviour. In fact,
‘customers tend to stay an average of 15 minutes longer in locations using a
scent’ (Mood Media, 2016). This is important because marketers have long
recognized that the longer a person stays in a store, the more likely he or she
is to purchase something. Citing another study, Mood Media also reported
that people underestimate the time they spend in a scented store as well as
the number of individual departments they visit (Mood Media, 2016). And,
drawing from a test at a popular London nightclub, one could assume that
scenting can help boost sales. In a test, a nightclub doubled the sales of a
coconut rum when they scented the place with the smell of coconut scent
(Mood Media, 2016).
With these types of results – and the increasing recognition that emotion
is often stronger than reason as a driver of decision-making – olfactory
branding, like the use of sound and music, is increasing in popularity as a
marketing strategy (Fahey, 2016), although we should point out the avail-
able touchpoints for scenting are obviously more limited than those for
sound.
Some examples include the scent implying fresh laundry in Thomas Pink
stores (Gains, 2013), a floral infused rainforest for the Equarius Hotel at
Resorts World Sentosa (Faure-Field, 2012) as well as the use of scenting by
many other hotel chains (Clark, 2015), and an exclusive branded fragrance
for Kia that car owners could purchase (Kia Motors, 2016).
About the power of scent branding, Caroline Fabrigas, Chief Executive
Officer of Scent Marketing, Inc, said, ‘You don’t viscerally experience a logo
the way you experience a scent’ (Clark, 2015).
Fabrigas also commented in an interview that a scent may be conceived
as a chord: with a top note, a middle note, and a bass note. For a simplified
example, the scent for a brand might lead with a top note of lively, dynamic
citrus scent, a middle note of green grass to evoke the brand’s ecological
50 Audio Branding

nature, and a bass note of wood and a comforting and grounded musk to
anchor the chord. Notice the similarity to the use of audio? After knowing
what the brand wanted to achieve, she said she would pick the scents with
the help of a global database that tracks people’s associations with a wide
variety of scents from all over the planet (Fahey, 2016).
Based on Fabrigas’ description of scenting, one can see how it can support
a brand when the elements are consistent with the brand essence and convey
the brand values, DNA, and personality. So now that we’ve covered olfac-
tory branding, we are almost done – just one more sensory input. And it
should be music to your ears.

And now for some sound thoughts

on auditory branding
As Colleen wrote for CMO.com, ‘One of the most effective tools to unify
a customer’s experience is the often-neglected branding element that works
on-screen or off-screen, in-store or on-hold, whether or not you’re looking.
That’s a brand’s music’ (Fahey, 2014).
When considering sound, one thing to remember is that it’s actually
multisensory. That is because the ear picks up vibrations, so, in a sense, we
‘feel’ sound.
In other words, ‘we hear even when we are not listening’ (Arning and
Gordon, 2006) – perhaps a survival mechanism out in the wild to warn us
of predators. And the use of sound and music can shape and direct other
perceptual abilities. For instance, congruent sound cues can increase the
speed of a visual search for products, a key for success in both online and
retail settings (Knöferle, 2012), as well as improve the perceived taste of
food (Hui, 2013) and wine (North, 2012).
And, yes, some marketers have long employed sound and music as part of
their branding efforts, including, as we have already mentioned, the famil-
iar launch chime of an Apple computer, the pop of the Snapple lid, and the
aggressive howl of a Harley in rev mode.
While these examples are within the realm of audio branding, the true
practices are more sophisticated than an isolated packaging or product
sound, such as those listed above or the Microsoft start-up ‘Windows
Sound’, which Brian Eno, perhaps ironically, composed on a Mac (Higgins,
2013); the use of a now quaint jingle at the end of a radio spot; or a discrete
audio logo such as the one attached to the Intel Inside button.
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 51

One caveat: don’t fall into the trap of thinking that audio branding is
about music. Rather, it’s about the branding. To create an audio universe,
you have to adapt your audio DNA to internal and external audiences in
both digital and environmental platforms, across all of your touchpoints,
optimizing the tonality of the sound and music in light of the context of
each one.
Best yet, like taste, texture, and scent, you can brand with sounds and
music, reinforcing your promise and values, without obstructing understand-
ing of words. And it’s even more effective when brands bring them together
and use a multisensory approach. For a perfect example, just think of the
car showrooms on the Champs-Élysées as they offer up music, concept cars
and their distinctive scents, restaurants, small affordable licensed products,
and more.
Finally, audio branding helps marketers address our new omnichan-
nel world, where one needs to create the truly seamless experience
that customers expect across the offline and online worlds (Rosen and
Minsky, 2017).

So who should consider audio branding

and why?
As we just mentioned, thinking of sound and music as mere filler or back-
ground music is a huge missed opportunity. But when used correctly, sound
and music have the ability to deliver a distinct branding message – and
make it stick once it gets there. So you should consider developing an audio
brand if:

●● you are in a highly regulated industry, and there are many claims you
can’t make but you still need to create a bond with your audiences;
●● you are launching or repositioning a company or product and want to
give it a boost;
●● your competitors can outspend you, and you have to outsmart them, be
sharper and use your branding opportunities more wisely;
●● you are a B2B company with sales films, instructional videos, sales events,
a trade show booth, a customer service centre where clients could be
put on hold, a presentation app or dashboard for clients to use, or other
places where your clients might interact with you, and you need to tie
them together with audio branding;
52 Audio Branding

●● you have long corridors, big parking lots, hundreds of videos, or messages
over PA systems, where you can create a better experience with audio
branding;
●● you have branches, stores, outlets, or other forms of multiple locations
and want to bring them together to convey the same experience through
the use of audio branding;
●● you have virtual environments and want to suggest the taste, texture, or
scent of your product;
●● you want to position and emphasize the role of the brand in the custom-
er’s life to people who have learned to tune out the excess stimulation
delivered through the multitude of media channels;
●● you develop tools or technology that provide a feedback loop or warn-
ing sounds and want to make people love you, creating a kinder world,
rather than providing the annoying ‘beep, Beep, BEEPs’, then invest in a
sound identity – in other words, it is time to rethink train doors, ATMs,
microwaves, ovens, alarm clocks, washer, dryers, airport people movers,
and more.

Now that you see the urgency of making the most of each consumer touch-
point and know where audio branding fits into the bigger world of sensory
marketing, let’s learn about the rigorous process of developing an audio
brand, so you’ll know how to start your brand on the right way by discover-
ing its consistent, unique, value-building sound. So be sure to stay tuned for
more in the coming pages.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Charles Spence

Sonic seasoning

The topic of sensory marketing may seem too touchy-feely for some
marketers’ executive committees (it is, after all, about stimulating feelings
by finding ways to touch the senses and emotions).
So we invited Professor Charles Spence, the world-famous cognitive
neuroscientist, who specializes in researching multisensory marketing, to
share some of his findings from his Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University. In addition, he
is a consultant for brands across the world.
Prof Spence’s studies span the mapping of the musical notes most
people associate with different scents, the measurement of the remarkable
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 53

effect that different musical tones have on perceptions of the same flavour,
the speed with which someone can see an object with a coherent sound
vs a non-related sound.
What’s presented here is the intriguing tip of the crossmodal iceberg,
which gives a scientific solidity to phenomena that many experienced
artists and designers intuitively sense.

Sonic seasoning: this evocative term captures the growing realization

that what we hear influences what we taste, and does so in ways that are
predictable. Culinary artists, chefs, food and beverage brands, and even an
airline have taken these findings on board (quite literally in the last case)
to enhance the multisensory offering that they provide to their customers
(Spence, 2014).
Crossing of the senses is, of course, nothing new in the fields of
design and creative endeavour (Haverkamp, 2014). However, the
problem is that all too often innovative cross-sensory connections, and
unusual combinations of stimuli, have been based on the intuitions of the
synaesthete – these are the rare individuals, though no one can agree
quite how rare, who experience unusual sensory concurrents (like colour)
on perceiving, or thinking about, a particular inducer (such as a letter,
a number, or a unit of time). While the synaesthete’s experiences are
undoubtedly interesting, the problem for design and marketing is that their
concurrents are, by definition, idiosyncratic (Spence, 2012).
Thus, while one synaesthete might experience a low-pitched sound
while tasting something sweet, another might experience a bubbling
sound. Just take the famous Russian mnemonist (that’s someone with a
very, very large memory) and synaesthete studied by Luria back in the
1960s (Luria, 1968). This individual experienced an especially wide range of
different taste/flavour sensations in response to sound. When, for example,
presented with a 50Hz tone (for musicians, this corresponds approximately
to G1), he experienced a taste that he likened to sweet and sour borscht: ‘a
sensation that gripped his entire tongue’. Meanwhile, when presented with
a 3,000 Hz tone (close to a G7), he reported ‘an ugly taste – rather like that
of a briny pickle’ instead.
Are such observations interesting? Yes! Are they meaningful, when it
comes to designing music and soundscapes to complement our tasting
experiences, I doubt it – though it doesn’t, of course, stop people from
trying (Knapton, 2015; Spence and Wang, 2015). I would argue that
while any composition/creation based on the unique experiences of
54 Audio Branding

synaesthetes may be interesting, and will possibly have a slightly higher

chance of being liked than some other random combination of stimuli
(Ward et al, 2008), it is unlikely that it will have widespread appeal for
consumers (Spence, 2012).
What has been so exciting about the developments that have
taken place over the last few years is precisely that a new science of
surprising cross-sensory matching has emerged. One that is based on the
crossmodal correspondences (Spence, 2011). It turns out that most of us
(no matter whether we are a synaesthetes or not) share many surprising
associations between our senses.
To illustrate the point, just think for a moment about whether a lemon is
fast or slow? It has to be fast, right! As to why that should be the case, it is
hard to say.
But I can guarantee you that the majority of people respond to that
question, and many others like it, in the same way. I should know, we
have been conducting a huge amount of cross-cultural research on just
such questions over the last few years (eg Woods et al, 2013). A large and
growing body of empirical research now demonstrates that most of us
will associate high-pitched sounds with stimuli that are light, bright, small,
angular, and localized high up in space, whereas low-pitched sounds are
darker, larger, and localized lower in space (see Spence, 2011, for a review).
Welcome to the world of the crossmodal correspondences.
The key point here is that tastes, aromas, and flavours also correspond
crossmodally to sounds of different pitch, to different timbres (just think
of the characteristic sounds of different classes of music instrument),
roughness, tempo, etc (Knöferle and Spence, 2012; Knöferle et al, 2015).
Knowing this allows one to make musical recommendations, or even to
generate novel music and/or soundscapes that, when played, can actually
change the taste of food and drink. Yes, you read that right. Remarkable,
no? But this is the all new science of sonic seasoning.
In one study, for instance, conducted together with The Fat Duck
Research Kitchen and Condiment Junkie, a sound-design agency based in
the UK, we demonstrated that a tinkling high-pitched soundscape would
bring out the sweetness of a bittersweet food (cinder toffee) while playing
a low-pitched soundscape brought out the toffee’s bitterness instead
(Crisinel et al, 2012).
Sadly, the results were not dramatic enough to make it onto the tasting
menu at The Fat Duck (this the restaurant, remember, that is famous, in part,
for the ‘Sound of the Sea’ seafood dish – a plate of seafood that is brought
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 55

to the table together with a conch shell, out of which dribble some earbuds,
playing, you guessed it, the sounds of the sea) (The Fat Duck, 2016).
Nevertheless, Caroline Hobkinson (a culinary artist) incorporated the
two soundscapes into the sensory dining menu that she curated at The
House of Wolf restaurant in Islington, North London (now, sadly, closed).
Each of the courses on the tasting menu was devoted to a different one
of the diner’s senses. For the sound course, the diners were given a
bittersweet chocolate lolly. There was a telephone number on the menu for
diners to ring. They could then either choose to listen to the bitter or to the
sweet soundscape.
We have the findings to show that ratings of sweetness-bitterness
vary, on average, by 5–10 per cent depending on the soundscape that you
happen to be listening to, and the food you are tasting. British Airways
went on to introduce its ‘Sound Bite’ soundtrack on its long-haul flights,
incorporating just this idea – making the food taste just that little bit better
at 35,000 ft (Victor, 2014).
Now, before getting too excited about all these cross-sensory effects, it
is worth noting a few things:

1 While you can use sound to draw people’s attention to a taste/flavour in

a food that they might not otherwise pay so much attention to (and, by
so doing, accentuate it in the consumer’s mind), you cannot use music
to ‘magic up’ a taste out of nowhere – or at least we haven’t succeeded
in doing that yet.
2 And while many are interested in using such insights to perhaps provide
musical accompaniments for meal times that will allow people to taste
the sweetness they crave while reducing the actual sugar content of
the food (by, you guessed it, playing those sweet tunes), we do not yet
know how long-lasting such sonic seasoning effects are. Would they
wear off after a week? Or will they last a lifetime? We simply do not
know. More research is most definitely needed here.
3 I suspect that, given how many associations there are with the sounds
we hear, it helps to prime the consumer to the connections that may be
present in the music. Otherwise, there is a danger that it might just all
pass them by. Or, then again, maybe not. Once again, more research
needed!

Where the modernist chef and culinary artist lead (supported, of course,
by the eager psychologist), bigger brands and companies will eventually
56 Audio Branding

follow. The year 2013, for instance, saw The Singleton Sensorium, where
500 people were invited to Soho in London for a multisensory tasting event.
They were given a glass of The Singleton whisky, a scorecard, and
a pencil. They were then led through three rooms, each with a different
soundscape, different visuals, and a different aroma. The sweet room, for
example, had tinkling high-pitched music (sonic seasoning) coming from
the ceiling. Changing the atmospherics led to a 10–20 per cent change in
people’s experience of the aroma, taste, and mouth-feel of the drink (Velasco
et al, 2013). Since then, several drinks brands have been sponsoring versions
of the Sensorium in countries around the world, including South Africa and
Canada (see also Spence et al, 2014). The multisensory experiential angle
is even being extended to the museum setting, with special soundscapes
composed to accompany particular art works, eg at The Sensorium at Tate
Britain over the summer of 2015 (Davis, 2015).
Looking forward, though, I see the biggest uptake of these emerging
insights around sonic, or digital, seasoning evolving with the next
generation of sensory apps (Spence, 2014). For instance, just take the
Concerto app launched by Häagen-Dazs to help the consumer gauge how
long they should wait after taking their ice-cream out of the freezer before
serving. (The app, developed by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Inc can be
downloaded at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/haagen-dazs-concerto-timer/
id670015815?mt=8).
Customers simply have to get their mobile device out, scan the QR code
(that black-and-white square) that can be found on the lid of special packs.
The next thing they know, an apparition suddenly appears above the tub
of ice-cream when viewed through the screen of their mobile device. The
viewer is then treated to a short musical interlude, in which musicians
can be seen (and heard) magically floating on top of the ice-cream. Each
of the musical selections lasts for about two minutes – or, in other words,
just long enough for the contents to soften slightly. Once the music draws
to a close, or so the claim goes, the ice-cream should be ready to serve.
What is more, the different flavours are associated with different pieces
of music. Now, while different tunes can be heard after scanning different
ice-cream lids, I believe that there is a whole art and science to the
matching of music to taste/flavour that is yet to be capitalized on.
Krug also has an app that allows the discerning champagne drinker to
scan the label of their bottle and get a selection of music (King, 2014a), just
a part of their strategy of drawing a parallel between the art of composition
in the case of music and wine (King, 2014b). And let me assure you, I know
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 57

of a host of other food and beverage brands who have been thinking about
offering their own version of this. Though, taking a closer look at the apps
that have been released so far, one sees that the choice of music, or
soundscape, has typically been based more on intuition, and the personal
preferences of the creator of the product or perhaps a famous musician.
However, looking forward, I believe that there is scope to deliver musical
selections, and soundscapes, that can bring out, or enhance, a particular
taste, or flavour. Who, after all, wouldn’t want music recommendations
that could help to make their food sweeter? In fact, we now have musical
recommendations not only for sweet, but also for sour and bitter music.
Furthermore, we are currently working on spicy music, and music that
conveys notions of hot/cold. The two tastes that we are still struggling
to define musically are salty, and the fifth taste, umami. And while
the focus here is primarily on food and drink, it should be noted that a
number of perfume makers are starting to sit up and take notice of the
correspondences too. To give some ideas of what is possible here, the
Nez de Courvoisier cognac app from a few years ago (Crisinel et al, 2013;
Spence et al, 2014; Studioish, nd) involved soundscapes specifically
composed to correspond to each of six key aroma notes in the cognac. In
the future, the same could presumably be done for high-end perfumes.
I also see great potential for home food delivery services, where the
take-away, or meal, is delivered together with a music selection designed
to enhance, or modify, the consumer’s taste experience. Just take the
recent team-up between Munchery and Google Play Music (eg Roncero-
Menendez, 2015), or our own work identifying the top tunes to go with
different styles of take-away with Just Eat (Sanderson, 2015). Once they
realize just how important the atmosphere is to the experience of eating
and drinking (Spence and Piqueras-Fiszman, 2014), food and drinks brands
will realize that they should be doing everything in their power to optimize
the sonic backdrop when the consumer tastes their products. It really can
make all the difference.
Finally, it is worth noting that the emergence of the Sensorium concept,
and the growth of interest in sensory apps, also fits nicely, I think, into the
emerging trend toward ‘Sensploration’ (Leow, 2015). The fact that many
of these cross-sensory associations (or correspondences) are surprising,
while at the same time being shared across groups of people, makes it all
the more interesting for consumers to explore their own sensory worlds, and
the surprising connections that might lie therein. Given all the above, I would
expect to hear a lot more about sonic/digital seasoning in the years to come.
58 Audio Branding

Guest biography

Charles Spence is Professor of Experimental Psychology and Head of the

Crossmodal Research Laboratory based at Oxford University’s Department
of Experimental Psychology. An internationally recognized expert in
consumer neuroscience, sensory marketing, product development and
innovation, neurogastronomy, neuroscience-inspired marketing and
design, and consumer psychology, Charles is interested in how people
perceive the world around them: in particular, how our brains process the
information from each of our different senses to form the extraordinarily
rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives.
Charles has lectured and consulted extensively around the world on the
topics of consumer neuroscience and sensory marketing to a very wide
range of companies and industries, including PepsiCo, Unilever, Twinings,
Nestlé, P&G, Mars, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Givaudan, Firmenich, and
Takasago. He is increasingly asked to work with top restaurants, such
as Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck at Bray, Denis Martin’s Restaurant
Denis Martin, Vevey, Switzerland, and The Paul Bocuse cookery school
and restaurant, Lyon, France.
Prof Spence has published more than 750 peer-reviewed articles over
the last two decades on various aspects of neuroscience and design. 2014
saw the publication of his latest book with Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, The
perfect meal: The multisensory science of food and dining, which won the
2015 Prose Prize for popular science.
Charles has won a number of awards for his work, including:

●● the Ig Nobel award for nutrition: ‘The role of auditory cues in modulating
the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips’, co-authored
with M Zampini and published in the Journal of Sensory Science;
●● with Cristy Ho, the American Psychological Association’s Division,
Young Investigator Award for ‘Assessing the effectiveness of various
auditory cues in capturing a driver’s visual attention’ in the Journal of
Experimental Psychology;
●● the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, Germany;
●● the Paul Bertelson Award of the European Society for Cognitive
Psychology, which honours scientists in an early stage of their scientific
careers who have made an outstanding contribution to cognitive
psychology in Europe.
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 59

Ca s e Nestlé, La Roche-Posay and Louis XIII Cognac

Taste and touch: examples of using music’s flavouring to focus emotions

and heighten senses

Nestlé Extrême
Music has been proven to measurably affect the perceived flavour of a food
or beverage, for instance, making it taste sweeter or more bitter, as Professor
Charles Spence discusses in his commentary on sonic seasoning. It can also
impart a powerful emotional effect on the eating or drinking experience.
From Charles Spence, we know that the brain allows one sense to influence
another. Branded music that is deliberately designed to influence the awareness
of sensations of smoothness, sweetness, or complexity or to enhance soothing,
stimulating or adventurous emotions has the ability to create a rich, layered
experience that can greatly enhance memories, associations and feelings about
your brand.
An audio DNA composition created for Nestlé Extrême Ice Creams,
demonstrates how that can happen. The women who were the target audience
often used ice-cream to calm themselves during stressful moments. They
experienced their ice-cream break as a calming and sensual ritual. To enhance
this emotional state, the music had to convey the ritualized aspect of the
experience. It needed to be soothing but still suggest enjoyment. The audio
strategy was envisioned as an ‘Adult Lullaby’.
When the audio DNA was designed, the main musical theme was carried by a
breathy, sensual female voice singing a simple syllable over and over: ‘Lu-lu-lu-
lu-lu’. Similar to the way the music builds in Ravel’s Bolero, the wavelike rhythm
repeats and rises in intensity. The music sounds like a lullaby at first and then rises
in intensity and ends with the catch of breath and a woman’s mischievous laugh.
Commercials had already been running using other music (one used an
instrumental version of La Paloma for instance). These television commercials had
their scores replaced with compositions based on the new audio DNA. Millward
Brown’s research revealed remarkable quantitative results (see Table 3.1) in terms
of changes in emotional response. Some emotional states were enhanced (eg
pleasant, distinctive, gentle) while others were diminished (eg dull, boring).

Louis XIII mansion tastings

In 2007, Louis XIII Cognac, a legendary, ultra-premium cognac brand containing
1,200 eaux-de-vie from the Grande Champagne region of France and whose
bottles, on average, retail for $2,100 to $3,100, sought to reaffirm its high quality
and its prestigious status.
60 Audio Branding

Table 3.1 Changes in emotional responses due to new audio DNA

What increased What decreased

Pleasant +18% Dull –11%
Distinctive +16% Boring –9%
Gentle +13% Weak –8%
Interesting +6% Irritating –4%
Soothing +7% Unpleasant –4%
Source Sixième Son

From the house of Rémy Martin, Louis XIII comes in a Baccarat decanter. So, to
help achieve their objectives, a special run of individually numbered Baccarat
dark crystal decanters was produced containing ‘Louis XIII Black Pearl’, a
limited-edition cognac.
The company envisioned a series of events in grand mansions in the world’s
premier cities like Paris, New York, Shanghai, London, Beijing, Los Angeles, and
Tokyo to help spotlight the ultimate extravagance and many sensual pleasures
promised by the cognac. It aimed to draw attention to its refined and complex
symphony of scents and flavours.
The strategy was to focus individually on the experiences the consumer could
expect as they immersed themselves in the enjoyment of the product. The team
of clients, agency, and audio-branding firm achieved this feat by having visitors
enter separated rooms that immersed them in the various sensations they could
expect from the total experience of consuming Louis XIII, isolating each sensation
to draw attention to it. As visitors were led through each room, they experienced
a sensation, heightening their senses to the key aspects of the brand.
One exemplified the Baccarat crystal, with crystalline music laced with far-
off voices and oddly dissonant touches. The qualities of the crystal were also
embodied in the lighting, furnishings, and other objects.
To convey the influence of the century-old Limousin oak casks in which the
cognac had been aged, the next room gave the musky, deep, and mysterious
idea of a forest at night with suggestions of frogs, crickets, and a fairy song.
Visitors were then taken into the last room, a vault where a warmed snifter
was waiting for them. Now, as each person was led through the ritual of holding,
sniffing, resting a drop on the tongue, and finally tasting the fine cognac, the
music they heard in the previous rooms was combined to bring to life the fullness
and richness of the overall experience.
On 14 November 2007 the only remaining bottle of the edition of 786 without an
owner was auctioned in the Mandarin Oriental, Prague. ABC Prague reported,
 It’s Time We Came to our Sensory Marketing 61

‘Louis XIII Black Pearl is not only a gourmet delicacy and a piece of art, but also
a unique investment chance. The first bottle was sold for €12,000, the highest
price for one bottle came in Japan €62,000’ (ABC Prague, 2007).

The La Roche-Posay delicate touch

The effect of branded music can heighten senses beyond mouth-feel and taste.
Consider its effect on the sensation of touch.
For La Roche-Posay, an iconic brand that is part of the L’Oréal Group, the
product is a line of very pure skincare creams designed for the most delicate of
skins including those that are allergic, post-chemotherapy, and very young. The
audio identity needed to express the duality of the brand: both its gentleness and
its efficacy.
The resulting audio identity suggests the sensation of the most delicate
touch on skin. It expresses purity, authenticity, and humane values. Piano with
distinctive, subtle aquatic tones and an airy voice carry the melody.
Rather than emphasize drumbeats, the percussion uses brushy sounds,
snapping, and soft clapping to produce an effect that’s uncannily tactile and yet
carries a sense of precision and confidence.
With music that’s slightly varied to support different product lines, the brand
has been endowed with a meaningful auditory expression that unifies it across
the globe. It can draw on a varied audio library all based in the audio DNA that
connects such disparate communication opportunities as employee events and
digital consumer communications.
And anyone who hears it, won’t need the words to know the product is pure
and gentle (Sixieme Son, 2016).
In short, just as a person’s enjoyment of food and beverages isn’t derived from
the flavours and fragrances alone but from memories, associations, motions, and, as
importantly, from what draws your attention, the same is true for tactile sensations.

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 65

Welcome 04
to the world
of audio branding
As we saw in the previous chapters, marketing and branding have changed
due to our new digitally connected world, giving marketers ever more
opportunities to communicate the brand attributes through the seemingly
ever-growing array of touchpoints, and similarly, more messaging and more
touchpoints are creating more clutter in the marketplace, driving market-
ers to work harder just to stand out. Meanwhile, we also discovered the
potential and power of sensory marketing and branding, particularly sound,
because of our new digitally-enabled world. After all, as we just discussed
in the previous chapter, prospects, purchasers, and consumers of a brand
experience and understand it, especially emotionally, in more ways than just
visually.
So by including the sense of hearing in your branding efforts, your
company can switch on a whole new battery of branding tools – melody,
rhythm, instrumentation, harmony, and texture – with which to create
highly potent brand influence. And the ability to use these audio tools is
equally true for B2B companies as it is for B2C brands.
Each of the elements will be considered carefully as to their fit with a
given brand. Slow or fast? Simple or layered? Regular or syncopated? Voiced
or instrumental? Acoustic or synthesized?
There are infinite potential combinations, which is why each custom-
tailored audio brand is able to sound like no other.
These ingredients are woven into a short composition that defines your
company’s audio DNA. At Sixième Son, this audio DNA is considered the
core, defining composition that conveys each brand’s values and aspirations.
This custom-designed piece of music isn’t intended to be cut up, pasted in, or
played repetitively but, instead, it is to serve as the guide for the melody and
rhythm and instrumentation for future adaptations to fit your important
employee and customer touchpoints.
66 Audio Branding

The hardest-working piece that emerges from the audio DNA is the theme
that weaves through the composition and becomes the basis for the audio
logo. This two- or three-second audio logo embodies the heart of the brand.
The audio logo reprises the core motif that runs throughout the brand’s
audio DNA and ends the composition, but it also can stand on its own, and
it should accompany the visual logo at every single audiovisual opportunity.
Together, the visual and audio logos amplify each other’s power, bringing
in emotion and additional meaning to the visual impression and leaving a
powerful ‘earprint’ with the audience.

Resilience within a defined structure

A good audio brand isn’t a straitjacket that forces people to use the same
composition over and over. An audio brand endows a product or company
with a flexible system, a unique vocabulary that can be adapted with sensi-
tivity and customer empathy to the increasing number of brand engagement
points. It allows a brand to stand out and be understood in different ways
at different points of interaction with different audiences.
Licensed music is no longer enough for a brand with any long-term aspira-
tions. Though popular tunes or classic pieces have their place, they carry too
many associations with TV shows, movies and, often, other products to be
pure carriers of the core brand values and message. In cases in which licensed
music is used, responsible marketers must take care to end the commercial,
event, video, or other application with the unique sound of their own recog-
nizable audio logo, rather than the sound of someone else’s music.
Over time, the brand builds up a deep library of varied but clearly related
compositions that fit many specific occasions and touchpoints.

Identify your brand’s touchpoints –

especially where sound design can improve
the experience
Besides advertising, how can a company use its audio brand to clarify and,
even, improve the experience of a customer, employee, partner, or other key
stakeholder?
Let’s take a trip around your potential audio interactions. As we examine
each of them, you can rank them as to which touchpoints would have the most
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 67

impact on each of your particular audiences. A unique benefit of audio brand-

ing is that each touchpoint’s sound impression builds upon the others, thereby
building a recognizable audio universe without adding significant cost.

Give yourself a call

Our client experience tells us that one of the first places you would want to
evaluate is the company’s telephone on-hold music. Your customer service
line may be one of the only live contact points you ever have with your audi-
ence. It’s an occasion when they actively reach out to you. Would you want
this valuable impression dressed in generic pop music, oft-heard classical
music, or cheap needle-drop tunes?
The customer experience can be significantly enhanced with a specific
adaptation of the music and voice. If the on-hold music presents your brand
in a familiar, but fresh way, full of little musical variations and surprises,
your customer can perceive a shorter wait-time and experience a happier
interaction with the brand.
You will probably need pre-pickup music along with a welcoming
message, the on-hold music, and, if you are likely to have callers who are
experiencing emergencies (such as a gas company), you should provide
different, more serious on-hold music for customers who choose that option.
Voice casting makes a difference, too. Is your brand young or old, British
or American, cheerful or serious, friendly or authoritative, male or female, or
both alternating? You may have spent hours anguishing over these questions
for your corporate video but left the phone system to a third-party interac-
tive voice-response supplier managed by your technology department. So call
your service line. If you don’t like what you hear, your audio-branding part-
ner can help you cast and contract the voice talent and manage the recording
sessions, as well as sensitively join the voice recordings to the music.

Evaluate the music used in your branded content

Today’s companies have become mighty production studios pouring out
oceans of how-to videos, customer or patient stories, product demonstra-
tions, care instructions, recipes, staff tales, guided tours, flash-mob films,
holiday tips, general interest stories, industry or product news, and more.
Kraft Recipes, alone, shares more than 450 videos of ‘game day’ recipes,
kitchen basics, grilling suggestions, and how-to tips, Thanksgiving recipes,
patriotic desserts, and an all-Spanish channel with its more than 43,000
subscribers (Kraft, 2016).
68 Audio Branding

In the same city, a large pharmaceutical firm creates corporate social

responsibility films, announcements of new initiatives, statements of
purpose, method-of-action videos, and recruitment videos, among other
audiovisual experiences.
The use of your own audio identity for the intros, interstitials, and outros can
be enough to suggest the content is within the same family as both the ad and
the sales presentations they may have heard. Or you can, alternatively, score the
whole piece with your branded sound. Either way, each bit of tactical brand
content works in an understated way to build equity for the long-term brand.
When you adapt your identifiable sound to your instructional and
promotional content, you’ll remind your audience who’s behind the messag-
ing without overwhelming the experience itself.

Raise the impact of meetings and conferences

As we mentioned in Chapter 1, when it comes to a corporate meeting, many
companies default to standard fare that’s been used over and over. How many
times have you heard ‘We Are the Champions’ at a sales meeting? Does it feel
contrived or manipulative to you? Don’t you suspect your staff might respond
better to a high-energy piece of music that felt more authentically their own?
Then there’s the ongoing problem of letting executives choose their own walk-
up music. As a result, each executive has his or her own brand rather than giving
the impression of a team all working toward the same goals. Among the dangers
of this approach are that often the executive’s favourite music seems out-of-
date to the younger staff and provokes titters of veiled laughter. Sometimes the
results are worse. An executive who had joined a wireless carrier from a ‘more
glamorous’ beverage company chose to remind the wireless carrier’s executive
audience of that fact by playing a piece of music used in the beverage company’s
commercials. This provoked much eye-rolling and not much team spirit.
It’s no wonder that many companies now own packages of meeting and
event sounds. These take into account physical and emotional aspects of the
attendee’s journey.
When attendees are coming into an auditorium, they may still be
distracted by their ever-present e-mails and texts, they’re probably look-
ing for seats, they may be having awkward conversations with people they
slightly recognize from last year but whose names they can’t recall. Here the
music stays in the background, its role is to cover up those awkward pauses
and gradually shift their mood and attention to the matter at hand.
Once the audience is seated, music becomes more prominent. Its key role
now is to build anticipation and give a taste of what’s to come. Then as the
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 69

opening speaker is announced, the music should build to a crescendo, which

can lead to rousing applause.
Between speakers, there are the empty moments as one comes off the
stage and another comes up to the podium. These transitions can be bright-
ened – and even psychologically shortened – by the brief musical passages.
And these snippets can be tailored to suggest the upcoming topic: more
technical, more controversial, more inspirational, news – good or bad – all
these can be implied through the treatment of the music.
The end of the meeting requires closure and also a way to send people out
energized and inspired by what they’ve heard. Again, brand-oriented music
has a role. It can put a bounce in people’s steps and leave them with an
emotional reminder of what they’ve just participated in. The earprint they
carry will recall the message of the meeting.

Share tailored ringtones

As your sales team or target audience leaves your conference wouldn’t it
be great if they could take something with them to remind them of the
emotional impact the meeting had had on them?
If so, then consider offering the audience its choice of ringtones, all of
which carry a hint of your audio brand.
People are particular about their ringtones. Some people like them to
start quietly and grow in volume, some want them to attract their immedi-
ate attention by starting strong, some prefer odd, unexpected, or synthesized
sounds that stand out from the background, and others like a touch of
humour.
Ringtones allow you to explore the range of your audio brand and allow
your audiences some level of choice and control. You can offer a range of
them to choose from for the attendees of your events and other situations
where a reminder comes in handy. So you should offer no fewer than three
and as many as a dozen. As a practical matter, you need a larger number if
you intend to offer them to a large group of employees who work near each
other. If you only offer a couple of them, people who hear the sound will
constantly be checking to see if it’s their phone that’s ringing.
Offering ringtones also helps truly seed your audio brand in people’s
memories. In order to choose their favourites, people typically listen to all
the different permutations, some more than once. This helps them gain
familiarity with the sound and will lead to even quicker recognition.
So consider offering ringtones to sales teams after a big sales meeting, to
employees just after you’ve launched your audio brand, to prospects at an
70 Audio Branding

expo booth, to partners and key suppliers as an e-gift during the holidays
or a product launch.

Stand out at expos, trade shows and conferences

When you walk the floor at an exposition or industry conference, you
will find an array of visual material clamouring for your attention: digi-
tal signage, banners, inflatables, multicoloured pennants, motion displays,
product turntables, and more. You name it, you’ll see it.
Now think: how common is the deliberate use of a recognizable sound?
What if the audience at a trade fair, who has recently heard your branded
music at your presentation, were to catch a similar sound coming from your
booth on the expo floor? Chances are, they would recognize the connection
and they would probably have a warmer feeling about your booth than the
one next door. Do you think that would increase the chances of their stop-
ping in? Because that’s what we’ve found.
Though they limited the number of people in the booth to 700 at a time,
Renault’s booth at the Paris Auto Show in 2013 was the most visited attrac-
tion at the event. Renault had commissioned a composition that took the
audience through the life-stages of a driver, from their first barely affordable
car, to the car for seduction, to the car for adventure, to the car for work
and beyond. The music was accompanied by buoyant floating orbs that
changed colour as each of the life-stage transitions occurred. Around the
booth, screens showed glimpses of the lifestyles of which the cars were an
integral part.
If you were standing near the oil-fuelled cars the music carried a more
acoustic sound and included natural sounds of birds, water and laughter. If
you stood closer to the electric cars, the sound became airier, electronic, and
synthesized.
The audience was surrounded by music above and below, as a three-
dimensional sound system employed subwoofers built into the floor and
strategically placed speakers aimed from different heights to create an envel-
oping sound environment.
Sixième Son, who had created the composition and managed the audio
design for Renault, wove the Renault audio vocabulary throughout the
varied pieces so, even though each car model carried its own individual
sound, together they all related to each other as a family.
Most brands don’t require a full composition with six movements in
order to use music effectively. Atlanta’s booth at a convention for conven-
tion planners, for instance, made a big impact simply by bringing their print
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 71

ads to life. By the adding of animated graphics and adapting their branded
sound to the different topics (nature, nightlife, technology), they created
compelling audiovisual attractions that felt like short movies.
With or without sound, your booth should strive to provide your audi-
ence with the sense of having crossed a clear threshold, one that truly
divides your part of the world from the cacophonous expo centre floor. And
branded music gives you a powerful tool to signal that the transition has
occurred in a way that conveys the emotions you want attendees to feel.

Design product sounds and signals

Imagine you are a retail bank with ATMs all over the country and a mobile
banking app. What if your ATM, instead of beeping loudly at your custom-
ers, played a three- or four-note tune that matched the sound in the end
frame of your commercials? Or what if your app’s signal also came from
the same sound vocabulary to tell the customer, ‘opening’, ‘password recog-
nized’ or ‘your transaction was successful’. What an opportunity to create a
pleasant brand experience during a routine transaction.
Unfortunately, right now, the world is too full of noisy beeps.
In the household, microwave ovens, coffee makers, conventional ovens,
and washers and dryers could all be pleasant instruments instead of the
alarming beeping like the rubbish trucks backing up the road.
In train stations, public transportation systems and airports it can be
hard to catch travellers’ attention over the din of conversation and the roar
of vehicles. But some transportation systems use artful pre-announcement
signals that tie back to their brands.
As proof that the sounds that alert travellers to incoming trains may
be evocative rather than generic, one need look no further than SNCF,
the French national railway, which we discussed in Chapter 1. As we
mentioned, their four-note signal was noticed by Pink Floyd’s famous
guitarist, David Gilmour, in the south of France. Gilmour was inspired
and he recorded it at the Aix-en-Provence station. In 2014, the song he
created with it in collaboration with Michaël Boumendil became the title
track of David Gilmour’s first album in 10 years, Rattle that Lock, released
in September 2015. ‘Rattle that Lock’ immediately climbed to the number
one slot in both the UK and France. Just think of the positive PR SNCF
receives each time the song is played publicly and the positive connections
that are generated to the brand each time a David Gilmour fan listens to
the song: opportunities that can’t be generated through the use of generic
bells, beeps, bleeps, and pings.
72 Audio Branding

On the horizon are ever more electric cars, which don’t necessarily have
to sound like a vroom-vroom engine any more than David Gilmour’s iPhone
has to have a ringing sound.

Make TV and radio work to build brand’s value

Watch TV commercials through the lens of audio branding and you’ll see
that, when the visual logo appears, the audio often goes wandering. Often,
the music quits abruptly in mid-stanza and the logo appears silently; some-
times the volume is turned down, so the music doesn’t get in the way of
noticing the brand. On the other hand, a minuscule number of brands strive
to leave a powerful audio memory.
One result that client research consistently demonstrates is that when
you score the music in a commercial to support the spot’s storyline, it’s
easier for audiences to comprehend what’s occurring. This happens much
more naturally than when the story is accompanied with some random,
perhaps unrelated licensed music. Just think: the timing of licensed music
could never be quite right because it was not written to the rhythm of the
storyline or the values of the brand.
It makes sense, right? For example, a popular song playing over a film can
direct your attention away from the rising tension, drown out the dramatic
reveal, and obscure the satisfying resolution. In contrast, a musical score
that is minutely timed to heighten the drama of the story focuses your atten-
tion on the right emotion at the right time. And the audio logo comes on
simultaneously with the visual logo at the end of the piece. The audience
could then understand the intent with multiple senses.
Now imagine this same score is related to your brand values and is subtly
recognizable to your audience. Besides telling your story more effectively,
you build, layer by layer, a brand relationship with your target audience
without shoving your brand in their faces.
That’s an ideal scenario from the audio-branding perspective.
However, many creative directors, comprehending the emotional power
of music, want to capture the borrowed interest of people’s associations
with classic or contemporary songs. It’s understandable. Just note, these
music selections may change with each campaign, seldom building a lasting
impression. If you use licensed music, all the more reason to be sure you give
two-and-a-half seconds at the end to your audio logo to make sure you’re
building your brand, as Intel has done.
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 73

Dramatize press events and new product reveals

Appropriate musical staging can add heft to press events, building antici-
pation, giving subtle suggestions about the brand, and increasing the
theatricality of the presentation. Automobile expositions, for instance,
provide an ideal press communication opportunity. Reporters are looking
for news and are apt to come to unveilings of new car concepts or models.
This is equally true for other expos.
As Ramón Vives observes in his examination of auto shows, eventually
the models and hardware begin to run together in the audience’s over-
whelmed mind. But the emotional experiences linger. Brand films give you
the opportunity to connect the brand values and promise to the model and
tie the strand of your company’s history through to the current innovations.
They work to build the brand and remind people of the consistency and
trust that’s bound you to the brand over the years.

Create a more welcoming environment

Even outside of retail, a brand’s music can play a big role in enhancing
an environment. The auditory brand experience can begin as early as the
customer’s arrival in the car park.
Car parks can be isolated and scary, even when the associated shop-
ping mall, airport, hospital, theme park, or corporate headquarters feel
welcoming and expertly designed. They are usually places of low sensory
stimulation. Where better to create a sense of anticipation, a hint of what
a visitor can expect? Why not foreshadow the upcoming enchantment or
precision or adventure or magic or dynamism?
Because it’s a transition point, the threshold between the outer environ-
ment and the space that your brand inhabits makes for a potent point of
contact. Your music, woven with a message of welcome, can signal the
delineation in a way that makes your employee or visitor feel wanted and
gratified.
Corridors and passageways can feel less onerous if music provides a
comfortable walking rhythm. This music, too, can be woven in an under-
stated way with the melody, textures and instrumentation that defines your
brand. You can even create the sounds of a walk through a village park, as
does Place des Halles mall in Strasbourg, where within the music, the sound
of the local storks’ clapping beaks can be heard.
74 Audio Branding

And because people often adjust their pace to music, it can be used func-
tionally as well, to encourage browsing by slowing down the rhythm or,
similarly, to discourage loitering by speeding it up.
To create surprising moments of unexpected delight, music and sound
design can interact in a playful way with the environment and the décor.
A simple plant wall might emit a surrounding three-dimensional sound that
makes visitors feel they are in a jungle or a forest, near a waterfall, or in a
bower. A window may whisper flirtatious compliments. A chair might offer
you meditative music. The approach to a sink could trigger mermaids sing-
ing. These sounds dotted, now and then, with a brand’s musical motif aren’t
imaginary. They have all been used in creative malls and shops.

Tiny sounds matter, especially in the Internet of Things

Let’s go back to the urgent nudge provided by the ping from your social
media app, the bleep indicating an appointment is approaching, a ding from
an e-mail that needs an answer, the triple-beep signalling popcorn’s readi-
ness, the melodious tone of the dryer saying the laundry’s done, or the buzz
of your phone.
Consider which sense may be more involved in causing the urge to act or
react; is it sight or is it hearing?
If you suspect it’s hearing, then you have noticed that people have been
busy teaching themselves to understand multiple, non-linguistic audio cues
that come in at an almost subconscious level, cues that may be quite subtle
but are present and helpful, nonetheless.
If these sounds are helpful, they are not seen as intrusions. Unlike the
warning beeps and sirens, which penetrate the consciousness with piercing
and shrill sounds to admonish you or alert you to trouble, these efficient little
sounds can create the feelings of both anticipation and accomplishment.
In the Internet of Things, the design of the sound should help users clar-
ify the function, including for instance, ‘opening’, ‘searching’, ‘connecting’,
‘error’, or ‘disconnecting’. Your sound will never be a stand-alone signal
but part of a sonic universe that includes the website, instructional videos,
YouTube channel, even your advertising. Because you are reading a book
about audio branding, you won’t leave this subtly instructional and emotion-
ally connective touchpoint up to whichever engineering team is working on
a given function.
Brands need to think about these signals as important elements of their
audio universes. They should create them with empathy for the audience
and with a view to creating the brand experience you desire, so it supports
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 75

its personality and conveys its values. The choice, no matter how small,
should not be left to engineers.

Tip: save time with an audio library for videos

and branded content
One of the handiest and most cost-efficient aspects of your audio brand is
replacing your random collection of licensed music with a mix-and-match
audio library for use with all kinds of videos that pour out from the various
departments or units in your company.
Hospitals, for instance, create many hundreds of videos ranging from
‘Nurses’ Week’ to patient stories, doctors’ biographies, post-operative care
instruction, health fair promotions, news of breakthroughs, treatments,
and other video news releases. Some are used only once, eg for a particular
meeting.
The typical array of videos can represent the ‘wild west’ of branding,
as different brand managers, department heads, and practice leads use
different voices, styles, and music, and have radically different production
budgets. A library of approved audio tracks based in the unique audio iden-
tity of the brand can help bring order to the auditory chaos. Composed
to communicate different moods (for instance serious, tense, calm, steady,
cheerful, playful, optimistic, celebratory, and rousing) they are designed
to work together. The library comes with transitional elements that help
teams join one piece to another and to connect any piece to the audio logo
at the beginning or end. As a result, people will still recognize the brand
and the video sponsor will still be able to convey the desired and storyline-­
appropriate emotions.
One client has taken the idea of an audio library further. It has built its
branded music collection into a musical collection to such a formidable strength
that the library is able to power television commercials around the globe.
The musical library consists of compositions designed to fit a problem/
solution structure, providing music that sets up a problem in the first half
of the commercial and to indicate the resolution of the problem in the
second half.
The selection of music for the problem set-up may be anxious, stressed,
enigmatic, soft, unsettled, suspenseful, melancholic. The music for the
second half can then convey such emotional states as confidence, dignity,
hope, enthusiasm, strength, and serenity. These different emotions are joined
together by a simple but consistent transitional sound. The audio logo
completes the piece.
76 Audio Branding

Over the years of brand management, more music can be added to the
library, so it would eventually contain interpretations of the audio iden-
tity in various regional instrumentation styles as well as in music box and
acoustic styles. When a new piece is added, it’s always part of the family, and
works in continuity with the others, so it removes the possibility of creating
an incoherent brand.

Underscoring your brand at retail

Retailers use music as a matter of course, often streaming Pandora playlists
or even using the music from their own iPods, although – important warn-
ing – the latter is not legal in the USA, unless your store is under 2,000 sq ft
and it has fewer than six speakers (Lavine, 2013). In other words, unlike the
descriptions from our colleagues Ben DiSanti and Ken Hicks in Chapter 2,
not as many retailers use music strategically to create the clear recognition
and understanding most would desire for their brands.
A group of high-end European menswear stores uses a deliberate approach
that takes advantage of subliminal storytelling. Because the company’s
products are created by expert craftspeople who have honed their skills over
many years, one of the audio strategies is to emphasize the rigour it takes
to become an expert. Consequently, their in-store music is interspersed with
the sounds of musicians practising their scales or rehearsing difficult arpeg-
gios, even making mistakes and righting them.
When the Sixième Son audio brand strategists audited these menswear
stores vs those of their competitors, they also noted that these particular
stores stood out by creating an atmosphere that brought to mind a country
estate. Taking that idea as a theme, the agency recommended a strategy of
choosing licensed music that the customer might encounter as a guest on a
visit to a country manor. A large classical orchestra, for instance, wouldn’t
fit. But an intimate chamber group, acoustic band, or solo virtuoso would.
Thus, the music deepened the brand experience and immersed the customer
in an aspirational brand story.
For another example, a global, classic upscale chain of jewellery stores
sought to capture the glamour of the legendary movie and jazz stars of
the 1940s and 50s without sounding as if their shops were meant for
grandmothers.
Sixième Son created a signature six-note sound for them that resembled
a glittering rainfall of diamonds. In the stores, this signal led into the little
20-second ‘winks’ of music sung by exceptional voices including Marilyn
Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Eartha Kitt, and Blossom Dearie. These were
sprinkled throughout sophisticated playlists that contained timeless tunes,
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 77

as well as contemporary and even avant-garde selections. The hand-picked

music was designed to be cozy in the mornings and upbeat or unexpect-
edly capricious in the afternoons. It was instrumental. But when there were
voices, it was sung by mostly female vocalists whose voices had an airy
quality and whose style tended toward subtle delivery rather than showy or
highly dramatic performances. In between, the afternoon tunes tended to be
more rhythmic, but eschewed forceful percussion.
In contrast, Abercrombie & Fitch brings a strong musical point-of-view to
their stores that has become a core asset of their brand and a well-known part
of their brand experience. They claim their target audience is 18–22. Many of
those customers and the younger ones who look up to them are too young to
go to clubs. The store provides them with a club-like experience right at the
mall. The din keeps mothers out too, giving teens a place to shop on their own.

Surround sound
Your brand has an audio identity, whether you manage it or not. It may be chaotic
and fragmented or it may be recognizable and consistent. A deep, 360-degree
audit of your potential audio touchpoints will tell you where you stand.
As the world becomes ever more distracting and the devices become
continuously more audio-enabled, all wise companies will use a tailored,
proprietary sound vocabulary that makes them as distinctive and recogniz-
able, as does a person’s voice.
So, it sounds like you are convinced about the power of audio branding,
know the places you can use your audio library, and you are ready to find the
unique sound for your brand. If so, you are probably thinking, how should I
start? Easy. Just stay tuned and turn to the next chapter, because we will take
you through the key steps for finding the unique sound system of your brand.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Ramón Vives Xiol

Sound management at the Paris Auto Show

An experienced audio-branding professional, Ramón Vives Xiol is a

lecturer on audio branding in Elisava, the Barcelona School of Design and
Engineering, and is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Sixième Son
Spain. When he had the opportunity to tour the Mondial de l’Automobile
(Paris Auto Show) with Michaël Boumendil, the president of Sixième Son,
and a client, here is what he had to say about the experience, which was
78 Audio Branding

originally published in PuroMarketing and reprinted with his permission

(Vives Xiol, 2014). Please note that while the piece below was edited for
clarity, his observations are particularly pertinent.

I visited the Paris Auto Show (Mondial de l’Automobile) with the president
of Sixième Son and a car company’s senior marketing team.
The Porte de Versailles is one of the most important expo centres in
Europe; and the Paris Auto Show is a must for car enthusiasts. Some 250
brands from 17 countries occupied seven large pavilions over the course
of two weeks. Among the new models presented were prototypes of
spectacular super-sports cars, ultra-compact cars, and, of course, a wide
range of electric vehicles. Brands invest heavily in presenting their new
models and I witnessed an explosion of technology both in cars and in
their staging. The clients were investigating how their exhibits could take
better advantage of the use of sound.
As we moved from one brand to another, we discovered how much
sound contributed to, didn’t contribute to, or detracted from each exhibit
space. Of all the brands we visited, there were two that stood out for their
captivating presentation: Renault and Volvo.
Renault invited visitors to delve into an enchanted forest of lanterns
hanging from the ceiling that were moving up and down to the rhythm of
enticing and truly elegant music.
As a result, professional, delicate, and exquisite sound and lighting
transitions set the brand experience apart as immersive, friendly and value-
laden. Its staging reminded me of the memorable summer holiday in the
Gracia district of Barcelona, where the streets are decorated and vying for
a prized annual trophy. The French brand has repositioned itself in my mind!
Meanwhile, Volvo re-created the four different seasons by using
a complex system of projections that wrapped completely around a
single car.
The projections were accompanied by the sounds of the natural elements
that often challenge the Swedish vehicles. There was also simulated rain
provided by a water curtain surrounding the space. The rest of the models
were presented virtually in life-size proportions on a large 3D screen.
Despite these exemplary experiences, through the lens of audio
branding, the category presents an opportunity for huge improvement.

Most brands don’t even speak

At a time when competition is fierce, how can brands that are
sharing the same space with every one of their major rivals neglect
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 79

the terrific opportunity to truly differentiate themselves via sound?

Could they differentiate themselves by using audio that’s aligned with
their graphic identities? It’s possible to create an environment that’s
welcoming and comfortable and at the same time, unique, original,
coherent, and consistent with the key values and aspirations of the
brand.
A category expo is the ideal occasion to leave an imprint on a
group that’s segmented, actively looking, and very tuned in to the
brands’ propositions. Brands should keep in mind that their potential
customers can compare their offers within a very few minutes of
elapsed time.
Some of the brands limit themselves to showing a fan of products.
Other brands show indistinguishably similar products from each other. At
the same time, they fail to take advantage of the opportunities to establish
emotional connections with their visitors.

‘There are spaces in which nothing happens, spaces where things happen
without sound, and other spaces where the sound is wrong.’
Ramón Vives Xiol

In some zones on the exposition floor, there are other huge lost
opportunities. For instance, some companies have paid large sums to rent
valuable square yards in which nothing happens and, therefore, no one
visits. If there were strategically developed sound environments, not only
would they create greater attractiveness for visitors, but they could also
express the brand more forcefully. In this way, the brand and its image
would be subtly embedded in the mind of the customer, creating deeper
recognition and better comprehension of the brand.
We passed booths with huge screens showing corporate videos and
presentations in which the audio was simply nil or very soft. We saw great
visual montages in which very professional and high-production-value
images were accompanied by poor sound. Much of the desired effect was
lost. It was like watching an action movie in silence, something that the
audiovisual world considers a sacrilege but that surprisingly many brands
treat very casually.
In the same way that a pleasant, relevant, and well-calibrated sound
becomes a booth attraction, an ill-fitting sound, especially one that’s too
loud or stress-inducing, drives away the potential audience.
The biggest difference is in the experience, not the cars. After a few
hours and miles of walking, I left the auto show feeling that, given so many
80 Audio Branding

similar models offering similar performance, it was hard to distinguish one

brand from another.
As much an exhibition space as a sales environment, music
should contribute to the attraction of the brand and create a stronger
connection between the brand and its audiences. It should definitively
reinforce the capacity of a brand to differentiate itself and stand out from
the crowd.
In the past, it was enough for brands to focus on more rational
elements like quality and price. Today, those elements are only the
price of entry and the trend is to activate the emotions to turn brands
into objects of desire. Emotion is the shortest route to the customer’s
heart.
The experiences in special spaces where automotive brands and
drivers have a chance to meet in the real world transcend the models
themselves. This is when the intangibles come into play. And in those
intangibles, large differences were apparent at this show: some exhibits
were designed through the prism of brand experience and others were
simply displaying the new models.
And branding is precisely this: managing the difference.
After the visit, the car company’s alert marketing team was
convinced that, in terms of sound, much remains to be done. I’m sure
their booth space and its visitors will benefit from the experience in
the future.

Guest biography

Ramón Vives Xiol is the Barcelona-based Co-founder and Managing

Director for Sixième Son, Spain. He’s also a lecturer on audio branding
at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and at Elisava, the Barcelona School of
Design. He has a degree in Economics at the University of Barcelona
(UB) and a masters in Communication at UAB, while at the same time
pursuing a career as a performer. He plays guitar, sings, writes songs
and manages the band Plou that’s been together for a decade. Before
that he led the indie band Clementines. Besides the language of music,
he’s fluent in Catalan, Spanish, English, and French and speaks Italian
and German.
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 81

Ca s e MICHELIN

A brand now heard round the world

Over the years, Michelin has introduced countless innovations, from the radial
tyre to their innovative use of content marketing through their guides.
And, though the company is dedicated to research and technology, the mere
fact that the firm has been around since 1889 means Michelin needs to battle the
perception that’s it’s an old-guard company.
In fact, Michelin is a modern and forward-thinking global entity.
In 2008 Michelin took steps to assert its progressiveness and leadership along
with the idea of better, sustainable mobility. The company created the tagline ‘A
Better Way Forward’ and reinforced the idea by commissioning Sixième Son to
create a global audio identity for the brand.
Though the MICHELIN brand has maintained remarkable visual brand
consistency in all of the 170 countries (Michelin, 2015) in which it has a marketing
presence, its many different markets had been using all kinds of different music.
While visually the iconic and constantly evolving Michelin Man brand mascot
had been incorporated into the logo animation in all TV spots and almost every
brand video, its audio brand was all over the place. Meanwhile, MICHELIN’s
audio communications needed to be equally powerful and effective.
As a global brand, its audio identity had to ensure consistency and
effectiveness of its communications across borders. It needed to convey
modernity, innovation, mobility, distinctiveness and driving pleasure.
In 2010, Michelin introduced its new audio identity: the assertive melody
translates the concepts that are at the core of the brand.
Beginning with a global meeting and a brand film and proceeding to the
rescoring of their exciting TV campaign, which presented the Michelin Man as a
brawny superhero, the audio brand began to make its way around the world.
The first results came in soon after the music in the campaign began to
air. The same commercials with the new music were more easily understood
because the music emphasized the storyline. According to the results of a US
advertising test, the brand climbed 18 per cent on the perception of leadership.
The tyres were seen to be 12 per cent more innovative, as well as 5 per cent
more friendly and 7 per cent more drivable.
In 2012, based on a new insight about the MICHELIN consumer, a new element
was later introduced to the music to convey the further idea of ‘sustainability’.
Today, the Michelin music presents a modern and progressive brand in
the 170 countries around the world. Guided by an audiovisual ‘Brandbook’
82 Audio Branding

and an Audio Style Guide, marketing teams around the world understand the
multisensory nature of its brand expression. It has been adapted to countless
commercials and brand videos for meetings, new product introductions and
technical demonstrations.
Adaptations of the brand music are used for their customer service line,
for ringtones, for the opening and closing of their meetings as well as musical
transitions among speakers.
Even the videos for the MICHELIN Guide are grounded in the sound identity.
Here, the audio DNA has been adapted to create a carefree feeling using
instrumentation and rhythms that suggest the joys of travel. For instance, an
acoustic guitar carries the melody (you even can hear the intentional squeak
of the instrumentalist’s finger on the string), a shaker is introduced into the
percussion and the rhythm is ‘more bouncy’. But the audio logo lightly floats
through the composition and ends the piece with a clear earprint.
Today, Sixième Son is the coordinator and international supervisor for all of
Michelin’s audio communication. And this memorable audio logo has become
the seal of recognition and the carrier of the Michelin brand values worldwide.
Adapted to all media and in all countries, this audio identity is also present on
all Michelin advertising campaigns, no matter what country (Michelin, 2011;
Michelin, 2013).
Summing up the success of the ongoing audio-branding initiative, Jean
Douroux, Michelin Group Brands’ Director of Communication, said:

For several years now, the Michelin audio identity has successfully differentiated the
brand. The music reflects the Michelin spirit of innovation and achievement while
maintaining a feeling of closeness at the same time. It perfectly synthesizes the brand
promise, offering each consumer a better way forward. Overall, the audio identity is an
essential component in increasing the brand impact and ability to stand out.

Source: Sixième Son, nd

References
Kraft (2016) http://www.kraftrecipes.com/cooking-tips/cooking-videos/dinner-
videos.aspx [accessed January 2016]
Lavine, L (2013) What you need to know about music licensing for your business,
Entrepreneur, http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226049 [accessed January
2016]
 Welcome to the World of Audio Branding 83

Michelin (2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5rVqbS57uc [accessed

January 2016]
Michelin (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zblRqO5y7F0 [accessed
January 2016]
Michelin (2015) http://m.michelin.com/eng/michelin-group/profile [accessed
September 2016]
Sixième Son (nd) http://www.sixiemeson.com/en/audio-branding-sound-identity-
portfolio/audio-identity-michelin/ [accessed 23 January, 2017]
Vives Xiol, R (2014) Environmental sound design: The unfinished business
of brands, PuroMarketing, http://www.puromarketing.com/44/23271/­
sonorizacion-espacios-asignatura-pendiente-marcas.html [accessed May 2016]
84

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 85

The search 05
for your sound
Of course, you want to go places. But what should you wear? In Chapter 4,
we described all the places you could use your audio brand, but you want
your sound to convey your values, essence, and personality. And you want it
to stand out. So just as you sought your unique visual style, you need to find
your one and only unique sound, which is what we’ll explore here.
To start, as we are all aware, a brand’s personality, like an individual’s
personality, comes with many facets. You may be shy, intelligent, and funny.
You may be precise and scientific but outgoing. You may be take-charge,
spontaneous, and family-oriented and, of course, you’ll have a host of other
traits and values.
If you think of a brand as a person (a technique that many branding
people use), you will find the same to be true. Your brand will have many
aspects. Consequently, your brand’s sound will never convey just one part
of your personality. There are countless ways these facets can be combined.
Your brand’s audio identity will focus on just a few key areas, not on all
your traits and values, but certainly not on just one. The winnowing and
combining of these is part of the audio-branding process, which will be
explored in Chapter 6.
Besides the need to communicate multiple traits, brand management
teams have the need to convey the subtle differences between the way your
brand interprets them and the way other brands interpret them.
Say your brand is a leader, but what kind of a leader are you? Do you
bestride the world with your mighty powers or are you, perhaps, a quietly
confident leader? Are you quick-witted, authoritative, collaborative, or
mentoring?
Your audio-branding agency can work through recognizable audio
‘symbols’ to help you specify your approach to leadership. In music, for
instance, authoritarian-style leadership can be carried by a bass drum with
deep resonance and ringing finality; in sharp contrast, the quiet type of lead-
ership may be communicated through a simple, steady beat carried by a
much less thundering instrument, like a bass guitar. In these clearly different
musical approaches, you can hear different styles of leadership.
86 Audio Branding

Symbols, sounds, and structure

With sound, your brand message enters the mind, not in a literal way, but in
a symbolic way (Arning and Gordon, 2006). And the brain comprehends its
meaning without giving it much thought (Arning and Gordon, 2006).
Sometimes, music and sound convey meaning with a more direct
approach. Say you have a product that supports lung function and you
wish to convey the idea of air, breath, and airiness. These impressions
can be made through a breathy quality in a singer’s voice, a sigh, the
sound of wind rustling leaves, or the ambient reverberation you hear when
the music is recorded in a spacious environment like a cathedral. These
‘descriptive’ sounds work on a more explicit level to draw attention to
breathing.
But music lets you add symbolic meaning in this example, too. Say you
are also striving to have your brand convey the quality of ‘reassurance’. That
may lead you to choose the woman’s voice, a sound that is often associ-
ated with calming. Alternatively, if you need to convey ‘endless possibilities’,
perhaps the spacious room would help the message along.
Meaning can also be conveyed by the structure of the brand sounds
or the music itself, which also carries associations to certain moods and
emotions. Common associations include the feeling of mystery or melan-
choly conveyed by a minor key, or the sinister feeling conveyed by the
dissonant-sounding interval called a tritone, commonly known as diabolus
in musica (the devil in music). Your audio experts have many tools to work
with beyond symbols, literal sounds, and musical codes. The time spent to
get these tuned to your meanings is well worth it because it gives your audi-
ences a new and non-intrusive way to understand you.
The recognition of music’s ability to work through symbols is fairly recent.
In 1997, for instance, a paper presented by Branthwaite and Ware at Esomar
(the world association for market, social, and opinion research) proposed
that music could only fill four roles. ‘Music could work as a magnet (drawing
people in), mood magnifier (intensifying the visuals) mnemonic (stimulating
memory) or mask (brand identity), but not as a messenger (delivering infor-
mation)’ (Branthwaite and Ware, 1997).
But, by 2006 the view had advanced. In that year, a new paper took issue
with the last point – that music is not good at delivering information –
and, instead, made the case that music can indeed work as a truly effec-
tive messenger and can frequently stand for something beyond itself. In the
paper, they used the example of the music in the movie Jaws becoming a
stand-in for the shark that one barely ever saw (Arning and Gordon, 2006).
 The Search for Your Sound 87

Much of design, whether it is visual or auditory, communicates through

symbols rather than explicit words. The human mind can understand
symbols very well. However, it understands the meaning of these symbols in
an impressionistic way rather than in a linear one. And it remembers them
(Heath, 2001).
In the visual realm, you could think of a rose quite literally: it has a stem,
some thorns, petals, and leaves. But if the rose were handed from a besot-
ted boy to the girl of his dreams, it’s a different thing, right? The rose has
become a symbol of his love and the rose’s power as a symbol far outweighs
its botanical make-up. Not too many people would have to think very hard
about it.
In the audio realm, you could hear the sounds of a group clapping out a
rhythm and make the literal association with percussion, but the brain could
also interpret it as a symbol of teamwork or unity.
Some of these symbolic effects are very subtle. In music, one way to
suggest ‘luxury’ is through slow tempos and unexpected silences (since
luxury items are seen to be created thoughtfully with no detail left unex-
amined), ‘human touch’ can be heard via ‘oohs’ and vocal harmonies. And
if you want to convey ‘precision’, you may want to consider very defined
notes, more staccato than fluid.
The good news is that the brain is so skilled at detecting auditory symbols,
it can process them when you’re not consciously listening, when you’re
distracted, and even when your attention gets divided among many differ-
ent tasks. However, the not-so-good news is that, because it is operating
below the level of conscious engagement, it becomes harder for people to
articulate the precise meanings they pull out from what they have heard. To
quote Adrian North, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of
Leicester, ‘People do not always necessarily know and cannot always report
accurately how they are reacting to music. Sometimes some of those processes
are not available cognitively’ (North, 2006). We will, however, examine ways
to measure music’s meanings and behavioural effects in the next chapter.
Arning and Gordon provide a perspective originally from a social scien-
tist, Philip Tagg of the University of Montreal, who believes you can extract
people’s interpretations of the meaning imparted by music. Tagg recom-
mends ‘inter-subjective testing’, whereby one plays the same piece of music
to different people and records their associations. For Tagg, the stunningly
similar reactions to a piece of music from people with a similar cultural
background indicate that music is not purely and necessarily polysemic
(carrying multiple meanings) as some academics claim (Arning and Gordon,
2006). For this research:
88 Audio Branding

. . .respondents are asked to jot down as quickly as possible (they should be

given no time to ‘think’) what they envisage (‘see’, ‘hear’, or ‘feel’ in their
mind’s ear/eye) to be taking place on an imaginary screen along with the music
they hear. Results collated so far show considerable statistic reliability and
homogeneity of response.
Source: Tagg, quoted in Arning and Gordon, 2006

Along these lines, one question that often comes up is, ‘How universal is the
meaning in music?’
In our experience, the ability of music’s meanings to transcend borders
of geography, socioeconomics, age, or gender is its most astounding super
power. A common global understanding has been created by music in movies
and TV shows, music videos, brand films, homemade podcasts, and videos
that blanket the world.
In Sixième Son’s listening committee workshops, we often hear a diverse
group agree on something as abstract as, ‘What colour is suggested by the
particular music selection?’
As we discovered with Peugeot, people in China, France, the UK, Russia,
Spain, and Brazil derived similar meanings from the brand’s new music and
the respondents from the six countries were unanimous in rating the brand
as both confident and confidence inspiring across the board.
But that doesn’t mean that your brand’s music can’t be varied to fit local
markets or to support storytelling that requires a sense of place.

Universal vs local. Consistent vs varied

As to whether a brand should communicate via music based in local culture
or use a more international voice, there’s no right or wrong answer. That
decision will be made by your strategy. Local styles are perfect for some
brands. Other brands, like MICHELIN, which we detailed in Chapter 5
as the featured case study, and AXA, whose case study will be provided in
Chapter 9, benefit more from a less region-based, more universal sound.
Once your audio DNA has been designed and committed to, it’s fairly
easy to vary it to express different moods, incorporate touches of local
culture, or suggest different musical genres. For instance, if you have an
international-sounding audio brand, and you are telling a story of a man
learning to ride an elephant on a crowded street in India, you would be wise
to season your brand sound with a sitar and other Indian instrumentation.
However, if you are Royal Air Maroc, and you want to encourage tourism
to Morocco, you’ll benefit from an audio identity to reflect the particular
 The Search for Your Sound 89

tapestry of sounds that make up your country’s traditional music to conjure

an inviting image in your target’s mind.
Marketers often wonder if their brand’s music should be different in
China than in Europe. The answer is, not necessarily. Again, it depends on
whether it’s positioned differently to the Chinese consumer than it is to the
Western audience. If it’s positioned similarly, then there’s probably no need
to change the brand music.
In some categories, Chinese consumers associate rigorous quality control
with Western countries, so a westernized sound might have the effect of
creating a halo for your brand and would be more appropriate for your
product than would a traditional Chinese sound.
Let’s say, however, that your product was infant formula and that you
wanted to provide branded soundtracks for Chinese mothers to use for their
baby videos. For that specific application, it would probably be a good idea
to share musical options that contain your audio DNA, but that add local
sounds and musical influences.
Like visual branding, audiences don’t need utter consistency to recognize the
main motif of the sound. You just have to make sure your audio designers know
what proportion of the original audio DNA needs to be kept in the composition
for a new application. As a general rule of thumb, the more time and exposure
your sound has had in the market, the greater leeway you have for variance.
But always remember the test performed by Intel, in which they played the
‘Intel Inside’ sound on a violin and found that many people no longer recog-
nized it (Intel Free Press, 2014). The instrumentation is part of brand identity,
too. In other words, you can’t stray too far from your sound. Instrumentation
and timbre are part of the brand as much as the tune. The important part is to
keep it bringing some part of the music home to the brand. For most brands, the
100 per cent consistent, untouchable part of the audio identity is the audio logo.
According to Uli Reese, the author of Great Minds on Music, ‘Any brand
is in the trust-building business because, without trust, there will be no
sales’. Reese shares his trust-building formula in a compact phrase, ‘Trust is
built through consistency plus time’ (Fahey, 2016).

Six audio-branding dos and don’ts

for marketers
In the next chapter, we will dive deeply into the proprietary process Sixième
Son uses for collaborating to create an audio brand, perhaps even revealing
some trade secrets. In the meantime, however, here are a few guidelines to
90 Audio Branding

get your teams ready for the initiative. Please note that while the following
six Dos and six Don’ts appeared in an article Colleen published in Strategic
Health Care Marketing (Fahey, 2015), we are providing it here with some
slight edits and additions, because it makes a handy overview.

Don’ts
1 Don’t leave audio strategy until the last minute. Just like creating your
visual brand foundational strategy and elements, plan your music and
sound at the outset. (Of course, if you already have an ongoing visual
brand, you are not prohibited from creating an auditory one. You just
need to take the current equities into account.)
2 Don’t confuse audio branding with entertainment. It has a strategic, trust-
building job to do. Your goal is to completely define the audio universe for
your brand, just as your graphic standards define your brand’s complete
visual universe, so that no matter where your audience encounters your
product, service, or communications, they’ll recognize your audio brand
and know what it stands for.
3 Don’t forget that impact without meaning can be distracting and counter-
productive. Your audio footprint must convey the brand’s essence, prom-
ise, and values. Even if your colleagues love nostalgic music, don’t be
tempted to use it if your brand stands for forward-thinking innovation.
4 Don’t choose a piece of music just because you like it. Ask instead, ‘What
does it say?’ Music is a universal language. Your audience can tell if it’s
warm and friendly, if it’s optimistic, if it’s powerful, if it’s caring and
approachable. Be deliberate in the way you select music for your tactical
marketing. (Once you’ve established your audio DNA and audio logo,
this becomes easy.)
5 Don’t repeat the same music mindlessly. Adapt it to the context. Telephone
on-hold music should have lots of variety and surprises to keep the caller
interested and reduce hang-ups; music in car parks should be calming as
the audience is often in an anxious state; music in cavernous areas should
avoid low tones, which will get lost amid the reverberations; music for
meetings should start calmly and then build a sense of anticipation; music
for videos should support the storyline, not toddle merrily along on its
own path.
6 Don’t confuse music production houses with audio-branding experts,
even if they claim to be able to create audio logos. Branding experts are
focused on finding a way to make your brand distinctive in the category
 The Search for Your Sound 91

and precise in its communication of brand essence, promise, and values.

They will analyse the competitors, take you through a defined process,
and offer an Audio Style Guide and other tools to help ensure buy-in
and branding controls and consistency. They are also music experts but,
specifically, they use it to create brand influence rather than using them
for soundtracks to movies or TV shows or for the writing of commercial
songs.

Dos
1 Do articulate what your brand ideally represents before addressing what
the audio brand must do. Because your audio identity’s role is to express
the core of your brand essence, the first task is to fully define it. Only then
can you design the music that expresses it.
2 Do think of your audio brand as a system of distinctive sounds and
music, not as a jingle or even a stand-alone audio logo at the end of TV
and pre-roll commercials.
3 Do investigate the audio approaches your direct and indirect competi-
tors are using, so you can stand out – just like you would for your visual
brand.
4 Do enumerate your key audio touchpoints, including your branded
content, your on-hold music, your trade-show booth, your radio and TV
spots, your app-opening sounds, your events, your car parks and corri-
dors, and more.
5 Do make sure you use the right music to support those needs in various
circumstances. In different situations the audience has different needs.
Your identity system for your audio brand will be designed to be coherent
within the overall brand but must be adaptable to fit each setting.
6 Do plan to adjust your audio logo whenever your visual logo animates
onto the screen, at the same time. After all, the most powerful branding
tool in your kit will be your multisensory end frame.

So now that we’ve set the groundwork for finding your sound, we will take
you through two important considerations: 1) identifying your key perfor-
mance indicators (KPIs) and how to track them through market research;
because, after all, as we previously stated, but is worth repeating often,
audio branding is ultimately a long-term, business-building endeavour, not
merely an exercise in developing an entertainment enhancer at your various
audio-enabled touchpoints; and 2) a proven process for creating a unique
92 Audio Branding

audio brand based on your brand’s distinct essence, promise, values, and
brand attributes. While you might be eager to jump into creating this sound,
please take the time to study the next two chapters before you get started.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Mickey Brazeal

Highlights of recent academic research: music effects in marketing

communications

In Chapter 3, Charles Spence provided an overview of how music affects

perceptions. But how is this translated into marketing communications?
To find out, we asked a source close to us: Mickey Brazeal – former
big agency creative leader, and an associate professor in the Graduate
School of Integrated Marketing Communications at Roosevelt University in
Chicago. Mickey has an academic researcher’s eye toward the power of
music use in marketing communications, so he conducted a review of the
current research. Here is an overview of what he found (in his own words).

While audio branding is still considered a newer field, music indeed

has become one of the most frequently used and heavily relied-upon
communication devices in mass media marketing. A 2008 study, in fact,
shows that 94 per cent of prime-time television commercials include
music – often music that is custom-made for the brand or the message
(Vermeulen and Baukeboom, 2016).
What’s more, music in marketing has been studied for decades.
A review of the results yields many common elements: demonstrations that
music has the power to dramatically increase the effectiveness of media
communications in several different ways; but also demonstrations that it
can sometimes be not powerful at all – and it can have downright negative
results, depending on how it is composed and how it is applied.
Following are some extremely brief descriptions of the findings in recent
studies. All of them have been peer-reviewed and published. All of them
are publicly available, most are online. Readers in search of more detail
can find many entire articles in the end-of-chapter References.
To help you follow my write-up structure, my summary proceeds
from those looking at the more limited, tactical effects of music to those
exploring more sophisticated, strategic effects. No attempt was made
to prioritize my description of these studies, as different effects will be
important to different readers.
 The Search for Your Sound 93

More music means more learning

A very recent study by AC Nielsen finds that commercials with some
form of music outperform commercials without music across four
of Nielsen’s proprietary metrics: creative, empathy, emotive, and
information (AC Nielsen, 2015). Much the biggest effect was in the
commercial’s ability to transfer information. People learned more,
understood more from commercials whose communication was aided
by music.

Change the music and you change the message

Mark Zander of Freiburg University studied music effects with testing
approaches drawn from clinical psychology (Zander, 2006). He points to the
use of music to attract attention, perhaps the earliest and most primitive
of its applications, but critical to information transfer. He also finds cases
where very explicit messages are delivered primarily by music. A car
commercial with a hard-rock music track is interpreted by its audience
as communicating power and forcefulness. The same video and words,
with a classical music track, is perceived to communicate refinement and
sophisticated design. Zander finds many more examples where music adds
an implicit element to a visual–verbal message. In one example, a change
in music makes a particular brand in the first instance energizing, and in
the other instance, calming. He finds repeated evidence that music has
helped with the retention of information.
A study by Anand and Sternthal (1990) points out that custom-made
music makes it possible to repeat a phrase several times without
annoyance to the audience. This repetition can be used to improve both
information transfer and recall.
Information transfer in the environment of the website is a
very different problem. In the website environment, the customer
is simultaneously in the medium and in the outside world. The
communicator’s goal is to increase the level of attention paid and thus
information transferred by the site. Mangini and Parker (2009) find a
substantial difference in how this is accomplished when a website
has music. They measure more interest in the content, more emotional
arousal, and importantly, an increase in the ‘flow state’ of attention to the
site that makes the reader almost oblivious to the outside world for a few
minutes. An increase in the flow state is associated with much greater
information retention and with a more positive perception of the reader’s
subjective experiences.
94 Audio Branding

Music transfers the emotional message

Finally, a study by Morris and Boone (1998) suggests that the increase in
information transfer is much more focused on the affective components of
a message than on the cognitive component. This is interesting, because
the affective component is often much harder to communicate with visuals
and words.

Music that fits, forces recall

With a focus on recall, we introduce the concept of musical ‘fit’ or
congruity – a subjective perception by the audience of the relevance or
appropriateness of a particular musical composition to the message or
the product characteristics or the essence of the brand. This book has
returned again and again to issues of congruity. Research described below
will offer some reasons why.
Reviewing the research of others, Oakes (2007) finds a clear causal
connection in which higher congruity (as measured by the audience)
produces higher brand recall. Studies by Yalch (1991), Tom (1990), and
North et al (2004) find the same thing. ‘Custom’ music, successfully
matched to the brand or message increases recall. Music that is merely
well-known, or familiar, does not. Multiple studies report that music
which ‘fits’ with product attributes will increase recall of visual images
in a commercial, and will do so far more than verbal cues do (Stewart,
Farmer and Stannard, 1990). A study by Kellaris, Cox, and Cox says music
perceived as congruent with the visual images in a commercial will
increase both message recall and brand recall. (Music not perceived as
congruent reduces both; Kellaris et al, 1993.) The North et al (2004) study
attempts to quantify the level of congruity, and says the better the fit, the
higher the recall. Two other studies, one by Stewart, Farmer, and Stannard
(1990) and another by Yalch (1991), echo this.

Mood modifies behaviour and music modifies mood

Many marketers believe that advertising changes the relationship with a
brand by connecting the brand with an emotion that might not already have
been there.
Some early research looked at Pavlovian conditioning as the
mechanism by which music works. This produced dramatic results, but
they were not always replicated in subsequent studies. Recent studies pay
more attention to ‘mood induction’ as a way to explain the power of music
(Janishevsky, 1988; also Oakes, 2007). A mood is perhaps less intense than
 The Search for Your Sound 95

an emotion, and might not be as recognizable to the individual. But there is

a large volume of research which suggests that moods modify behaviour
and especially that a positive mood enhances the likelihood of many
behaviours, including all sorts of consumer behaviours, like finding out
about a product, finding where to buy it, or deciding to try it. In this view,
behaviour comes from an interaction between thought processes and
mood, but does not happen without the presence of a positive mood. Mood
induction is not well understood, but it has long been associated with
music, and the study cited above links it directly to advertising response.

Music is most powerful with decisions you don’t know you are making
Psychologists have long distinguished between the high-involvement
situation – when a person is concentrating on a choice, and consciously
evaluating the alternatives – and the low-involvement situation, in which
information or ideas are offered that might be relevant to a future decision,
but is not part of a current decision-making process. Obviously, most
advertising effects happen in the low-involvement model. Several studies
(Alpert and Alpert, 1981) suggest that music is far more powerful in the
low-involvement environment. It is important to understand that decisions,
many and important decisions, are still being made and influenced, even
though instant, on-the-spot, high-involvement decision processes are
not happening. Studies of musical congruence with visual and verbal
messages say that, in high-congruence situations, music affects brand
attitudes in both low- and high-involvement decision-making (North et
al, 2004). And the congruence of lyrics with visual messages appears to
influence decision-making in both high- and low-involvement (MacInnis
and Whan Park, 1991).

Music tells us how to feel

When we look at an image on film, it is always somewhat ambiguous. We
can eventually figure out how the source of the image wants us to feel,
but it may take a bit of time. Music is the quickest way to an emotional
connection; it is routinely accomplished in 30 seconds. When the
marketer’s goal is an emotional relationship with a brand, there is almost
no tool or technique so powerful as music.
We measure emotional relationship as attitude. Again, congruity is
critical. Many studies display a clear relationship: when music has high
congruity with the brand or the message, it can create positive attitudes
about the particular commercial, positive attitudes about the brand,
96 Audio Branding

and even positive attitudes about the spokesperson, which presumably

improves believability (Zander, 2006). The effect is routinely observed when
music is customized for the brand or for the message. And again, the better
the fit, the more salient are the positive attitudes. In situations where an
emotional lift does not happen, one key study says it is almost always
attributable to a problem with the fit – MacInnis and Whan Park, 1991.

Music creates purchase intent

Purchase intent is important, because it is much more predictive of
behaviour. If you want to know whether someone will buy, you don’t ask
how much they like the product – you ask if they intend to buy. Again,
the studies are plentiful and powerful: high congruity creates clear
and consistent purchase intent. See North et al (2004), Oakes (2007),
and Eckhardt and Bradshaw (2014) among others. Studies that use the
mood induction model, here represented by Alpert and Alpert, find that
fit between the mood of the music and the mood of the communication
increases purchase intent (Alpert and Alpert, 1981).

Music builds brand authenticity, but only if it’s the right music
The most strategically powerful effect scholars have traced to music in
marketing communication revolves around brand authenticity. A brand is
an expectation about the experience a customer will have with a product
from a particular source. The brand is the vessel in which all a marketer’s
successes and effects over time are contained. That which can make
the brand be, in the mind of the consumer, the vision that its makers and
marketers had, is the ultimate communication tool.
One key to this phenomenon is non-verbal communication. Words
will always be at the centre of marketing. But words create a cognitive
response that always includes the counter-argument. If you say ‘this is how
it is’, the human mind will always imagine that it might also be some other
way. But non-verbal argument does not provoke the counter-argument. We
do not summon up the alternative visual or the alternative music.
The second key is congruity. If the music experience is clearly relevant,
appropriate and congruent with the brand idea, then it creates an
argument that is never rebutted. It says that the values of the brand truly
are what they say they are. And it is believed. Music that captures the
essence of a brand consistently and measurably enhances the authenticity
of the brand as perceived by its customer (see Hung, 2000; Holt, 2002 and
many others).
 The Search for Your Sound 97

Guest biography

Mickey Brazeal is Associate Professor of Marketing Communications at

Roosevelt University. He spent 28+ years in the advertising business, the
last 11 as Executive Creative Director at Grey Chicago, where he ran a
department of 30 writers, art directors and production people, and helped
to manage the agency. His work includes national TV campaigns for car
waxes and corn herbicides, shampoos, spice blends, fuel additives, fruit
juices and food stores, drugstores and deodorants, and dotcoms as well
as internet, direct, and sales promotion. And, his creative awards include
Addies, Tellies, Eagles, Towers, Windys, Louies, Mobius, NAMA Gold, and
Effie. He is the author of RFID: Improving the customer experience. Mickey
holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Nebraska, and an MS in
Advertising from the University of Illinois.

Ca s e Roland Garros/The French Tennis Open

Expressing a mythic stature at the French Open

Sports venues and race events benefit from their audio identities in one way
other brands don’t get to enjoy. Because TV, radio and webcasters actively
report at tournaments and matches, the venue’s own audio brand gets plenty of
extra airplay, which helps extend their brand’s influence for free.
Music is not only played as fans enter the stadium; it also plays when the
athletes parade in, when a match is about to commence, and when a trophy is
awarded – all highly media-friendly moments.
The French Open is just one example. It is currently followed by 3 billion
viewers around the world, so you can imagine the brand value being created
each time viewers hear their sound.
In order to express the mythic stature of this tournament, the French
Tennis Federation turned to Sixième Son. ‘We analyse what the brand aims to
accomplish,’ said Laurent Cochini, Managing Director of Sixième Son, Paris. ‘The
musical creation becomes the brand’s identity.’
‘The French Tennis Federation wanted to use music as a custom tool to unify
all its communications with a consistent and exclusive musical vocabulary,’
recalls Cochini.
98 Audio Branding

The French Open tennis tournament has set a high bar in creating a unique
brand sound that can be adapted to various audiovisual montages and tributes,
and can be used in lounges, walkways, shops and the player village in the
famous Roland Garros stadium. Fans, players, and passers-by, as well as global
media audiences, have begun to recognize the famous French Open tournament
just by its sound.
The branding effort started in 2014 and today, the Roland Garros tournament
has a musical identity that’s also a hymn to the game. Oddly, it is still the only
major tennis tournament that has built its own audio identity system.
How did the rousing music come to be what it is? Cochini explains the
background and the process.
‘We studied what happens in the world of sports and in particular the world
of tennis to create an identity that was distinctive from a musical point-of-view.
One thing we found inspiring was the idea that Roland Garros is the only major
tennis tournament that isn’t in an Anglo-Saxon country. Think about it: there’s the
Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open, all from English-speaking countries.
‘Then there is the French Open with its Latin-based language. We were moved
to go beyond France to encompass the entirety of the Latin world. This became a
fundamental strategy behind the sound design.
‘Another inspiration was the physical action of tennis that is so different
from that of other sports. There is often an aspect of the motion that looks like
dancing. For us this characteristic needed to find expression in the music.
‘We also needed to bear in mind that Roland Garros is France, is Paris.
This dimension particularly needed to be present in the sound identity of the
tournament.
‘The final creation also linked the French aspects with Latin dance; this is
why it is the bandoneon, the instrument of the tango (closely related to the more
typically French accordion) which was at the heart of creation.
‘The idea that Roland Garros is the spring tournament for the players,
which we learned through our discussions with the French Tennis Federation,
suggested that lightness should be present in the composition. But the event
offers an epic dimension that we wanted to capture in the sound identity, too.
‘The fact that the Roland Garros tournament is played on clay also guided us.
We decided to eschew any synthesized sounds and choose real instruments
played in an organic way.
‘Between the first meeting and the delivery for the 2014 tournament, it took us
about two months. Two good months of work that included contributions from
almost everyone on the 25-person Paris team. Beyond the client input and approvals
we had to test the sound at the centre court and the Suzanne Lenglen court at the
stadium to make sure it would have the desired effect on the fans in the stands.
 The Search for Your Sound 99

‘The music has already evolved. It is presented in different formats in terms

of time but also in terms of intent. The way to address the audience, ready to
experience emotions before, during and after games is not the same way it
would be for internet users. And again, the music needs to be different for a
TV commercial. The thundering and very epic vocabulary when the players
enter for the final match is not the same as that in the corridors of Roland
Garros stadium. The ultimate idea, of course, is to enrich the French Open
brand.’
From the beginning, the finished product was a huge success, and its
adaptation to the award ceremony created the longest standing ovation in the
history of the event. As Rafael Nadal walked up to receive his ninth title, the
stadium was filled with the usual and well-deserved roaring applause, but that
year the emotional level was heightened as he received his trophy to the unique
music of the French Open.
The tearful 2014 French Open champion, Rafael Nadal, said of his winning
experience, ‘To receive this trophy, with this magnificent audience who has
supported me and with this incredible music was a powerful and emotional
moment for me’ (Sixième Son, 2014).

References
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 103

What gets 06
measured
If you’re like most people in marketing, your head is already swimming
with ideas. You see the possibilities and might already know what you want
to express. But audio branding, just like visual branding, is a disciplined
process. And it begins with research.
After we have collectively developed hundreds of brands, it is impossible
to resist acquiring certain strongly held opinions about the role of research.
The first of these is that the time you take in expanding the learning you
acquire before you start creating is the most valuable part of the research –
at least to the creators. Among the important questions for audio-branding
development that should be answered upfront are:

●● What are the codes, clichés, and expectations of the category?

●● What do the competitors communicate, even visually?
●● What – if any – music or brand sounds do they use?
●● Is anyone using sound exceptionally well inside the category?
●● Is there a company outside the category who is close in positioning?
●● If so, how are they using music?

Some investigation also goes into researching the auditory heritage of your
own brand.
Also, because one of the main goals of audio branding is to appropriately
stand out and be distinctive, one of the investigative disciplines you must
pay attention to is to look for what’s not there. Where are blank spots where
your brand can be different from the crowd and fill an unmet set of needs?
One example of finding what’s not there, comes from the analysis done
for SNCF. As part of the research for the SNCF project, the agency went to
airports and train stations in the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland,
among others, and found a pervasive similarity in their signals. All of the
competitors used bells, clangs, and beeps to signal announcements. Also, the
tones all tended to be authoritarian, as if to express, ‘We are the transporta-
tion authorities. Now pay attention to what we have to say.’
104 Audio Branding

The environments themselves also had many stressors: crowd noise, cart
noise, obstacles created by bags and the crossing streams of rushing passen-
gers that added to the normal travel tensions, including worries like, ‘Did
I remember to bring everything?’, ‘Do I have my ticket?’, ‘Am I at the right
gate/track?’ and ‘Will I make it on time?’
Given these stresses, the audio-branding team realized that though travel-
lers have a need for calm reassurance and a sense of safety, the tone taken by
most transportation systems was clearly insensitive to the passengers’ states
of mind. Nobody was providing a sense of calm and positive anticipation.
This gave SNCF a way to provide a true auditory point of difference, to
demonstrate both kindness and approachability in their sound. Through the
audio brand, they were able to refocus attention away from the dangers and
difficulties of travel and turn it toward the pleasure of the journey ahead.
Likeable as the SNCF sound is, it leads to a second point about testing
that may seem contradictory. There is grave danger in focusing the initial
research on an audio design’s likeability. Although ‘likeability’ is important,
as Gene Topper points out in his guest perspective (p 111), too much focus
on likeability at the initial stages of development can set a trap for a brand
whose goal is to be noticed, because people initially tend to like music that’s
familiar.
We have found that if the audio identity is immediately likeable, it’s prob-
ably because it sounds like a lot of music playing in the environment. If the
music doesn’t have any quirks or idiosyncrasies that raise eyebrows, it is
likely to disappear into the world of familiar music and won’t be interesting
enough to break through the clutter. The brand music will be likely to lose
in the important brand measure of ‘salience’. A better question is, ‘Can the
sound be interpreted as recognizable, distinctive, and meaningful?’ If the
audio identity offers a good fit for the brand, likeability is likely to come as
familiarity is established. As Mickey Brazeal demonstrated in his Chapter 5
guest perspective, brand congruity in the music leads to greater recall of
both the message and the brand.
In general, it’s not a good idea to ask directly for opinions about the
music itself, or you will soon find yourself in a thicket of personal tastes
and political posturing. Rather, we recommend sticking to exploring what’s
being communicated about the brand and see if the music conveys those
attributes.
In other words, one good practice is to measure implied meaning. It is
also important to measure fit with the brand including whether the audio
supports or complements other branding elements such as the animated
logo and the tagline. The goal, after all, is to extend the brand essence,
 What Gets Measured 105

promise, and values in all the modalities possible, creating the cohesive,
seamless experience that creates trust in the brand.
We have found that the Sixième Son clients who use research – not all
of them do – use it for many different purposes at several different stages.
They employ both qualitative and quantitative techniques and conduct
the research both in person and online. The agency usually helps guide the
research professionals and makes sure the questionnaires aren’t headed
toward any landmines, but the ultimate instruments are left up to the client
as well as research professionals.
Some companies use upfront research to help winnow out the options
from among the front-runners; or to check an executional aspect (eg with
voice or without voice?); to see if and how the branded music has changed
the understanding of a TV commercial that, previously, had used licensed
music; or to find out if the overall message is being interpreted similarly in
different parts of the world. Later, after the brand has been in the market-
place for some time, companies can measure how well the audio logo has
established itself vs the competitors. Sometimes brands look for very basic
information like recognition, brand attribution, and attachment. In many
ways, audio-branding research is analogous to the research questions and
techniques used for judging the effectiveness of visual branding elements
and efforts.

Deconstruction and layering

One technique that works for discerning the meaning derived from an audio
brand is to deconstruct it and then layer on the audio and visual elements.
Playing the animated visual logo without the music and exploring what it
communicates, and then playing the same logo along with the music and
asking the same questions can enable you to assess what messaging has been
added by the audio brand. You can do the opposite too. First, play the visual
and auditory elements together and then withdraw the music. The compari-
son of the two experiences can yield rich information about the meanings
and emotions contained in the audio composition – even from something
as short as a 2.5-second composition, comparable in length to the typical
audio logo. Try it yourself to see how the meaning and impact is affected.
A car company used this deconstructed vs layered research approach in a
third way. Using an online survey that lasted under 10 minutes and query-
ing a few hundred French drivers on the company’s proposed audio logo,
their research firm played the music alone and then added the visual. Why?
106 Audio Branding

They sought to measure the perception of the proposed audio logo alone
and then to evaluate the music’s harmony with and impact upon the brand’s
visual identity.
When they played the music alone, they looked for the perceived meaning:
whether it felt modern or aggressive; whether it came across as annoying or
agreeable to listen to; and if it conveyed a sense of momentum, uniqueness,
or originality. When they explored these questions in the research, however,
their order was randomized to ensure against one question continually creat-
ing the framework for the next. Secondly, they looked at the ratings on such
measures as status, quality, passion, power, and generosity and compared
them against each other.
Then they played the music simultaneously with the video and measured
whether or not the audio composition imbued the visual with the feelings of
enthusiasm, movement, modernity, and differentiation from other brands as
well as ‘brings strength’, ‘gives a strong personality’, and ‘evokes emotions’.
The car company’s highly original audio identity now extends across the
globe. And it’s proven to convey the top three values in all of the markets.
What is more, the research indicated that the newer markets showed a
stronger effect, as they weren’t carrying years of previous brand impres-
sions – views formed from when the respondent’s grandparents owned the
company’s cars.

Which creative execution?

Often clients use comparative research to help winnow their choices; often,
for instance, to help make the choice between their two or three best options.
Here it’s useful to add a ranking system to the exploration of brand values.
Respondents can listen to each choice individually and rate the different
positive and negative qualities that each sound communicates to him or her.
Sometimes there is a need for help deciding between creative executions.
What is the difference in what each one communicates? Which is more
moving to the audience you seek to influence? Which is more appropriate
to the environment? Then the questionnaire can ask listeners to compare
which is stronger at delivering each of the core values. For instance, ‘Which
one felt the most welcoming?’, ‘Which conveyed the most optimism?’, and
‘Which one best communicated technological innovation?’
In the case of an airport, the team needed to decide which version of the
audio identity would best achieve their goals: one that included a woman’s
voice, and another that was purely instrumental. One concern, as was
 What Gets Measured 107

already learned from the SNCF initiative, was how to use the music to help
the travellers feel reassured, instead of the typical anxiety of travel. Further
goals included:

●● Which of them better translated the values that the client wished to
highlight?
●● Which would be most easily memorable and identifiable in the various
brand touchpoint situations?
●● Which would be the most adaptable to an international clientele from
many regions and from varying sociodemographic strata?

Using both focus groups and one-on-one interviews with domestic and
foreign travellers – research that included both occasional and frequent
travellers – they tested similar pieces, one had a high but soft female voice
as the lead instrument and another was carried by the other instruments,
without a voice.
Among the choices, there were some similarities in the way both options
were perceived (like the sensation of being within a serene and protective
‘rounded’ environment). But in the end, the results were conclusive. To the
travellers, the music without the use of the voice felt heavier, emptier, and
less refined. On the other hand, in the context of the Paris airports, the crys-
talline soprano voice carried the day. In addition, the verbatims from the
research report were reassuring to the marketing team, too:

●● brings joy, gaiety, and freshness: the voice-over makes people feel very
welcome;
●● gives dynamism, movement, enthusiasm, and energy: the voice arouses
people’s curiosity and maintains interest;
●● protects them from the exterior world and its aggressions: the voice is
comforting and reassuring;
●● allows them to position themselves as witnesses of life: the voice is real
and human;
●● provides well-being and serenity: people are calm and relaxed.

In other words, the travellers could imagine a story that preceded the
announcement: the voice made it feel as though they were part of a dialogue
rather than the cold recipient of an announcement. Of course, these results
don’t mean that a truck tyre, medical device, or pipeline company would
benefit by the same voice usage, but it turned out to be ideal for a bienvenue
to or an au revoir from Paris.
108 Audio Branding

We have also found that some organizations prefer to take a more quan-
titative approach to market research and many like the convenience and
often cost-savings of conducting their research online. While this approach
won’t provide such poetic answers as ‘I feel as if I’m in the middle of a story’,
you can get good guidance from it.

A simple online questionnaire

The following example of an excerpt from an online research questionnaire
uses a slight variation. As mentioned earlier, one method that works well is
to play the music and video together – let’s say of an end frame featuring an
animation of the logo – and then cutting the music and playing the video
silently. People can often articulate what’s missing for them. Conversely, you
can play just the visual part, probe for what it communicated and then add
the music and see what has changed. But in this methodology, you can play
a video or the animated end frame silently for some respondents and with
the music being tested for a different set of respondents. Then, it becomes
simple enough to just compare between the adjectives each group chooses
to describe the brand.
You don’t need to ask them to describe the music itself, because if the
music is truly adding meaning to the brand and the communications, the
respondents who are exposed to the proposed audio identity will detect and
describe different aspects of the brand.
At this point, the respondent will either be shown a video with music or
without it and will then be given a questionnaire featuring a set of possible
adjectives and will be asked to complete it. Table 6.1 provides an example,
keeping in mind that, typically, the order of the choices is randomized, so
each participant is offered a different list.

Does it work across borders?

For international brands, marketers should also test how well a brand is
translating values across cultures and geographies. For one international
brand, the company ran four one-hour focus groups, with eight participants
each, with a mix of both customers and non-customers in their home coun-
try, and then they held two one-hour focus groups in each of five different
countries, again with eight participants each and a mix of customers and
non-customers.
 What Gets Measured 109

Table 6.1 Example questionnaire

Questionnaire Form
Q. People have said different things about the brand the way it
is shown in the following video. Please let us know whether you
agree or not.
In this video, (brand) Totally Somewhat Tend to Do not
appears to be… agree agree disagree agree at all
Friendly
Creative
Corny
Wholesome
Original
Easy
Fun
Generous
Premium
Shareable
Approachable
Cheeky
Simplistic
Naive
Childish
Irritating
Boring
Distinctive

In each of these groups, they measured:

●● coherence with the brand identity (brand values, vision);

●● coherence with the tagline;
●● memorability; and
●● the ability to differentiate, both in the marketing environment as a whole
and from competition.

Their goal: to determine the global performance of the audio identity

and its perception in each of the individual countries where they operate.
110 Audio Branding

Ultimately, the research conclusions underscored the universality of music

as a highly communicative language.

TV commercial comprehension and memory

When licensed music in a TV campaign is replaced with music that’s scored
to drive the action while reinforcing brand attributes, you can compare
audience comprehension of the commercial, before and after. You are likely
to see a jump in comprehension in the scored spot in part because, when
you score a commercial to support the storyline, rather than to compete
with it, people don’t have to work as hard to get the message. Every aspect
reinforces the other. And you can increase the tension in the moments where
you want it, build greater excitement in the active moments and underscore
a feeling of triumph in the resolution, as well as convey the other emotions
you wish to evoke.
While brands can’t immediately track whether this comprehension and
enhanced emotion turn into long-term memory, there are strong indica-
tions that they help do just that. The research company Neuro-Insight, for
instance, tracked brain responses while the study participants watched 150
ads, mapped the responses to their data on long-term memory encoding and
found that ads that are driven by their soundtrack were 14 per cent more
efficient in producing long memories than those that used ‘background’
music. This effect was produced both in memory of the big picture as well
as memory of details (Heilpern, 2016).

Testing a known audio brand at grocery

It’s also important to note that audio-branding research can work in physi-
cal locations as well. In a now classic audio-branding study, a test was run
in a British wine shop, where they played German and French music on
alternating days. On the German music days, the shop sold more wines from
Germany – three bottles of German-branded wines, in fact, for each bottle of
French wine. And on the French music days, the shop conversely sold more
French-branded wines. This time, however, they sold four French-branded
bottles for each German bottle (North, Hargreaves and McKendrick, 1999),
perhaps speaking to the stronger overall branding of French wines.
In a similar way to the wine study, the audio consulting group took
research into the retail environment to test the theory that audio branding
could move sales of specific products at shelf. Working with the University
of Applied Sciences, Kiel, in cooperation with 50 supermarkets in the same
 What Gets Measured 111

chain, the research firm ran their test on a brand in the sparkling wine cate-
gory. The brand had been using the same music on air for two decades.
As a benchmark, they tracked sales for the brand and the category for
two weeks. For another two weeks, 25 stores continued as normal and in
another 25 a 7.5-second piece of the brand’s music was played six times an
hour embedded within the customary in-store music programme.
Sales rose during that period as it was the year-end holiday season, but
the sales of the test brand in the stores that played the branded music far
exceeded the seasonal sales boost, as proven by the difference in product
sales between the test stores, which rose 45 per cent vs the control stores,
which rose 15 per cent.
The music also appeared to raise the sales of the category itself. Every
competitor in the store with the sparkling wine-related music saw higher
sales than they did in the stores without the music. No words were used, no
lyrics were sung, the work had all been done by the music alone (Langeslag,
Santos and Schwieger, 2011).
So now that you know some of your research options, you need to solid-
ify how you will eventually judge your audio brand, from the initial criteria
for determining your music to your key performance indicators over time.
We have provided some that have been used by other marketers (and our
guest perspective will provide others). But ultimately, you need to select the
key performance indicators important to your business and brand.
But once you have identified them, you are ready to progress to the next
branding stage and go through the process of creating your audio brand.
Stay tuned, because that’s just what we’ll explore in the next chapter.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Gene Topper

Reflections on the value of brand-tracking importance and role of brand

tracking

So if your audio-branding effort is effective, it should move the needle,

which you should be able to see in your market research. But how
should you best track the changes in your brand? What are the key
considerations? And what are the key concerns? To help us answer those
pressing questions, we asked market researcher extraordinaire, Dr Gene
Topper, to provide us with his thoughts, drawing from his more than
30 years of experience. The following is what he sent us in response. We
hope that it helps you as much as it has helped us.
112 Audio Branding

Brand tracking represents the most important (other than sales) vehicle
for assessing where a brand stands in the minds of a target audience.
Yes, sales data are the ultimate measure of performance. But, sales,
while providing a measure of how a product or service is doing in the
critical metric of brand revenue, does not provide any diagnostics on
the reasons for the level of a brand’s performance. Sure, if a brand
continuously outperforms budgeted sales there may be little need
for diagnostics. The reality is, however, that most brands, at least
temporarily, will not reach sales goals. Brand tracking is a critical tool
for diagnosing brand health.
What makes brand tracking so useful is the ability it provides for
assessing all aspects of the marketing funnel, eg awareness/saliency,
imagery, consideration, motivation, trial, and loyalty. These measures
are not in a vacuum as key competitors are also assessed at the
same time.
When all of the marketing funnel metrics are being assessed for a brand
we have the ability to diagnose why sales may not be reaching established
goals.
At any given point in time a brand tracker can provide the following
insights:

●● What is the level of brand awareness of our brand?

●● Is our brand salient (unaided brand awareness) or just recognized?
●● What are the equities (positive and negative) of our brand?
●● Is our brand proposition understood?
●● Is our brand proposition considered relevant?
●● Where does our brand stand in the consideration set?
●● Why hasn’t trial occurred and how likely is it to occur in the future?
●● If trial has occurred, what is the likelihood of future usage?
●● What is the overall satisfaction level for our brand among triers?

Not only does a brand tracker provide these insights at a given point in
time but they are easily trended (assuming no changes in methodology)
over time. And, by assessing the same metrics among competitors we can
see if we are outperforming, underperforming or equally performing the
competition in the category. Trackers also provide the ability to track the
individual targets or segments to see how the brand is performing within
its various audiences.
 What Gets Measured 113

Brand-tracking design that best meets client needs

Over my more than 30 years designing brand-tracking studies for clients,
I have recommended almost every variation on timing, method of data
collection, and metrics to be incorporated in a tracking study. Here are
a few basic principles on designing brand trackers and expectations for
detecting brand movement:

1 The timing of tracking waves should be based primarily on the level

of marketing investment in the brand during the tracker. For heavily
advertised brands (usually consumer packaged goods, retailers, and
financial services) tracking waves can be as frequent as every 3–6
months. For low-level marketed brands (including most B2B brands and
durables) tracking can be more infrequent, with 1–2 years between
waves.
2 Continuous tracking is very expensive and should only be reserved
for heavily advertised brands with variations in their media schedules
over time. Continuous tracking can be very valuable in identifying
efficiencies in media plans, eg how long/short do media flights have
to be to impact brand metrics or what is the duration of a lag in brand
metric growth and decay for different media schedules and weights?
3 Can I afford a tracker? The answer is almost always ‘Yes’ as there are
ways to reduce costs such as reducing sample size, broadening the
target (if low incidence), and shortening the interview. For example,
for budget considerations, I can get a tracker down to a five-minute
interview by simplifying screening questions and limiting metrics to
unaided and aided brand and advertising awareness, past trial, future
interest, and reason for interest/lack of interest. Another way to reduce
costs is to just look at open-ended verbatims instead of paying for
coding.
4 Moving the needle in a tracker is not easy. The bigger the sample size
and heavier the brand advertising, the greater the chance one will see
significant changes wave to wave. If movement looks hopeless, have
patience as most brand movement takes months, if not years.
5 Think about the big, longer-term picture for the brand. You must
remember that in sampling, normal variation in responses is likely to
happen wave to wave. The implication of this is to not overreact to a
significant shift (either positive or negative) in one wave. The key is to see
if these shifts are maintained or only temporary variations of sampling.
114 Audio Branding

6 Can a tracker determine if our campaign is wearing out? This issue

is one of my favourites as in almost all cases brand advertising will
never wear out because spending levels are too low and competitive
clutter reduces impact. As a colleague years ago explained, wear-out
occurs when the spouse of the president of the company gets tired of
the advertising. Wear-out, though, can be measured through tracking
by observing metric increases that plateau and decline. If the decline
cannot be explained by reduced spending or increased competitive
activity, then wear-out may be occurring; however, this is rare.
7 Auditory (and visual) logos in advertising can also be tracked by
evaluating aided awareness of the auditory/visual logo after playing/
showing them and probing on-brand association (if buried among
competitive brands and control logos).

Finally, I am frequently asked for my opinion on what one brand metric is the
most important one to value. I feel strongly that unaided brand awareness
is the most critical measure of a brand’s health. Unaided brand awareness
measures the saliency of a brand and how that compares to competitors.
How can a marketer expect a brand to be considered if it is not salient,
especially vs relevant competitors? There is ample evidence that unaided
brand awareness is the highest correlated variable with brand usage/intent
to use in the future. As an example of salience, I was especially impressed
by the metric quoted in the SNCF case in Chapter 1 of this book: ‘88 per cent
of these listeners correctly identified the brand upon hearing just two notes.’

Don’t forget copy testing

When you get to the advertising stage, creative copy testing (one could make
the argument) may be even more important than brand tracking. This step is
especially important when you’re starting a new strategy or approach. As in
other elements of the campaign testing, the goal is to learn ‘What does it say
about the brand?’ and ‘Is it communicating what we think and hope it is?’
Copy testing, if done properly, can identify potential communication
flaws in the eventual advertising. Most copy testing can be done on rough
executions of the proposed advertising. If copy testing is conducted and
identifies potential issues, there is then time to take corrective actions
prior to the costly production of the advertising.
In almost all cases advertising can be tested in a rough form with only a
few exceptions such as when a potential dramatic visual or representation
of the brand may be needed in final form. Consumers readily understand
 What Gets Measured 115

that rough advertising is preliminary and they can project what will
eventually be shown.
I have in fact evaluated several new ad campaigns in rough format and
then later in finished form, and have actually had more positive comments
on the brand in the rough form. The reason for this was that the final
execution actually fell below what consumers responding to the rough
form envisioned about the brand and its portrayal.

Researcher vs the creative perspective

During my agency days as a researcher, I was ‘affectionately’ called
Dr Doom, someone who has killed more creative than any person on earth.
Let me summarize several confrontations that occur between creatives
and researchers with regard to the role of the consumer in evaluating
brand communications:

1 Researchers do not want consumers to be creative critics in evaluating

the music used, how the copy was put together or the value of the
visuals. But there is abundant evidence that the more consumers like
what they see and hear from a brand, the more likely they are to be
patrons of the brand. If consumers are the intended audience of the
communication, it is important to determine how they feel about the
communications… do they like what they hear about the brand, how
do they feel about what was said and shown, does the communication
fit the brand and do they like the brand based on what they viewed and
listened to in the advertising.
2 It is important to listen to what the creatives would like to know from
the consumer but do not let them design the instrument for getting the
information. For example, suggesting that the consumer in a copy-test
situation should be allowed to view the creative as many times or as long
as they like is not a good test of reality. Consumers seeing a television
commercial or listening to a radio commercial do not have the luxury of
extended time to study the message, unless they record the advertising
and review it. For measuring key metrics like brand recall and perceived
main idea you do not want to allow more than two exposures to the
advertising. It is OK to expose test advertising a second or even third
time to evaluate brand imagery and tone of the communications but
further extended exposure is not a realistic situation.
3 The use of auditory cues can be a very effective executional device
for improving the recognition/association of a brand to a commercial
116 Audio Branding

message. However, the marketer needs to ensure through tracking

research that the auditory cues not only generate recognition of a
familiar message but an association to the brand behind the advertising.
Appreciation of the advertising and its messaging generates no benefit
if the consumer has no idea what brand is being advertised. We are not
talking about evaluating the melodic quality or appeal or technical aspects
of the music but rather its message and fit with the advertised brand.
4 I heartily agree with the procedure of evaluating combined auditory
and visual commercial elements in isolation, together, and then in
the context of the advertising. It is important not to have the same
respondents evaluating the auditory/visual logos both in isolation and
then in context since their responses in isolation can influence their
reactions to the same stimuli, now in context. The proper way to handle
this is to have separate cells evaluating stimuli in isolation vs those
seeing the stimuli in the advertising.

Guest biography

Gene Topper has applied his doctoral degree in Experimental Psychology

and MBA in Marketing Management for over 30 years to assist clients
in addressing critical marketing issues by designing marketing research
studies that obtain target audience input for making better decisions.
Gene has been recognized for his leadership skills by having served
as President of both Chicago’s American Marketing Association and the
Society of Consumer Psychology. He has lectured in Marketing Research
at Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and currently
is an assistant professor at Colorado Technical University.

Ca s e Intel

Lessons learned from a fuzzy brief: the durable Intel bong

Let’s take a moment to tip our hats to a brand that has brilliantly stuck to its sound
for over 20 years. The ubiquitous Intel signature (aka ‘bong’) was born in 1994 and
has remained largely unchanged since. Oh, yes, they’ve added some bass and
made some updates to the sound but they’ve kept it recognizable through the years.
 What Gets Measured 117

Imagine trying to create preference for a component that’s inside a closed

computer. We think it is rather like trying to sell a dress based on its brand of
thread. Your customers can’t see the product, hear it, taste it, or touch it. The
very nature of the product makes it hard for people to imagine it or keep it in
mind. And, yet, the Intel marketers worked strategically and creatively to create
real brand preference, and, even more improbably, to build this invisible product
into a global brand.
The Intel bong got its start when Intel was turning to television advertising in
1994 and had commissioned R/GA in Los Angeles to create the animated version
of their logo, a spiralling, dynamic whirl that resolved into a still-familiar shape
with the company slogan inside an open blue oval. It was R/GA who found the
composer, young Austrian-born musician Walter Werzowa who was in the USA
studying movie and TV music scoring at University of Southern California.
Werzowa composed the well-known melody that was featured in all Intel
commercials and, in a brilliant Intel co-marketing strategy, was also included
in most commercials for computer companies who used the chips inside their
products.
By 1999, the audio signature was already catching attention. The Los Angeles
Times devoted an article to its genesis (Kaufman, 1999). Here’s an excerpt about
its start: ‘Intel… wanted tones that evoked innovation, trouble-shooting skills,
and the inside of a computer, while also sounding corporate and inviting.’
To achieve these goals, Werzowa reportedly blended xylophone, marimba,
and bells.
The client probably didn’t know it at the time, but what Werzowa described
as a ‘fuzzy’ brief was, no doubt, more helpful in inspiring the creation of a unique
and tailored sound than are many music briefs. Why? Because the brief focused
on the branding need, rather than on the music. Indeed, as a brief, it could have
been deeper and more introspective about the brand. But it avoided the worst
habits of audio briefs, in that it didn’t specify a style of music or a recommend
a song to be copied. That openness gave the composer room to intelligently
explore how to bring the brand to life.
Which he did with a simple four-note melody – D flat, G flat, D flat, and A flat –
announced by a brilliant introductory note that sits apart from the tune. He added
smart touches to the rhythm, too, choosing the inspired cadence of the words
in the slogan, ‘In-tel In-side’. Another deft detail in the composition was the
connection between the two uses of the syllable, ‘In’. Each time ‘In’ is expressed,
the same note, D flat, is used.
In an interview with Werzowa, Grant Robertson of The Globe and Mail added
to an insight into the introductory note they call the ‘sparkle’ saying, ‘The first
note is a throwaway; just there to clear the mind of whatever noise came before,
118 Audio Branding

so the brain is ready to hear and, more importantly, to remember the jingle that
follows.’ He then quotes the composer as saying, ‘There is this initial energy
burst which closes off whatever sound was there before. It prepares you for the
melody, then the melody comes in’ (Robertson, 2009).
The audio logo travelled far beyond the Sherman Oaks studio and made its
way around the world. The Globe and Mail article, published in 2009, reported
that it was ‘played in more than 130 countries, it’s the most-heard commercial
mnemonic going. On average, the bong appears somewhere on earth every five
minutes, either in the company’s own ads or in commercials for products using
Intel’s technology.’
In 2014, The Intel Free Press reported a finding that underscored a not-so-
obvious insight that audio-branding professionals know well. Many people had a
hard time recognizing the famous tune in the absence of the tone. ‘Interestingly,
Werzowa and Intel discovered that the sound of the notes was at least as
important as the melody itself. Among a 60-person focus group, researchers
found only 80 per cent of participants recognized the correct melody played on
a violin, but 100 per cent recognized it with the proper sound – even when an
incorrect note was added’ (Intel Free Press, 2014).
The multisensory approach and, indeed, the audio signature have buoyed the
awareness of the Intel company’s innovations for many years, so much so Intel
is now recognized as one of the world’s top brands, neck-and-neck with giant
consumer brands like Budweiser. In fact, in early 2016, Forbes named Intel as
one of the world’s most powerful brands and assessed its brand value at over
$32 billion (Forbes, 2016). Though these brand rankings often shift around and
the companies that rank brands aren’t always in total agreement, Intel’s rank is
impressive.
It’s hard to imagine achieving that impressive level of strength by using a
silent visual logo showing the word ‘Intel’ within an open blue oval, no matter
how dynamic the animation that surrounded it. As good as the graphic design
is, it’s the five-note audio signature that brings out the emotional connection.
No wonder Intel has firmly stood by its significant sound for more than 20 years.

References
Forbes (2016) The World’s Most Powerful Brands, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/
pictures/fell45elff/no-6-intel/ [accessed 4 October 2016]
Heilpern, W (2016) How to make the most memorable TV ad, according to
neuroscience, Business Insider, 22 March 2016 http://www.businessinsider.
 What Gets Measured 119

com/most-memorable-tv-ad-according-to-neuroscience-2016-3 [accessed 16
October 2016]
Intel Free Press (2014) Intel bong still going strong after 20 years, Intel Free Press,
6 August 2014, http://www.intelfreepress.com/news/intel-bong-chime-jingle-
sound-mark-history/8390/ [accessed 4 October 2016]
Kaufman, L (1999) The Man Who Created Intel’s Audio ‘Signature’, LA Times,
20 October 1999, http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/20/business/fi-24321
[accessed 8 May 2016]
Langeslag, P, Santos, R and Schwieger, J (2011) The effect of branded acoustic
Stimuli and Purchase Behavior, Congress 2011, Audio Branding Academy
North, AC, Hargreaves, DJ, and McKendrick, J (1999) The influence of in-store
music on wine selections, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol 84(2), April 1999,
pp 271–76
Robertson, G (2009) The Mozart of Jingles, The Globe and Mail, 15 May 2009,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-mozart-of-jingles/article
4211353/ [accessed 12 May 2016]
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 121

The audio- 07
branding process
So, now that you are fortified by knowing all the benefits of having an audio
brand and key steps for judging its success, it’s time to take the plunge. But
are you really ready to get started on the process of actually creating your
audio brand?
But we have a warning: as you announce that you have decided that
you are going down this road with your brand, you may ignite a confusing
internal discussion. That is because, when people see audio branding in the
plan, they often offer their opinions about music. ‘We are more of a clas-
sical music company’, one person typically might say. ‘No, too highfalutin,
I think we’re rock ‘n’ roll but maybe softened with a touch of flute’, another
might offer. ‘No slide whistles, please!’ a third might say. You will also hear,
‘I have always liked this piece of music, how close can we get to it without
getting sued?’ And, inevitably, someone will ask, ‘Doesn’t our ad agency
handle the music?’ (Probably, yes, at the campaign level but almost never at
the brand level.)
Don’t let it throw you. You can reassure them that you have a plan that
provides a clear process that includes your ad agency (or agencies) along
with an internal cross-functional team.
Then you’ll select an audio-branding resource. Here, you will want to
be very careful that you’re not hiring a music house, but a branding expert
that can build an intelligent system that can flex and build over time, maybe
even over decades.
Here’s another warning: some firms and music houses claim to do audio
branding and then provide a long piece of music that is designed to be cut
up and used in snippets. That is not a system. Go along with this approach
and you’ll find that your company will soon find itself suffering repetition
fatigue. As a result, your efforts could fail and your investment would be
wasted. All too often, as marketing consultants we hear that an approach,
a platform, or an overriding strategy doesn’t work for a company when in
fact it was the execution of the approach, platform, or strategy that didn’t
work. Please, don’t fall into that trap with audio branding. The upside is
122 Audio Branding

just too great for your brand to miss out on this unique opportunity to help
your brand stand out and build emotional connections with your audiences.
Now that you have these warnings, and are prepared in advance, you
are ready to begin. Expect any audio-branding process to take about two to
four months. The process we describe is the one created by Sixième Son and
has been used in creating more than 350 audio brands around the world.
So we know that it works.

A familiar process but an exciting one

The audio-branding process will be reassuringly familiar to anyone who
has gone through any strategic branding process (see Figure 7.1). The steps
are the same, but the lens is different. The briefing, competitive research,
category, and brand analysis must be part of the process but, in this case,
the guiding perspective focuses on the behaviour of the sounds and music in
the category and the musical heritage of the brand. The mood board explo-
rations are critical but aren’t done using collages or video montages; they
employ purely auditory inputs. The concept presentation doesn’t require
visuals because your mind will create its own; instead, it includes short orig-
inal compositions created specifically to communicate and differentiate your
brand. At that point, a couple are chosen, refined, and, possibly, tested. In
the end, your brand will possess a clear, coherent and audio universe that’s
as distinctive as your graphic universe and, of course, an Audio Style Guide.

Brand briefing and analysis

The goal in the briefing is to help your audio-branding agency understand
the brand. You might be asked questions like: What is your brand prom-
ise?, What are your brand’s values and aspirations?, Who is your key target
audience?, What choices did you make when creating your visual logo and
identity system?, Is there a brand in another category that could be a model
for your brand?, How are you different from your competitors?, How are
your competitors presenting themselves?
Of course, these questions are just the beginning. The point is, you should
expect to be grilled. A good audio-branding firm, just like a visual-branding
one, will want to know everything.
With the information as the basis, your audio-branding agency will
conduct a benchmark study of your category. This audit will determine the
Figure 7.1 The audio-branding process

PHASE 1 PHASE 2

DNA
Brand Briefing Audio Launch Planning Support &
Development & Adaptations
& Analysis Mood boards & Roll-out Extension
Finalization

Source Sixième Son, 2015 (used with permission)

123
124 Audio Branding

key competitive positions in the category and their musical expressions. It

will usually also reveal the audio defaults or ‘codes’ in your sector. It may
uncover more fertile territory to help refine your position. And it will help
you determine whether you want to create your own new and distinct musi-
cal path or bring a fresh take to a musical path that already exists.
We recommend you create a listening committee at the start of the process.
Usually, this consists of 6–10 people who know your brand very well. These
people do not have to be musicians or musical experts. It is key, however,
that they know and care about the brand. They may be product managers,
marketing communications professionals, product designers, agency people,
management, or someone with a special perspective.
In the case of a hospital, we found it was helpful to include a nurse who
carefully guided us away from any sounds used in the monitors and other
medical devices.
It’s worth noting that it’s typical for the client to bring their most trusted
agency (or two) into the process. It may be the ad agency but some clients
also prefer to include their web design agency, their branding agency, or
even their ‘messaging strategy’ agency, instead.
With your help, your audio-branding agency will do an audio touchpoint
analysis of your company as we discussed in Chapter 4.
All this information is then distilled into a strategic proposal that includes
a refined positioning, touchpoint recommendations, and roll-out plan.

Setting the tone with audio mood boards

Based on our experience, the next step is for audio-branding strategists
to create a series of audio ‘mood boards’. Each ‘board’ is a playlist that
contains a carefully selected collection of musical clips that explore 6–10
different ways of conveying a particular meaning. Brands are rarely one-
dimensional. Depending on the values of the brand, one mood board might
look at ways of conveying ‘innovation’. A second might look at the ways to
say ‘human touch’. And a third might explore the ideas and feelings of ‘inti-
macy’. Another brand may wish to communicate ‘effervescence’ and ‘fun’
or ‘rigorous precision’ and ‘high style’ and they would receive an entirely
different set of mood boards. The goal of the mood board session is to find
a way to represent the most promising audio vocabulary for the brand.
It’s important to keep in mind that these sets of boards are custom-created
for each organization, infused by the content and benchmark findings and
analysis in the briefing stage. After all, just as one ‘fun’ person is fun in a
different way to the next one described that way, so is a brand.
 The Audio-Branding Process 125

The first meeting of the listening committee (LC1) allows for an evalua-
tion of each piece of music in the mood boards keeping two main questions
in mind: 1) Does it succeed in conveying the intended meaning?; and 2)
Does it do so in a way that feels appropriate for the brand? These listening
sessions are very dynamic and the listeners often evolve in their opinions as
they hear the different interpretations unfold.
The results of these sessions set up the strategy team for a tight creative
brief that guides the audio designers away from certain expressions of the
brand and toward others that are more promising.
It’s often true that, while a listening committee judging the musical
excerpts never comes to 100 per cent agreement, the group shares certain
unspoken feelings about their brand and find many things to agree upon. It’s
not a requirement that everyone be in perfect agreement.
For illustration, the box below provides an example of the raw meeting
notes taken by one Sixième Son representative during a portion of a mood
board listening session. These, combined with the observations of the other
colleagues, helped guide the creative brief that began the exploration of the
brand’s audio DNA.

Mood board #2

Extract 1: YES
+ very classical, ‘clumsy mobility’
+ very exploratory
+ physical comedy
+ through the eyes of the child
+ sense of humour
+ playful story
+ very catchy
– too treble

Extract 2: NO
– too old for toddlers, too educational, brand is not trying to teach kids
anything
– a little too literal interaction between mum and baby
– felt like basic music you play for kids, too sing-songy
+ positive: mum/baby connection
+ end was pretty interesting
126 Audio Branding

Extract 3: YES
+ last part is interesting, simple series of instruments
+ like the bridge and the guitar part
+ positive melody, playful
+ speed and energy feel like the brand
+ don’t mind the soft whistling

Extract 4: NO
– too hyperactive
– too western culture
– too nursery rhymish
– nice rhythm, but not enough… too carried by the voice

Extract 5: YES!!
+ very unique, interesting, catchy
+ universal/global sound
+ complex
+ positive
+ a little too adult (voice)
– didn’t feel baby enough
+ like the off-beat rhythm, and like the xylophone
+ ‘Aah’ and ‘Ooh’ feel more universal and interesting

Extract 6: NO
– too dramatic – like a warm-up for an HBO movie
– boring, not toddler
+ emotional and aspirational
+ progressive
– end is too abrupt… doesn’t say ‘thriving’
– too theatrical, too forced

As you can notice, even before these reactions and analyses are tightened
into a final creative brief, directions are being suggested about the brand’s
rhythm, instrumentation, vocalizations, sophistication level, and natural vs
dramatic tone. A whole new idea was revealed as well, that being the hope
that the final music not sound too westernized, as it needed to appeal to a
global audience.
 The Audio-Branding Process 127

DNA development and finalization

After the client approval of the creative brief, a creative team begins
composing alternative approaches to an audio DNA of about 45 seconds in
length, which is essentially mapping out the potential audio vocabulary of
the brand as well as creating the all-important 2.5- to 4-second audio logo.
Though we have found that different audio designers will emphasize
different aspects of the brand’s character, all will strive to include each of
the key brand dimensions.
Once approved internally (at Sixième Son, it is approved by the agency’s
artistic director and creative director) the three to five alternatives will be
presented at the next listening committee meeting (LC2). While some agen-
cies might come back with a recommendation at this point, we prefer to
see it as further exploration. Sixième Son at this step will not take a strong
position or try to hard sell a particular composition. We know each one will
do the job, but we don’t know which one will speak best for that particu-
lar company. So we listen intently. And we watch expressions and body
language. We offer our perspective if it’s requested but we find it often isn’t
asked for as teams navigate their way to their own unique brand expression.
During this stage, it’s important that the client and the agency team stay
focused on the brand, its essence, and its values. Secondly, the listening
committee may attend to the question of how well the music might stand
out in the category. We believe that one’s own musical tastes and preferences
have no place at the table. At that meeting usually, two concepts are chosen
for further refinement.
This exercise often provides an inadvertent team-building exercise. As
people begin to share their musical impressions, explore subtle dimensions of
the brand, and even find themselves emotionally moved by the music, they get
to know each other’s human side. In the end, teams are unified by the fact that
they’ve created something meaningful and valuable that represents all of them.
The refined concepts are presented again at the third listening committee
meeting (LC3). By this time people have become familiar with the process
and some even participate by phone. Here the selection is made. Some of our
clients use testing to help choose between the two finalists (although we’ve
found that fewer than half tend to do this). Rather, many companies feel
confident at this point that they’ve achieved a distinctive sound that truly
conveys their essence and values. Some present to upper management, while
others just go ahead and make their decision as a team. The final selection
is based, not on musical likes and dislikes, but on what would be best in
achieving the brand’s goals.
128 Audio Branding

How to tell if you have a strong audio brand

Here is a handy rubric for judging your audio brand. Some of the questions
might not be appropriate now, but the first ones you can begin using right
away:

●● Does it reflect the brand values and convey the brand’s story?
●● Does it help the brand stand out from the competition?
●● Does it include an audio logo that stems from the overall brand music?
●● Is it used coherently across touchpoints beyond advertising?
●● Does it allow flexible adaptations within a structure rather than merely
repeat itself?
●● Is it used consistently over time rather than changing with ad
campaigns?
●● Do you have a working Audio Style Guide that lays out usage guidelines?

Touchpoint adaptations and an Audio Style Guide

The audio DNA by itself then becomes the inspiration for real-world adap-
tations. Every company gets started in its own way depending on what is
most urgent or important to them.
These first applications can come from any angle. A large energy company,
for instance, urgently needed meaningful music for a global meeting. On
the other hand, a city began using its audio brand with its booth at a very
critical convention (a convention for the people who plan conventions).
To kick off the year’s campaign, a packaged goods firm shared its new
audio DNA with its international marketing teams to guide music scores
for TV commercials. A pharmaceutical group first began using their new
audio brand in their corporate social responsibility videos that were placed
on their corporate website. A car company needed to create an immersive
in-person experience to launch a new line at an international car show.
A hospital wanted to replace its expensive licensed music in its commercials
with branded music before it had to pay a licence renewal fee. A bever-
age company needed a brand video to reveal the new direction its evolving
brand was taking. So as you can see, audio brands make their debut in a
myriad of ways.
 The Audio-Branding Process 129

At the same time, a company will begin to plan for the medium and long
terms, creating a practical music library and a plan to expand its audio
universe, if not all at once, at least in stages.
Before the adaptations begin to spread, though, the company needs to
know how to get the most of their audio brand and the boundaries of use.
This is accomplished with an Audio Style Guide.
Similar to the one you should expect to receive from a visual-branding
firm, this comprehensive piece captures the reasons behind the musical
choices, the guidelines for use of the music, the different applications for
each piece of music, and, finally, explains how to create mix-and-match
adaptations using the pre-composed tracks and transitions.
The Audio Style Guide often exists as a part of the brand’s online market-
ing toolkit, though a booklet version is often shared at launch. Many clients
prefer that the Audio Style Guide be interactive so employees and agency
partners can listen to the tracks and examples and see best practice exam-
ples for its incorporation.

Internal launch planning and roll-out

Your brand’s unique audio identity has great power to foster employee pride
and unity. It gives you a reason to reaffirm your long-held values or under-
score your new positioning.
It shouldn’t be sprung on a company’s employees or dribbled out piece-
meal. Rather, the launch of your audio brand should be treated as a reason
for a celebration. Therefore, if possible, your employees should be intro-
duced to it before it’s launched with consumers.
The journey that led to this new brand asset’s creation provides a compel-
ling story that reinforces that which makes your company special and can
be retold at the celebration (as well as used with the press when announcing
your new audio brand).
One of the ways Sixième Son draws the employees of the company into
the journey is by documenting the process in a ‘Making Of’ video. These
videos vary from the informal to the highly produced. With them, employees
are treated to a behind-the-scenes view of the lively discussions, the decisions
made (including why), the musicians involved, and the resulting musical
identity that casts new light on the brand.
Another way to involve employees is to hold a contest to let them give a
name to the overall composition.
To foster engagement and build anticipation even before the launch, you
can let the team vote on aspects of the music prior to its creation – an
130 Audio Branding

exercise that is similar to the mood board exercise but simplified down to a
couple of choices.
A particularly helpful way to present the brand is in a company meeting
into which good sound design has been incorporated. The walk-in music
gently suggests the new brand identity as people assemble; then as the first
speaker is guided to the stage, it becomes more prominent; it is woven into
the musical transitions between speakers; and when it’s finally presented,
preferably by the CEO, it already feels familiar and natural. The brand
video works to create an emotional bond among the audience and their
company.

Support and extension

In the first year, especially, you can help root your audio brand among your
teams and agencies by holding audio brand discovery sessions with the
potential users, either in person or by remote meetings. Your audio-branding
agency should be able to help lead them and answer questions.
These discovery sessions shouldn’t be limited to marketing people. For
instance, the HR team may become a heavy user of the branded music
library for their training and recruitment videos, for their workshops and
employee education sessions, and for corporate meeting and events. The
people responsible for your company’s call centre, too, will benefit by know-
ing how they can implement pre-pickup and on-hold music and thereby
improve service perception.
In a technology company that needs sounds for its devices, platforms,
software, or even hardware – think Apple’s start-up chime – the engineers
should also be briefed. Please keep in mind that they may need assurance
that they have access to a sound vocabulary that’s more meaningful than the
standard beeps and buzzes.
You may want to appoint an audio brand champion or audio brand team
to answer people’s questions, hear their concerns, share best practices and
guide appropriate usage. This team can also regularly update the company
on the ways the audio brand’s influence is spreading.
You can have your audio-branding agency provide a help desk for your
employees. Also, set up a monthly call to check in on progress, give new
assignments or suggest refinements, and hear about other clients’ successful
implementations that can guide your own.
Ongoing, you will need feedback from your organization on what’s work-
ing and what’s missing (perhaps a more rousing adaptation for sales meetings
or a substantial variation on the audio DNA for a new line extension).
 The Audio-Branding Process 131

This feedback can be gathered through roundtable discussions, surveys,

interactive website, conference call or as part of a regularly scheduled
marketing meeting. What’s key is to plan it into the year’s calendar. The goal
is to create a two-way forum for all stakeholders who are using the audio
brand assets. Besides being your partners, they, as ‘the walking brand’ also
provide an additional medium through which to extend brand influence.
But now that we have taken you through the process of creating your
audio brand, we have one more step: its marketplace launch. While we spend
a little time exploring it in this chapter, the next chapter will be focused
entirely on the launch, as this is among one of the most important steps. So
join us to learn how you can ensure the success of your new audio brand.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Neil Gains

The rhyme and rhythm of branding: using sound to build the sense, symbol
and story of your brand

How does sound contribute to a brand’s story? To find out, we asked Neil
Gains, founder of TapestryWorks and author of Brand esSense: Using
sense, symbol and story to design brand identity (Gains, 2013). Here is what
he had to say (and to know more about this area, we recommend his book).

Sound is often the most neglected of the senses when it comes to

branding, although it is only second to the visual senses in terms of its
importance and has a very specific role that helps the brain to create
stories from cause and effect.
There is more to using sound in branding than music and song,
important as they are. Of course, music and song are particularly
powerful in creating links to specific emotions. However, in the esSense®
framework outlined in Brand esSense, other aspects of sound can also
contribute to building a brand through the senses, symbols, and stories.
The overall sound of a brand is important in our overall sensory
experience. Our sense of hearing has more ‘bandwidth’ in the brain than
any other sense apart from vision, relating to its important role in helping the
brain organize the world and our experiences into a sequence of events in
time. Hearing helps us understand the rhythm of the world, and to pinpoint
‘when’ events happen (while vision helps us understand ‘where’ they occur).
Sound shapes both our mood and physical state, but is also an
important component of the intensity of our experience. Can you imagine
132 Audio Branding

watching your favourite film (assuming it’s not a silent movie) with the
sound turned off? Just as what we see influences what we hear, our
hearing also shapes our vision. This is why car manufacturers have had to
make electrical car engines less silent, as too many pedestrians were not
‘seeing’ them on the road. Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch are known
for the ‘intensity’ of their brand experience, which is why the lights are low
and the music volume is high in their stores (or at least it was, as they are
in the process of rebranding as I write this).
Sound can also contribute to the symbolism of a brand, through the
brand name, the language the brand uses and sonic icons. Sonic icons
have been used very successfully by Intel, increasing its awareness from
24 per cent to 94 per cent in the first year it was introduced. Nokia was also
very successful in creating a sound signature, although less successful in
keeping its product line as innovative. Many car manufacturers are now
creating sound signatures for their brands and the Harley-Davidson engine
roar has long been a key signature of its rebellious personality (so why did
they ever consider a silent electric-powered bike?).
Names and language are particularly important for what they mean
and also for how they sound (in Western languages the sound of a name
is particularly important, whereas visual symbolism is more important in
Asia). The sound of ‘Cracker Jack’, a brand of popcorn candy, invokes
the product itself. In a similar vein, the shortening of Federal Express to
FedEx makes the business sound faster, reinforcing ideas of speed that are
also symbolized by the typeface of the logo and use of an arrow symbol
between the last two letters.
Because of sound’s role in helping us understand the relationship
between events and time, and therefore cause and effect, sound’s biggest
role is in telling a brand’s story. That is also why music can often have such
a direct physiological effect on the body. Our body will speed up to match
a fast rhythm and slow down (and even physically droop) when it slows.
We can feel happy or sad depending on the tempo too, and also the key of
music.
Songs and music tell stories by themselves, a topic well covered in this
book. Songs are often part of rituals that are linked to a brand’s story (think
of communal singing at a rugby or football game or the New Zealand All
Blacks’ ‘Haka’). Music and song have often been used by drinks brands,
most famously Coca-Cola, as an integral part of their branding, and this
is also true of many alcohol brands, be they Heineken and their music
 The Audio-Branding Process 133

festivals or Stella Artois using classical music to communicate its class

and heritage as a brand.
People are more likely to buy brands and products that are associated
with music that they like (Gorn, 1982) and song has a particularly strong
role in linking to the identity of the consumer and the brand. Thus music
and song can help you link your brand to the right emotion and the right
audience.
Ambience in retail is important to creating a mood, and music plays
an important part in this along with the talent that work for you and the
way they behave and interact with customers. As mentioned earlier,
Abercrombie & Fitch create a very specific mood and ambience with their
talent, behaviour and audio environment, and Virgin Atlantic (and other
airlines) are another example of creating an ambience using people and
sound.
In summary, TapestryWorks’ esSense framework contains a total of
30 elements that contribute to the sense, symbols, and story of a brand.
Sound comprises a major part of more than one-third of these elements,
reflecting its huge potential contribution to brand identity. Sadly, many
brands are not yet making the most of the potential of audio branding,
and this offers a huge opportunity to leverage our sense of sound to
strengthen brands. If you want to build the rhyme and rhythm of your
brand, then Audio Branding: Using sound to build your brand is a great
place to start.

Guest biography

Neil Gains is the founder of TapestryWorks and author of Brand

esSense, and helps clients to weave sense into brands. Neil is also an
associate fellow of the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight, hosted at
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He worked for Cadbury
Schweppes for more than 10 years in R&D and sensory research, before
moving to Asia with AMI (later Synovate) to manage their Asia Pacific
innovation practice, setting up TapestryWorks in 2010. He has lived in the
UK, Indonesia, China and Singapore and has a doctorate in Consumer
Psychology and Sensory Science. He loves travelling, reading detective
novels, and sharing ideas.
134 Audio Branding

Ca s e Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB)

Even cities can have their sound: how the ACVB built its identity

Every city has one: a convention and visitors bureau. And their missions are
essentially the same: to attract conventions and tourists to their city. So in 2014,
when the city of Atlanta was the would-be host to an extraordinarily important
convention, the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition, attended by convention
planners and association executives from all over the country, the Atlanta
Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB) knew they had a unique opportunity to fulfil
their goal of attracting conventions and tourists to Atlanta.
Andrew Wilson, now the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
of the ACVB, along with his marketing team, shouldered the task of making the
Atlanta brand stand out and communicating what makes Atlanta an inviting
destination. A central island booth was planned for the exposition trade show
floor and they would showcase a spectacular new film about the city, as well as
interactive terminals and animations of the city’s high points based on their print
ad campaign.
From there, the idea took shape of creating a unifying brand sound that truly
captured Atlanta’s unique attributes and values and could be used to unify the
various video collateral elements. Sixième Son began the process of creating the
audio identity that would eventually begin at the convention and ripple outward
for years to come.
As part of the brand briefing, the marketing team shared the paradoxes that
they faced:

●● Atlanta is a popular destination for conventions with an excellent airport/

highway system and all the convention facilities and amenities; nonetheless,
the direct competition is perceived as having more activities and nightlife.
●● Though Atlanta has a young and educated workforce, 49 universities, and
supportive community, it isn’t widely known as the entrepreneurial hub that it
actually is.
●● It does have the aura of southern hospitality but that comes with a downside,
the perception that the south isn’t as progressive as the rest of the country.

The ACVB marketing team articulated their perspective concerning the values
and attributes embodied by the city.
Atlanta is open, it’s inclusive of diverse people and lifestyles, open to
newcomers, open to new ideas, open to the world via a vast highway and
 The Audio-Branding Process 135

railroad network, and the world’s busiest airport serving 225 destinations. The
city is filled with opportunity from thriving entrepreneurs to global headquarters,
new initiatives supported by the community, and their universities combine with
business to create possibilities.
What’s more, the population is optimistic, entrepreneurial, forward-looking,
and with a thriving and energetic newly arrived workforce. The offerings are
eclectic. There’s an extreme variety in music, food, and entertainment as well as
businesses and people.
Like the rest of the south, Atlanta is welcoming and warm and its welcome
extends to businesses as well as visitors. It supports new ventures and
nurtures its businesses. With the goal of attracting convention planners, young
professionals (especially the creative class), and tourists, the ACVB strove to
portray the city as the progressive and open-minded oasis that it is. A dynamic
new logo made a powerful statement about vibrancy and leadership.
With that, the competitive research began. The music associated with other
convention city competitors as well as their brand positioning were examined.
This research helped underscore the fact that many cities in the south leaned on
southern hospitality and leadership, but few emphasized the promise of diversity
and eclecticism. In the end, the distilled brief for the music strategists identified
three areas to explore musically:

1 diversity, eclecticism, surprise;

2 warmth, hospitality, community support;
3 dynamism, leadership, authority.

The Sixième Son strategy team began to comb existing music for different
musical ways to express each of these clusters of ideas. At the same time,
Andrew Wilson pulled together a diverse listening committee comprising
marketing and PR professionals and a professional singer and musician, to
participate in guiding the next step of the process.
For this workshop, three audio mood boards were created, each one a playlist
containing different musical approaches to describing one of the three sets of
values. During a facilitated meeting at the ACVB headquarters on Peachtree
Street, the listening committee began to carefully concentrate upon each
selection of music. Their goal was to decide whether each selection conveyed
the value to them and, more importantly, whether it conveyed it in a way that was
consistent with Atlanta’s brand.
The ACVB listening committee observed that what often is warm can also
sound too beachy and casual, that certain excerpts connoting power were
too aggressive and off-brand. They noted that smoothly blended sounds didn’t
136 Audio Branding

express their diversity as well as layers of different instruments with strong

identities of their own. As to human sounds, the group gave clear direction:
whistling was out, choral voices were a possibility, clapping was welcome – as
it echoed both the sounds of gospel music and the sense of encouragement from
the community.
This sorting exercise made it possible to fine-tune the creative brief before
beginning the creative development process. The music design team in Paris
took over and at the end, five compositions were created. And the listening
committee convened again.
In this step, the group was surprised to learn that they agreed on what colour
the music was. They had written their answers on worksheets. In one case, the
group found they had described the music as ‘blue’, ‘blue-green’ or ‘turquoise’
and in another, they found they had chosen ‘yellow’, ‘orange yellow’, ‘orange’
and the outlier ‘brown’.
The listening committee winnowed the five down to two musical ideas that were
developed and refined. Then came a small parting of the ways. The consumer team
leaned toward one composition and the B2B team leaned toward another. Andrew
Wilson broke the tie by moving the discussion to a higher ground. He asked,
‘Where do we anticipate the greatest growth for the city will come from?’
The answer was this: ‘From changing the perceptions of the convention goers
and the referral business following the initial convention impression of Atlanta
that would extend to their families and friends.’ In this way, the audio identity
was decided, not on a musical basis but on a business one; the group chose the
brand expression that would support the greatest growth.
Today, the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau’s custom-tailored audio
identity is rooted in the city’s rich musical heritage and includes vocals. It
distinguishes Atlanta by conveying the city’s warmth and hospitality along with
its authority and dynamism. Its unique sounds and rhythms tell the story of
eclecticism and capacity to surprise.
The audio DNA that emerged from this process is not a song, but a guiding
score that set the foundation and brought audio consistency to the many
compositions that followed.

The ripples
The ACVB audio brand has proven extremely adaptable. Although its first
uses were in the business-to-business realm, it has since also guided the
development of consumer-focused productions.
First, in the convention booth, the audio DNA informed the score for the
beauty reel and three interpretations for animated short features highlighting
nature, nightlife, and technology.
 The Audio-Branding Process 137

As a logical next step, the ACVB created videos to be used by convention

planners to encourage attendance to Atlanta conventions, the music reflecting
that heard at the Atlanta expo booth.
A glittering version of the music was adapted for a video that underscores the
glamorous delights of Atlanta’s chic, upscale neighbourhood, Buckhead, which
was designed to appeal to both convention planners and leisure travellers.
And in early 2015, musical adaptations were deployed in different culturally
adapted scores to support foreign language videos in Latin American Spanish,
Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, and British English. These are now in use
on the ACVB website, in international sales efforts, and at the baggage claim in
the international terminal of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Once conventions have been attracted and convention attendees and their
families encouraged to come, the next clear goal became to get the visitors
to partake of more of the city’s attractions and discover the diversity of the
city’s offerings. A new set of videos was created to underscore the surprising
and eclectic nature of the city. The ACVB commissioned videos for each
neighbourhood in Atlanta featuring the specific attractions offered, with both
English and Spanish voice-overs. The music has been interpreted in new ways
to reflect those neighbourhoods: Eastside, Westside, Downtown, and Midtown
now, like Buckhead, have their own interpretation of the Atlanta audio DNA.
Summing up his experience, Andrew Wilson said, ‘Audio branding is as
cathartic and rigorous a process as any visual-branding exercise. If not more.
You have to dig deep into the understanding of the core values of the brand and
the target audience or consumers. You have to make choices. Your brand can’t
be all things to all people and the process brings clarity to that truth.’
Atlanta’s marketing team has been strategic about drawing convention
planners, convention goers, families of convention goers, and other tourists.
Beyond that, they’ve worked to deepen their immersion in the city and to bring
these valuable visitors back. The ripples are still expanding. It’s no wonder that
they have risen in the ranks of convention cities since the original project began.

References
Gains, N (2013) Brand esSense: Using sense, symbol and story to design brand
identity, Kogan Page, London
Gorn, GJ (1982) The effects of music in advertising on choice behavior: A classical
conditioning approach, Journal of Marketing, 46 (Winter 1982), pp 94–101
138

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 139

How to launch 08
your audio brand
Congratulations, you have your audio brand. You even have some plans
on how to launch it and maintain it, arguably two of your most important
steps in the branding process. Just think: branding elements are only as good
as their consistent deployment, so they’re only as strong as the people who
manage them. While we touched on basic tools for launching your audio
brand in the previous chapter, let us spend more time on it here.
When thinking through the launch, we recognize that every organization
presents its new audio brand in a way that is rooted in its own culture and
is based on both its immediate and long-term needs.
As we mentioned in Chapter 7, some companies introduce their audio
brand gradually by, first, using it to create the score for a brand video or
even an ad campaign, then properly launching it over all of their touch-
points after it has had a chance to create an earprint.
Others like to bring in their audio brands with great fanfare, introduc-
ing them at a global corporate meeting, pre-selling them with employee
or community involvement activities, creating games and ringtones to
encourage engagement with the sound of the company or product, or other
awareness-building programmes.
There’s no cookie-cutter approach to kicking off your audio identity.
Your audio-brand launch provides the chance to involve your employees
and make them feel part of a unified company that has positive, forward
motion. Beyond grasping the music’s intentions, employees can come away
with a deeper understanding of the company’s essence, values, mission,
and promise as well as with a more personal connection to their fellow
colleagues.
Music gives your media relations team something new to communicate to
the press, too, and the launch provides a news angle that you can leverage.
Many companies use the launch of their audio brands to enliven long,
offsite corporate meetings. This allows meeting organizers to refresh the
audience by introducing a multisensory experience that engages a different
part of the audience’s mind, while staying relevant to the proceedings at hand.
140 Audio Branding

We have found that attendees appreciate the mental shift and get a lift from
the energy it creates.
While we provided some examples in Chapter 7, for inspiration, we’ll
explore four different approaches taken by different companies in different
sectors. One of these should be right for your organization.

Launch approaches
An engaging teaser for an upcoming launch
At a pre-release event of an audio brand in Rome for the one of the world’s
largest energy companies, Enel, the launch team incorporated a nifty DJ
mixing table called Reactable. To help them prepare for the event, the
Sixième Son team deconstructed the audio DNA into eight of its compo-
nent parts, including guitar, piano, and percussion and loaded them into the
Reactable programme. (Meanwhile, it’s important to note that the audio
logo stayed intact.)
The event audience then emerged from the meeting room to encoun-
ter the innovative electronic musical table, which enabled them to remix
the brand’s sound, change its structure, and be creative in an engaging
and intuitive way. Finally, after the attendees were done playing with the
music, a professional DJ began to mix with the Reactable and the party
started.
It’s important to note that this type of event can be very helpful in real-
izing all of your marketing goals. As identified in The Activation Imperative:
How to build brands and business by inspiring action (Rosen and Minsky,
2017) events can be motivating to both employees and customers and can
even fuel sharing of information on social media, a goal you might want as
you première new branding elements. Why? One reason is that ‘Millennials
and Gen Z place an extremely high value on obtaining experiences, particu-
larly those that are unique or exclusive and aligned with their interests and
values’ (Rosen and Minsky, 2017).

A launch focused on unifying two disparate teams

Perhaps the most dynamic and inclusive audio brand introduction was for
Pfizer Animal Health. Two different companies had recently been merged
and, as a result, very intense management meetings were required among
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 141

large teams (who didn’t know each other) for the merger as well as for the
creation of the audio brand.
To help kick off the audio brand, the launch team involved three differ-
ent divisions of the company in a dynamic, interactive creative task. The
meetings took place in Monte Carlo, Monaco at a famous hotel overlooking
the Formula One racetrack. And these audio DNA events were sprinkled
throughout the weeks of business meetings.
Though the branding team had already settled on an audio DNA for the
company overall, each division – cattle, pets, and chicken/swine – had the
opportunity to create a uniquely tailored version, based on that DNA, to
represent itself.
The meetings took place over three weeks, one division per week. Voting
technology was installed at the seats. On successive Mondays, each division
en masse gave their input by using joysticks to answer questions about the
music. By the following Friday, the audio-branding music, now incorporat-
ing their collective guidance, was presented along with a package of custom
ringtones representing the division. So, beyond customizing the music to
their own divisions, people had the opportunity to further choose which
ringtone suited their personal style.
By allowing the divisions to create something together, the audio brand
helped unify the two companies’ teams into one. The Nice airport rang with
the Pfizer Animal Health mobile ringtones for an entire month as Pfizer
Animal Health teams came and went.

A revitalizing event for the brand

In keeping with their close ties to the entertainment world, the French
telecom company SFR used their audio-brand launch to make a splash by
creating a contest for recording artists. DJs were invited to liberally remix the
sounds of the SFR audio brand as long as the new musical pieces respected
the audio logo and the beats-per-minute. The participating musicians could
download the SFR audio-identity elements such as theme, guitar, whistles,
drums, and percussion from a dedicated SoundCloud location. They were
then asked to upload their creation onto the SFR Young Talents website.
The winner was determined by a jury composed of professionals including
SFR Jeunes Talents team, the executive editor of a French music magazine,
and an artistic director.
The winner’s composition was played for the opening of a giant SFR
event boasting 6,000 attendees at the Grand Palais in Paris, it was used in
142 Audio Branding

the ‘Making Of’ video shown during the event, and it also was the score
for the ‘best of’ film that was the event’s grand finale. Fittingly, this event
celebrated SFR’s many festival and band sponsorships.
As part of her prize package, the young woman who won the contest
was featured in an article in a famous underground electronic music maga-
zine, was given a €3,000 credit to spend on instruments at a famous music
store and had her composition included in the electronic magazine’s compi-
lation CD.

A launch that proved a deep bond with the core

audience
MACSF, which provides insurance for healthcare professionals, launched
their new audio brand in a way that was completely faithful to their values
and personality. The company has a reputation for warmth and mutual
support. They had finalized a new audio identity that succeeded in captur-
ing that message in a friendly and contemporary way. The group felt that the
music hit the nail on the head and were very pleased to roll it out.
To make it a special event for the MACSF associates, Sixième Son
created an orchestral score of the music and commissioned the Orchestra
of the Hospitals of Paris (Orchestre des Hôpitaux de Paris) to perform the
composition.
A ‘Making Of’ film was then created to shed light on the creative idea
behind the audio brand and, importantly, gave an exclusive inside look into
the recording of the orchestral performance by the musically accomplished
medical professionals.
The MACSF audio brand was then launched at a theatre and included
a live performance by the hospitals’ orchestra. Employees left the launch
party with a CD recording of the performance as well as a choice of ring-
tones with which they could personalize their mobile phones. Because the
orchestra represented the very clients the company insures, the circle of
mutual support was complete.
As you can see, the launch of your audio brand may be in person or
through a webcast, it may be serious or entertaining, it may be one-way or
interactive. Whatever you decide, the inclusion of a ‘Making Of’ video is
a good way to give people context and help them build trust by sharing a
behind-the-scenes look at the process.
But some companies don’t go that far. They merely add their new audio-
branding materials to their brand assets site and send out a memo, but as
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 143

they begin to include the music in corporate social responsibility videos and
new initiative announcements, and play it in company meetings – pretty
soon it begins to be felt as part of the unique sound of the company.

More on the mighty Audio Style Guide

For this to happen on a long-term basis, and for your audio brand to
become a recognized equity, you need to take into consideration one
more audience segment – your marketing partners. And to ensure proper
usage among this key group, we need to return to our discussion on the
use of your Audio Style Guide, which we had started in the previous
chapter.
After all, as we all know, companies may rely on both various inter-
nal departments and on a dozen marketing agencies and suppliers for the
creation of marketing materials, including their experiential, digital, social,
advertising, public relations, e-commerce, on-hold marketing, investor rela-
tions, and other marketing partners as well as their direct relationships with
production studios.
These partners tend to understand the value of branding to varying
degrees.
But in many cases, it is the agencies who choose the music for their m­ at-
­­­­­­­erials – video news releases, branded content, sales videos, and advertising –
and often these selections are based merely on the arbitrary tastes of their
audio engineers, creative directors, and editors. Now, however, your audio
identity can become a vital resource for them all.
First, they need to know the many musical options they have at their
fingertips, as well as understand your rules of the road. To keep your audio
brand from becoming diluted, you especially need to communicate what is
flexible and what is sacred.
Enter the Audio Style Guide. As hinted at in Chapter 7, this style
guide should include a detailed explanation of your audio brand and the
values on which it is based. It should also identify the tactical adapta-
tions of the audio brand and suggest how to use them, so the brand is
protected.
Your Audio Style Guide could be a free-standing piece or it could be
embedded into your overall brand guidelines. Either works. Ideally, it should
contain links to all the music available as well as some best practice exam-
ples of the audio brand in use.
144 Audio Branding

What follows is an example of the contents of a hypothetical Audio Style

Guide. It’s made up of a combination of guides currently in use by different
companies.

Audio Style Guide: an example

1. The audio identity
An audio identity is an original composition anchored by two elements – the
audio DNA and the audio logo – which communicate the essence, values,
personality, and aspirations of the brand. Our audio identity establishes a
distinct audio vocabulary that, when employed properly as well as consist-
ently, strengthens the impact of our brand’s communications by conveying
meaning across all touchpoints.
For [product], it is an expression of hope and enthusiasm about the
promise of this breakthrough. It conveys not just science but the community
that has worked and will continue to work together, always looking to a
brighter more fulfilling future.

2. The audio DNA

The audio DNA is the basis of [product’s] musical universe. The [product]
audio DNA has been composed and arranged to embody the brand:

●● the introduction creates a sense of anticipation, propelling the audience

into the future;
●● the melody is driven by acoustic instrumentation, mainly a bright piano,
accompanied by subtle synthesized textures to create a feeling of scien-
tific advancement;
●● the composition focuses on a feeling of community strength, evident in
the overall optimism, hope, and excitement conveyed in the melody.

Rules of use:

●● The audio DNA serves as the brand’s audio guidelines and is not intended
as a music bed to support promotional vehicles.
●● As with the brand’s visual style elements (such as fonts, colours, shapes),
the audio DNA composition is not to be modified or changed in any way.
Should an evolution in the sound be warranted (possible reasons could
be a change in brand strategy, positioning, lifecycle, competitive environ-
ment etc), the composition will be updated.
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 145

3. The audio logo

Two short musical signatures (3-second and 2.5-second) have been extracted
from the audio identity, which in a few seconds, convey optimism, team-
work, and scientific advancement. Highly memorable, these signatures
become our brand’s sonic seal of recognition. They enhance our identity,
reinforce people’s memory of the communication, and increase its attribu-
tion to the brand. These musical signatures have been specifically adapted to
the visual animation of the logo. They must systematically and consistently
accompany the end frame.
The ending is intentionally surprising and abrupt to convey the author-
ity of our brand and to accentuate adrenaline and passion. It also helps to
distinguish our commercials from others in the category.

Rules of use:

●● Every communication should be endorsed with the audio logo. Whatever

music you use in the body of the communication, the audio logo must end
the communication. It is important to ensure a good transition between
that music and the musical signature.
●● The signature must not be adapted or distorted. The signature is composed
of a four-note melody. This sequence must never be interrupted, broken
up, speeded up or slowed down. No other element or voice-over may be
added to it.
●● Unless the piece is scored using the audio brand and a natural musical
transition, you must leave a pause in transitioning to end frame. It is
critical to leave a short pause, without music, before the arrival of the
signature. Ideally, there should be between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds of blank
space between the commercial’s music and the signature. This breath will
allow you to easily integrate the end frame sound, regardless of the music
chosen for the body of the advertisement.
●● Treatment of promotional messaging. In the case of advertising with a
promotional message at the end, the audio signature should be placed
at the end of the first part of the advertising before the promotional
message. The promotional message must not encroach on the end frame.
In the case of advertising with promotional messaging, it is also impor-
tant to maintain a certain consistency with music. Whatever music is
chosen for the body of the spot must be the same music for the promo-
tional message at the end. And in the case of a spot without music,
promotional messaging after the audio signature must, likewise, be left
without music.
146 Audio Branding

Suggested usage:

●● Videos, meeting/event music, convention booth environment, on-hold

music, mobile apps, web, radio, and TV ads.

4. Adaptations
Each touchpoint has its own context and communication purpose and
therefore requires a specific audio adaptation. The [product] audio identity
has thus been adapted to each need while living in the musical universe
established for the brand.

A. End frame
The end frame is the official 3- to 4-second animated visual paired with the
audio logo. Its purpose is to appear at the end of branded video content –
both internal and external – to reinforce brand messaging and recognition.
The end frame should be included at the end of all branded video content.
It should not be altered in any way.

Suggested usage:

●● Corporate and product videos, presentations, convention booth content/

videos, website, mobile apps, digital sales tools, etc.

B. Meetings and events package

The meetings and events package is composed of six distinct audio elements.
As a whole, the package has been produced to support a variety of experi-
ential situations by helping to create a powerful, memorable and branded
experience.

1. Opening: 1 minute Purpose: to give a feeling of anticipation and support

the start of the main event.

2. Enter stage: 10–15 seconds Purpose: to introduce the first speaker or the
main event about to happen on the stage (or main floor area).

3. Transition: 7–10 seconds Purpose: transition between action or speakers

on stage (or main floor area).

4. Exit stage: 10–15 seconds Purpose: to give a feeling of closure as the last
person leaves or action takes place on the stage (or main floor area).
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 147

5. Closing: 1 minute Purpose: to give a feeling of closure to the main event.

To be played after the exiting stage music – perhaps as people are leaving
and before one might start the background music again.

6. Background: 3 minutes Purpose: Background music provides ambience

during the event – either for a reception or as guests arrive/depart and is
meant to change or vary in the DNA melody throughout the sequence. It’s not
a focal piece – people will talk over it, be moving, etc – it’s for subtle exposure.

Rules of use:

●● You may use the complete set or a limited mix of audio elements (eg ‘back-
ground’ music and ‘enter stage’ music), depending on the circumstances.
●● The composition of each element should not be modified musically (ie do
not add instrumentation or create a new version of the music); however,
each component can be cut/faded out, to support the specific timing
needs of each event.
●● The ‘transition’ element should be used to combine package components
and link to the audio logo.
●● The ‘background’ music is designed to be looped and can be concluded
by mixing in the audio logo.

Suggested usage:

●● Internal meetings (salesforce, marketing, company-wide), employee

events, external meetings, symposia, dinners, trade-show booths.

C. Ringtones
These adaptations of the audio identity are provided to foster a sense of belong-
ing, formatted for customized brand ringtones. Internal audiences, partners,
and prospects can download and set them as ringtones on mobile phones:

1 Ringtone 1 – starts simple and crescendos.

2 Ringtone 2 – starts dynamic and adds variations to the melody.
3 Ringtone 3 – incorporates unexpected sounds to stand out from
back­­­ground.

Suggested usage:

●● Internal distribution, giveaways to partners and suppliers, take-home

gifts from conferences and trade shows.
148 Audio Branding

D. Custom score for brand film

Custom scores are developed to support and enhance the intention of a
brand film. Detailed attention is given to transitions, such as those found in
a voice-over, topic and/or images, so as to highlight key moments. Overall,
the objective is to produce a final product that has a clear impact and coher-
ent brand link.

Example: introductory film Custom score highlights the transition between

the before and after reveal of [product]. The film begins with surprising
numbers and statistics and its seriousness is reflected in the overall seri-
ous mood of the music. After [product] is revealed, the musical intention
changes in coherence with the excitement and hope that the product offers.

Modular set of audio beds for videos The modular set of audio beds for
videos provides on-brand music compositions each at least 30 seconds in
length, designed to be looped or cut and repurposed, providing music for a
range of internal and external brand videos:

1 calm;
2 walking pace;
3 hopeful;
4 inspiring;
5 lively;
6 jubilant;
7 rocking;

. . . plus, transitional element: the transitional audio element exists to connect

modules together or lead into the audio logo at the end.

Rules of use:

●● The modules have been designed to loop, as well as attach to one another
or link to the audio logo. A transition element has been provided to help
connect the audio components.
●● The instrumentation of composition should not be modified.

Suggested usage:

●● Internal and external video footage such as: corporate films, salesforce
videos, recruitment videos, training materials, trade-show content, web,
mobile videos.
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 149

Follow the suggestions in this chapter and you will be well on your way
to having a successful audio brand. But strong brands actually get better
with age, because, as we all know, you can build up greater equity over
time. The catch? This takes great care and nurturing, not just for the visual
aspects, but for all aspects of a brand. And managing your audio brand
long-term has some unique considerations as well. What are they? Stick
with us and we will explore them in the next chapter.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Ellen Byron

The search for sweet sounds that sell: household products’ clicks and
hums are no accident – light piano music when the dishwasher is done?

The small sounds consumer products make – whether a snap, click, rustle
or pop – can be memorable and deeply satisfying, often suggesting luxury,
freshness, effectiveness, or security. Companies, in their endless drive
to motivate customers to buy, are paying more attention to these product
noises and going to great lengths to manipulate them. Sound is emerging
as a new branding frontier.
While your audio logo is perhaps the most important element of a
traditional audio brand programme, sound contributes to the overall
branding in other ways. Indeed, more and more companies are discovering
that the sound a product makes can convey subtle information about its
quality and influence purchasing decisions.
To give you a sense of these opportunities, we asked reporter Ellen
Byron if we could reprint a piece she wrote on the topic for the Wall Street
Journal, which was published on 24 October, 2012. She graciously said
yes and, after clearing permissions with the publisher as well, here is the
piece. We hope it inspires you with ideas on the various ways you can
expand the sound of your brand.

Subtle auditory cues can make a big difference to shoppers choosing from
several brands, companies say. Occasionally a product pitches its unusual
sound directly: remember ‘Snap, Crackle, Pop’ for Kellogg’s Rice Krispies,
and Alka-Seltzer’s ‘Plop Plop Fizz Fizz’? Sound, for the most part, isn’t the
first thing consumers notice about a product. But when it’s good, they
quickly come to appreciate it, marketers say.
‘These little touches can really separate you from the other guys’, says
Ted Owen, vice president of global package design at Clinique, an Estée
Lauder Co’s line. ‘We call them the intangibles.’
150 Audio Branding

Last month [September 2012] Clinique introduced High Impact Extreme

Volume mascara, which produces a soft, crisp click when the top is
twisted shut. The click reassures users that the package is closed and
the liquid mascara won’t dry out. But more subtly, Mr Owen says, the click
conveys the elegance of the $19.50 formula.
Mr Owen and his team fiddled with some 40 prototypes of inner parts of
the mascara tube, paying particular attention to the tiny, curved plastic tab,
called a ‘nib’, that emits the click when the top twists over it. By adjusting
the slope of the curve and a corresponding tab located inside the top,
designers could alter the click’s tone. A steep curve made a high-pitched
click, which the team thought sounded cheap. A flatter curve made a dull
sound. ‘We sweated that detail,’ Mr Owen says. ‘You have to pay attention
to it and manage it through all the materials you consider and all the
manufacturing steps to be sure you get it right.’
Getting it wrong can bring major consequences. Hoping to tout its
SunChips brand as environmentally friendly, Frito-Lay, part of PepsiCo
Inc, introduced a compostable chip bag in 2010. Consumers found it noisy
and complained. Sales fell, and Frito-Lay eventually went back to the old
bags. ‘The packaging of the product is a multisensory experience for our
consumers,’ says a Frito-Lay spokesman.
Even product sounds that happen just once may be treated with
reverence. Snapple, owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc, says the pop
a consumer hears when unscrewing the top from a new bottle of Snapple
is a cue that it is fresh. The company calls it the ‘Snapple Pop’ and says it
builds anticipation and offers a sense of security, because the consumer
knows the drink hasn’t been opened before or tampered with.
Snapple was so confident about the pop’s safety message that in
2009 it eliminated the plastic wrapping that encircled the lid. It saved on
packaging costs and eliminated an estimated 180 million linear feet of
plastic waste, the company says. ‘We were a lot more comfortable making
that decision because we knew there was this iconic pop,’ says Andrew
Springate, Senior Vice President of Marketing.
Discussions of sound in corporate meetings brings linguistic
challenges. ‘We’re not quite as bad as when you go to the mechanic to
try to describe a car problem,’ says Lisa King, Vice President of Insights &
Innovation at Newell Rubbermade Inc, maker of Sharpie markers.
Company executives call the sound a Sharpie marker makes as it
moves across the paper the ‘scritch-scratch’. When they consider making
a product innovation, they check for the scritch-scratch. ‘It’s part of the
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 151

experience of using that marker’, Ms King says. ‘The sound of your product
can be as distinctive as the look.’
Despite the growing attention, it’s still rare for ads to boast about
product sounds. In May, Volkswagen introduced a commercial praising the
‘thunk’ of the door on the Jetta. (A guy shuts his car door, and the thunk
makes things – a football, a kite, a doll, a cat – fall out of a tree.) ‘We were
looking for a metaphor to convey quality and well-built,’ says Tim Mahoney,
[formerly] Volkswagen of America’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Some annoying product sounds are overdue for an update. General Electric
Co’s appliance division is overhauling the abrasive buzzers, dings, and beeps
that clothes dryers, ovens and microwaves have been making for decades.
GE worked with a sound designer who composed a ‘soundtrack’ for
each of its four major brands. Instead of beeps, rings, and buzzes, the
appliances play snippets of their song. Turn on a machine and hear the
music crescendo; turn it off, and the same snippet decrescendos. For time-
sensitive alerts, like a timer, the music becomes increasingly urgent.
Each brand’s music is meant to appeal to the target customer. Hotpoint,
a budget-friendly line, will have a grunge-rock tune. The Monogram line,
GE’s priciest, will feature light piano music. ‘This is more Aaron Copland’,
says David Bingham, GE Appliances’ Senior Interaction Designer. ‘Very
forward-looking and elegant-feeling’.
As home-appliance design becomes more minimal, GE says, elements
like sound are more important. The new sounds are set to hit the market in
two or three years.
Some products strive for silence. Tampax Radiant, the tampon line
Procter & Gamble Co launched in April [2012], has a textured plastic
wrapper that won’t make loud crinkling sounds.
The wrapper is targeted at women, especially teens, who say they
want more privacy in public restrooms. ‘They are trying to keep the secret
and the wrapper wasn’t able to do that’, says Alex Albacarys, Associate
Director for global Tampax research and development. ‘On this wrapper
we took it to the next level in terms of sound avoidance.’
P&G researchers measured the noise of the new wrapper in the
company’s sound laboratory and found there was a 25 per cent decibel
reduction with the Radiant compared with Tampax Pearl, which was
previously P&G’s quietest tampon wrapper.
Household brand Method Products puts its bottles to a ‘trigger tester’ to
be sure they can withstand some 10,000 sprays without emitting what Don
Frey, Method’s Vice President of Product Development, calls ‘chatter’.
152 Audio Branding

In recent months, Method has been evaluating new packaging

suppliers and bottle nozzles to keep up with growing sales. A squeaking
or chattering nozzle usually indicates a mechanism that isn’t put together
well. ‘It creates images in consumers’ minds of how well it’s going to work,
and how well it’s made,’ Mr Frey says.
Dyson, the appliance maker, has been paying more attention to machine
noise in recent years. Globally, the company wants its vacuums to have a
pleasing, low tone, which it says sounds more upscale.
In the US, Dyson says consumers have been fairly tolerant of loud
vacuum cleaner noise, but there are signs they are becoming more
sensitive. In March, Dyson introduced the DC-39, its quietest full-size
vacuum available in the US. The motor is attached to sound-dampening
mounts, and polyurethane helps absorb sound energy.
‘There has started to be more demand from the US for quieter, better-
sounding products,’ says Rachael Pink, an acoustic engineer at Dyson.
‘People now expect products to sound good – not just sound quiet, but
have a nice quality.’

Guest biography

Ellen Byron is a news editor for The Wall Street Journal and writes about
consumers and the companies that chase them. Since joining the Journal
in 2000, Ellen has covered consumer-product makers, retailers, advertising
and human-interest tales from the Midwest. Prior to The Wall Street
Journal, Ms Byron worked for ABC News. She is a graduate of Carleton
College.

Ca s e Renault

Getting up to speed with Renault’s audio brand

The automotive sector is extremely competitive and in France three of the top
five advertisers are auto brands: Renault, Peugeot, and Citroën. Of these, the top
advertiser is Renault. And, to say the least, competition is tough, not only from
domestic manufacturers but from the mighty German brands next door.
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 153

In the 2000s, Renault began to undergo a transformative process. First the

company refocused on a design-based approach, then it committed to a guiding
set of values that would underlay their new approach: vibrancy, connection to
people, strong and passionate orientation toward the future.
The company had also set its sights set on moving upmarket.
In 2011, their concept cars began to reflect an inventive new look, starting
with the distinctively designed Captur, which served as the focal point for the
repositioning of the entire car brand. As Ramón Vives Xiol mentioned in his guest
perspective in Chapter 4, the sound for each of the lines in the huge expo booth
was designed to stand alone or to blend with the others.
And they were sequenced to describe the stages of life that a car owner
would experience. This was Sixième Son’s first step into creating a unifying, but
flexible musical brand expression, for Renault.
In 2014, a new positioning, visual identity and brand tagline appeared as a
natural result of the brand’s evolution. The company replaced the long-standing
line, ‘Drive the Change’, with the more stirring sentiment, ‘Passion for Life’. Once
these branding elements were developed, the brand turned its attention to its
audio identity.
An audio audit of the car category revealed that many advertisers used the
same type of audio vocabulary, often based on the sound of the vehicle or the
metal itself, and were, thus, hard to distinguish from one another. Worse, the
positioning of most car companies seemed to always default to the same tired
notions of power, safety, or technology. Renault was no different. The audio
logo that had existed since 2003 had a cold and metallic sound and wasn’t very
engaging. And it certainly didn’t express either ‘passion’ or ‘life’.
The good news was that the company was willing to risk breaking from the
traditional sounds of automotive category. The first task for Sixième Son was to
create the composition that would reveal the new vehicle, the Renault Kadjar,
and highlight the company’s changing dynamic. The new sound created for that
event included an actual song with original lyrics, a very uncommon practice in
the category and, indeed, in Sixième Son’s own work. The film that introduced
the, now iconic, Kadjar at the Paris Auto Show in 2014 bore a fresh musical
stamp: colourful, vibrant, and full of emotion. It set the course for the audio
identity to come.
This revealed itself during the step of the audio-branding process in which
the audio mood boards are evaluated, as described in Chapter 7. One of the
strategic musical selections presented anonymously among the selection of
musical clips was an extract from the music composed for the Kadjar film. The
listening committee immediately noted that this selection had captured the
Renault brand’s unique mixture of values and contrasts. Both rich and yet simple,
154 Audio Branding

its captivating sound became the jumping-off point for the development of the
ultimate Renault audio identity.
The audio identity that was born from this parentage brought Renault a sound
vocabulary like no other. It works seamlessly with the restructured brand and
communicates its future-facing vision and its passion.
The mould-breaking audio logo sums it all up. The little breath that introduces
the signature brings to mind humanity and passion; it also has the practical
advantage of making it easy to bridge from other music into the branded
finale. The following notes ride on the breath and add an alluring quality. The
voices, both male and female, complement each other. They break the cold
and technological image of the previous signature and reinforce the emotional
differentiation. The final thump brings the audience back to the reliability of the
brand.
A quick test showed that it had a positive effect on the brand. Brand
perception among consumers under 35 revealed the following impressions:

65 per cent ‘more modern’

62 per cent ‘more enthusiastic’
60 per cent ‘more unique’
65 per cent ‘more momentum’

At another motor show in the spring of 2015, the entire new identity was unveiled
with ringing success.
To gain acceptance of a change of this magnitude, the message needed to
be delivered with great clarity and confidence both inside and outside of the
company. Renault used a series of executive meetings to launch the audio brand
and gave the management full responsibility for spreading the word to their
organizations.
The tools provided for this job included an Audio Style Guide, like the one
described in this chapter and a film created to unify the company behind the
initiative. These were accompanied with specific guidelines for the brand’s
agencies along with tailored explanations to help them understand the reasons
for the change.
The company took a holistic approach to the diffusion of the new audio brand.
In the first year, implementation of the new musical territory of the brand spread
widely:

●● At headquarters, the music in the reception area and the on-hold music for
the customer service line was reworked to introduce an adaptation of the
new audio identity. This enabled consistency in the brand’s voice and sent
 How to Launch Your Audio Brand 155

a clear message to the officers, staff, and shareholders alike. They wanted
everyone to understand the importance of this initiative.
●● Ringtones: several mobile ringtones were adapted from the audio identity both
unifying people around the common sound and allowing for personal choice.
These empowered employees to embrace the evolving corporate culture in a
personal way.
●● Renault Captur introductory app: this app accompanied the launch of
the model at the Geneva Motor Show. Adobe named it App of the Week
and featured it on their Adobe TV saying, ‘The Renault Captur has built a
brand engagement iPad app using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. The
app features engaging slideshows, images, and video to illustrate details
of the car, to showcase the design process from concept to reality, and
communicate its consumer lifestyle message’ (Adobe, 2016). In the video,
they point out that the opening page features a video with music that can
be played throughout the app but explain that it’s left up to the user’s choice
whether or not to play the music. They recommend that people activate the
music to see how it adds to the experience.
●● Point-of-sale: Renault dealerships are among the most intimate points of contact
with the customer, as they provide a welcoming place for discussion and
decision-making. Their role is to immerse customers in a trusted universe that’s
in tune with their brand values. Sixième Son created a detailed retail Audio Style
Guide to establish the types of musical selections that their dealerships could
employ to create an appropriate experience for the customers.
●● Music library: not every film needs a bespoke score. Videos for social media
campaigns and ‘budget’ videos must come out fast and economically. These
are often treated catch-as-catch-can and, from a musical point of view,
can distort the image of the brand. The music grabbed is often rights-free,
and does not convey Renault’s values or support the communication of its
message. To replace these meaningless clips of generic sound, the Renault
music library provides for a range of music that’s freely and quickly available
without compromising on brand consistency.
●● The audio at auto shows: since 2011, Renault has shown a purposeful
approach to the sound in their impressive booths at shows including Paris,
Geneva, Shanghai, and Frankfurt. Based on the audio vocabulary of the
brand, this sound has been enriched over time to achieve high levels of
sophistication. The events can be musically scripted, dividing the space into
several areas to offer a distinct musical atmosphere to each or, movingly, to
join all parts together to form a powerful whole that highlights the massive
scale of the space.
156 Audio Branding

●● Musical staging of press presentations: Renault invests heavily in auto shows

both to defend its status and to present its wide range of vehicles. These auto
shows are often punctuated with press events in which new vehicles are
revealed, which in turn requires dramatizing the positioning and style of new
vehicles without losing the overarching sound of the brand.
●● TV advertising: the brand’s goal is to gain auditory brand consistency while
avoiding locking its advertising into a style that limits expression. Renault
considers outside music brought by the ad agency but may also commission,
for comparison, a score based in the audio DNA, which is tailored to the
script.
●● Radio: Renault is ubiquitous on the airwaves in many countries including
France and, of course, the music helps bring consistency among all their
spots.

With all the audio touchpoints, most brands would experience the potential
problem of having the sound become annoyingly repetitive. But Renault
proactively solved that potential problem with subtle variety. Sometimes the
music plays within the territory of the overall brand, without the melodic line or
the usual signature. In other words, the sound stays just close enough to the
audio DNA for the listener to recognize it, but not close enough to eventually
create boredom.
Renault’s new sound identity emerged quickly, not only because it fit the
brand like a glove, but because the launch was executed comprehensively and
confidently, making sure the audio brand is firing on all cylinders: a great lesson
for anyone wishing to launch their sound and ensure that it sticks quickly.

References
Adobe (2016) http://tv.adobe.com/watch/digital-publishing-customer-showcase/
app-of-the-week-renault-captur/
Rosen, W and Minsky, L (2017) The Activation Imperative: How to build brands
and business by inspiring action, p 115, Rowman & Littlefield, Langham, MA
 157

Maintaining 09
and evolving
your audio brand
A strong brand name and image that evolves as the times and needs change
can last for what is considered forever in the business world. Just look at
Coca-Cola, Siemens, Dial Soap, Fiat, Mitsubishi, and Cadbury. Brands are
essentially corporate religions (Hanlon, 2006); look at how long Judaism,
Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions are continuing to thrive
as they have evolved. It is conceivable that brands can do the same.
Observing organized religion (with utmost respect), it’s easy to see that,
in many ways, it forms the structural roots of branding; religions’ values are
communicated and their reputations are built in more ways than just their
well-known visual iconography of stars, crosses, crescents, and yin-yang
circles, but also through the other senses; just think of the smells (incense
and spices), the tastes through the various foods and wines served in services
or on the holidays, and most of all, the sounds we hear during the chants,
prayers, and songs at services.
While the audio-branding specialty is still in its early days, audio iden-
tities can also last for decades – if not longer – if they are adapted and
evolving in their sounds, but don’t completely change every two or three
years, the way typical ad campaigns do. Rather, it makes more sense to take
the brand management approach you use with your visual assets.
Your audio identity and audio logo can continue to support the long-term
brand through its changes in advertising campaigns, just as your graphic
assets do. The music, almost always, based on your brand’s audio DNA,
is then scored to dramatize the storyline and adds the appropriate brand
emotions at the right times.
As a rule of thumb, the longer and more consistently you’ve been using
your audio brand, the more room you have for interpretations – because
audiences will have been educated to recognize its unique texture, its recur-
ring motif, its rhythm, its quirks, and its charms.
158 Audio Branding

Michelin, for instance, can afford to unleash a dubstep version of its

audio brand for a big US auto show precisely because the company has been
highly disciplined in employing its audio identity throughout advertising in
every corner of the world, in its employee communications, global company
meetings, customer service line, and even its ringtones. Otherwise, with such
an exaggerated change in musical style, the connection to the brand would
be hard for people to recognize.
As we explored in the SNCF case in Chapter 1, a brand can evolve in
response to changing trends in the concerns and needs of the audience
and still be recognizable. For SNCF, the idea of ‘leadership with a human
face’ came first, but as passengers became more concerned about the
environment, the ecological aspect of travelling on a train was stressed.
The music became more acoustic. Then, as passengers became focused
on speed and efficiency, a different sound, that suggested a ‘whoosh’,
was introduced within the same brand tune. But the core notes remained
the same.
In these cases, the process of creating the new interpretation takes less
time and budget than it did to create the original one because the team
already understands the brand and its resulting music. The task then is to
keep what’s important and find a way to integrate new information into it
through a shift in the rhythm, the instrumentation, or through other musical
devices. At Sixième Son, Paris, the word they use for this work is ‘re-lift’ and,
in general, it takes place every three to five years.
This approach keeps the brand in mind while still allowing new meaning
to emerge. And that has value because in the audience’s mind, the unique
sound of the brand can often provide the most emotional and influential
connection with it, not only for the audience but for the employees as well.

United Airlines: a long off-and-on-again

relationship with Rhapsody in Blue
Perhaps the most comprehensive and long-term relationship between a
US brand and its music has been United Airlines’ with George Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue, a composition that has many qualities that make it
useful as an audio brand. Surprisingly, the piece didn’t begin as a formal
symphony but as a musical idea created by Gershwin and arranged by Ferde
Grofé. They collaborated in much the same way that a creative team works
together at an audio-branding agency.
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 159

As does a good audio identity, the music has a recognizable theme. And,
being rooted in jazz, it has lent itself to interpretations by musicians over
the years, starting soon after it first appeared on the scene. This variety
has conditioned listeners to expect it to pop up in different guises. So, in a
marketing context, it’s perfectly permissible to reinterpret the music without
‘desecrating’ a classic. In fact, interestingly, the symphonic arrangement that
is now considered the definitive Rhapsody in Blue didn’t appear till 1942,
18 years after the original performance of the piece (Bañagale, 2014a).
Rhapsody in Blue showed up at United in the mid-1980s as the airline was
suffering the consequences of a damaging pilots’ strike and a steep decline in
customer satisfaction. The airline intended to infuse ‘quality, elegance, and
class’ via the music and the images that accompanied it.
The music soon began filling an ever-greater role in the United Airlines
customer and employee experience. As mentioned in Chapter 1, it was
played on entering and landing the planes, it was heard on their safety
videos, and graced the long moving walkway corridor at O’Hare’s Terminal
One, among other places.
After the 2010 merger between United Airlines and Continental, United’s
use of the music diminished. But then, in 2013 the famous music came
roaring back into their TV commercials and reappeared in its safety video,
‘Safety is Global’. In fact, it may have been found to be among the strongest
brand assets in the portfolio of the combined brands.
One of the ways this music has stayed fresh is through the delightful
variety with which it’s used. A good example of this is the ‘Safety is Global’
video. The movie takes place around the world and there are light touches of
local instrumentation that signal where the action is taking place. Ryan Raul
Bañagale, writing in the Oxford University Press blog, stated that:

While in France, a pair of accordions play the introductory bars of the piece
while a pilot welcomes us aboard and reminds us to heed instructions. The flight
attendant hops a cab to Newark Airport (United’s East Coast hub) to the strains
of a jazz combo setting of the love theme. A tenor saxophone improvises lightly
around this most famous melody of the Rhapsody while she provides instruc-
tion on how to use the seatbelt from the bumpy backseat. Finally, a gong signals
a move to Asia, where we encounter the ritornello theme of the Rhapsody, but it
is being played on a plucked zither and bamboo flute.
Source: Bañagale, 2014a

Curious? We invite you see it, so you too can experience the music’s ultimate
flexibility (Bañagale, 2014b).
160 Audio Branding

We find it interesting that the emotional attachment to Rhapsody was

still there after the pause, as evidenced by this enthusiastic article:

Imagine my delight when in 2013 United reintroduced this timeless classic.

The piece is galvanizing, soaring… I was in Chicago recently and went through
the tunnel connecting terminals at ORD. There is something magical about all
that neon, the colours, the moving sidewalk, and Rhapsody in Blue playing.
Rhapsody in Blue IS United.
Source: Airline Guys, 2014

Counter-intuitive but true: protect your

audio brand by not playing it
United manages its audio brand with great sensitivity. According to Herman
Tiemans, regional manager, marketing communications until 2006, United
mindfully withdrew the music during two critical times. One was after the
9/11 World Trade Center attack in 2001. That was a time when employ-
ees and travellers were very anxious about getting back on airplanes and
into the air. The airline had to communicate serious information to a jarred
audience. Another time was immediately after the carrier’s 2002 bankruptcy
filing (Fahey, 2016).
How you use and maintain your audio brand, of course, depends on your
unique goals, situation, and competitive actions. But there are steps you can
take to extend longevity. Let us take a look at some of them.

Some best practices for maintaining your audio brand

●● Share it with the employees. Don’t keep it within the marketing department
under the guise of protecting it. We are living in an interactive age, where
your various audiences have as much control over your brand as you do. So
you need to make sure they convey your brand in the ways you want and
employees are your first line of defence. Help the key internal audience –
they are your ‘walking brand’ – understand its genesis and purpose. Again
according to Herman Tiemans, the employees wholeheartedly embraced
Rhapsody in Blue and were a force behind its reinstatement on the planes,
in the waiting areas, and other areas after it had been withdrawn.
●● Create plenty of variety. The audio DNA shouldn’t be a straitjacket;
rather, it should be a guide, so the audio brand has life and expansiveness,
just like people flex and change according to the situation, but are still
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 161

undeniably identifiable as themselves. Use the music in creative, relevant,

and even whimsical ways to keep the message both familiar and surpris-
ing and to keep the brand conversation alive.
●● Keep your employees updated on any new developments. Through their
employee newsletter, AXA provides its global employees with quarterly
updates on the new musical interpretations being used in global TV
commercials and the new musical additions available in the audio library.
Just think: the best way to get employees thinking about how to use the
audio-branding elements is to let them know they exist.
●● If your brand has taken on a new characteristic, consider a ‘re-lift’
(a modification that still preserves the recognizable sound but adds a new
layer of meaning). This is preferable to recreating the entire composition
or creating an entirely new audio brand and, in both of these options,
losing the brand equity you’ve built. In addition, these re-lifts are not as
costly and time-consuming. So, your company will win on the cost and
the benefit sides of the equation.
●● Regularly update and refocus attention on your Audio Style Guide. It is
the first line of defence in protecting your brand, particularly in light of
the typically high turnover rate among brand managers today and whose
replacements often want to toss out the work of the previous regime,
so they have attainments to boast about on their resumés. (It’s been
said in packaged goods companies that the first sign of inexperienced
brand managers is that when they come into the positions, they immedi-
ately want to change the packaging, the very guide consumers use when
searching for the item in the store.) The same can be suspected when it
comes to the audio DNA and music, even if the same person would not
dare consider tampering with the visual-branding elements due to their
longer familiarity with the value of coherence in this discipline.
●● Though senior management must convey its support for the audio identity,
it is useful to have an identified champion and manager lower in the ranks,
someone who acts as a branding watchdog and facilitator. Ideally, this person
should have strong cross-functional skills and can also gently nudge other
departments into the adoption of the audio brand for new and expanded uses,
whether it is in areas of a new building, introducing a new employee training
initiative, or other places and times sound can be used to enhance your brand.
●● If you are a heavy advertiser, like a grocery retailer for instance, consider
creating an audio logo system, instead of repeating the exact same sound
several times a day. Nobody wants to turn brand recognition into an annoy-
ance. Huggies took the system approach in creating its audio logo. Their
main audio logo ends in the sound of a toddler’s delighted squeal. But there’s
162 Audio Branding

also an audio logo with the same music but without the voice. And, there
are other iterations already waiting in the wings, some that contain the
voices of babies in other stages of maturation from newborn to toddler.
●● Bring your key advertising, public relations and other marketing agencies
into the loop. They should help you brainstorm the possibilities, either
together or on their own, as well as work in tandem with each other and
your audio-branding agency to get the most out of the vast potential of
having your own distinct and meaningful sound.

The hard work is now over. You have an audio brand and a plan for main-
taining it over the long term. So you are good to go. But there’s one more
topic we want to cover in more detail: the strategic employment of audio
brands in public spaces – shopping malls, retail environments, entertain-
ment arenas, stadiums, hospitals.
As more services become products and more products become services
and both seek to create more engaging environments through the use of
events, pop-up stores and flagship stores – think the Hershey’s store that
first premièred on Times Square, the club-like auto showrooms on the
Champs-Élysées, or the competing tech playgrounds run by wireless carriers
on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue – we think this chapter would be of inter-
est to all marketers. Join us. After all, we believe that it will help you think
through all the possibilities with your new audio brand.

Guest perspective Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder

Hawaii: a historical exemplar of audio branding

As we saw in the case study featuring the Atlanta Convention & Visitors
Bureau, audio brands are for more than just products and services. They
are for locations as well. And one of the first locations to benefit from
having a distinct audio brand is Hawaii. So we asked Janet Borgerson,
a Fellow at the Institute for Brands & Brand Relationships, and a Visiting
Research Fellow at Cass Business School, City University London, and
Jonathan Schroeder, the William A Kern Professor in the School of
Communication at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York – both
experts in different theoretical aspects of branding – to give us their
perspective on the historical audio branding of Hawaii. We hope you find it
instructive and we believe that even branding professionals in the product
and service arenas will find it instructive.
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 163

Hawaii evokes a repertoire of sounds, songs, and south-seas sonority,

presenting a strong brand identity and providing an illustrative example of
audio branding. Indeed, the marketing of popular music with distinct sonic
characteristics, such as steel guitar, ukulele, exotic birdcalls, and crashing
ocean waves, reinforced these audio assets as essentially Hawaiian.
Audio resources suggested an ‘authentic’ cultural and natural history for
the Hawaiian brand, and aided in Hawaii’s transformation from a so-called
primitive paradise into the 50th State. In this way, market-created fantasies
intersected with associated acoustics to form powerful auditory brand value.
Hawaii, and what the branding of Hawaii has deemed her ‘lilting
call’, lure us to an ultimate audio brandscape. Like AT&T’s chimes, IBM
Windows’ sonic start-up ‘logo’, MGM’s roaring lion, and Nokia’s familiar
cellphone ringtone, Hawaii was strategically linked with certain sounds. As
liner notes from RCA’s classic vinyl record Hawaii in HI-FI from 1959 state,
‘In music, a body of undulating songs have been more effective causes for
vacationing Americans choosing Hawaii than all the illustrated brochures
of the travel agencies.’ In some ways, the Hawaii created through aural
atmospheres is more easily identifiable than the landscapes of these South
Pacific islands. Certainly, more people have heard Hawaiian music than
have visited Hawaii, and the paradise promises of the Hawaii brand exist
mainly in the imagination and in marketing campaigns. Hawaii and her
audio-brand extensions still reach our ears.
Hawaii remains an important tourist destination, strategic military
outpost, and ‘tropical paradise’, and much of the related music is still
available: online, on CD, and on new and reissued vinyl LPs, smartly
repackaged as Hawaiiana, exotica, and retro lounge (see Figure 9.1).
These days, ‘Hawaiian’ sounds often stand in for any tropical island resort,
providing something of a challenge to brand distinction. Here, we provide
a brief case study on the decades-long audio branding of Hawaii, and
her brand extensions, drawing upon developments in branding thought
generally, including audio, or sonic branding (Gustafsson, 2015), brand
culture (Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling, 2006; Schroeder, Borgerson and
Wu, 2015; Wu, Borgerson and Schroeder, 2013) and retroscapes (Brown
and Sherry, 2003).

The Hawaiian craze

A Hawaiian craze swept the United States after World War II, and much of
this was musically motivated, fanned by the tourism industry, popular
films, and broadway shows, such as Blue Hawaii and South Pacific, and
164 Audio Branding

Figure 9.1 
Hawaiian Holiday, George Wyle Orchestra and Chorus,
Imperial Records

the Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce. Hula dancing, backyard luaus, tiki-

totems, tropical drinks, and Hawaiian shirts became the rage. The ‘lure
of the islands’, often a scantily dressed brown-skinned woman, posed on
waterfalls and decorated with flowers pleasingly represented Hawaii’s
qualities as a sensual resort paradise (Canniford and Karababa, 2013;
Costa, 1998). Airlines, travel agencies, and the Kodak Film Company worked
to develop visions of Hawaiian paradise: stately palm trees, the white
sand of sunlit Waikiki beach, and hula girls in grass skirts with flowers
in their flowing dark hair. Tourist sites like the ‘Kodak Hula Show’ offered
idealized island highlights, including ‘natives’ performing in colourful attire
to embody the sonorous exotic qualities of tropical Hawaii.
Many marketing campaigns not only relied upon a visual representation
of Hawaii, but also presented a Hawaiian sound. Native drums, steel guitar,
and tropical birdcalls provided the acoustic backdrop for pineapples, Pearl
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 165

Harbor, and impending statehood. Preparing Hawaii for mass consumption

meant transforming these islands into a brand that could be associated
with attractive flora and fauna, exotic peoples with colourful rituals and
celebrations, and distinctive music and sounds – both vocal and instrumental.
Sound emerging from each of these arenas, such as waves crashing on the
beach, the characteristic sound of the ukulele, or songs sung in Hawaiian,
offered a broad range from which to draw elements of audio brand-building.
Music served as an aural image of Hawaii, for example, as provided by the
US government’s support of the long-running Hawaii Calls radio broadcasts.
What became known to the US mainland, and in many cases the world, as
‘Hawaii’ resonates with these sounds, calling forth an earlier era, and invoking
a complex legacy of culture and history, tourist management and nostalgic
hype. ‘Packaged Hawaii’ emerged as island paradise, tourist destination, and
honeymoon resort, crucially supported in all areas by audio aspects.
Hawaiian popular music helped animate Hawaii as a brand. Hawaiian
music provided a window into the conceptual state of Hawaii, allowing the
uninitiated mainlander access to the spirit of Aloha. The genre provided
sonic sources for familiarizing US mainlanders with this distant chain of
islands and served as a central element in the tourist industry’s campaign
to attract visitors to Hawaii. Moreover, Hawaiian popular music mobilized
the potential of modern sound recording and dissemination technologies,
including the hi-fi record album and radio programmes.

The audio branding of Hawaii

As part of cross-promotional campaigns, Hawaiian record albums were
often distributed by travel agencies (see Figures 9.1 and 9.2). Deluxe
packaging for these albums might include five or six blank, or lined, pages
that could be filled with personal reminiscences, or snapshots of the
laughing hula girls, the white sand, and the lush island paradise – much
like a proto-Instagram feed. Other features of these souvenir records
included colour photos of key visitor sights, attraction maps for each
island, as well as the vinyl LP of songs and sounds, including pounding
drums and evocative birdcalls. These inspirational visual and aural images
presented the Hawaiian experience, whether one eventually travelled to
Hawaii or found satisfaction simply sitting in the living room with the LP
and a record (Connell and Gibson, 2008).
The Kodak Hula Show, which provided a touristic highlight for decades,
offers an iconic example of the efforts to audio-brand Hawaii, as hula
dance calls for hula music. Kodak photo film was sold near the show,
166 Audio Branding

Figure 9.2 
Destination Honolulu, Sam Kailuha and the Islanders, Cavalier
Records

which offered many picture-taking opportunities, as it was staged outdoors

expressly for tourists to photograph; the performers wore brilliant green
‘grass’ skirts, yellow leis, and red flowers – perfect Kodak colours.
The hula girl and her musical accompaniment form a foundation of
Hawaiian branding, helping to make Hawaii instantly recognizable the
world over. Indeed, the iconic hula dancer became a stock image and
common trope of native sensuality repeated in sheet music graphics,
Hollywood movies, television, and of course on vinyl record album
covers of the era. ‘Hula girls’ appear in hundreds of images; and most
Hawaiian vinyl records feature at least one song about a caricatured and
sexualized hula dance. In one frequently recorded song, listeners are
teasingly instructed to keep their eyes on the dancers’ hands during a hula
performance, and not be distracted by musical rhythm-induced
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 167

Figure 9.3 Authentic Music from the Kodak Hula Show, Waikiki Records

movement of ‘the lovely hula hips’. Related marketing communications,

such as the photographed covers of vinyl LPs, served to re-inscribe the
visual image of Hawaii, and included an audio-branded soundtrack on
the record within. Figure 9.3 shows a 1960s era LP, Authentic Music from
the Kodak Hula Show from Waikiki records, that supports a noteworthy
integrated marketing effort, promoting photographic film, tourism, and vinyl
LPs in one package (Borgerson and Schroeder, 2017).
Popular singers also released Hawaiian albums infused with steel
guitar, ukulele, and a smattering of Hawaiian language lyrics. For example,
Bing Crosby’s Blue Hawaii from Decca Records features Bing singing the
standard Tin Pan Alley-penned Hawaiian tunes such as ‘Blue Hawaii’,
‘Sweet Leilani’, and ‘Tradewinds’, backed by Hawaiian choruses. The
album cover shows a tourist brochure shot of an endless sand beach,
an outrigger canoe, a lone palm tree and Diamond Head – the distinctive
168 Audio Branding

landmark of Waikiki beach. We are reminded by a small note printed

along the bottom of the front cover that Hawaii is 2,394 miles from the USA
via Pan American World Airways. One of the first big stars to release a
Hawaiian album, Bing started a massive trend.
The familiar face of Elvis Presley adorns one of the best-known Hawaii
albums, the soundtrack of Hal Wallis’s film Blue Hawaii from RCA Victor.
This hit record introduced the classic ballad ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love’
as well as Elvis’s hiccupping versions of the Hawaiian standards ‘Blue
Hawaii’, ‘Aloha Oe’ and ‘Hawaiian Wedding Song’. The classic ‘Rock-A-
Hula Baby’, a game attempt to blend the Hawaiian sensibility with rock
‘n’ roll, was another hit from the album. Martin Denny, of course, is well
known for his musical ‘exotica’. He released several specifically Hawaiian-
themed albums for Liberty Records in the 1960s, including Hawaii Tattoo,
20 Golden Hawaiian Hits, and Hawaii Goes a Go-Go. Arthur Lyman worked
with Denny and is often credited with introducing exotic birdcalls into
standard popular songs, along with a wavering vibraphone tropical lounge
sound. Les Paul and Mary Ford’s Lovers’ Luau from Columbia Records
shows the pioneering musical couple seated at a lush luau table looking
a bit out of place among the bananas, flowers, and hula girls. The LP
includes some Les Paul originals, with the rich twangy sway of steel
guitar sounds.
Webley Edwards created Hawaii Calls, the most successful radio show
of its kind (Smulyan, 2007). In a profound audio-branding moment, Edwards
opened each Hawaii Calls show intoning, ‘the sounds of the waves on the
beach at Waikiki’, as the surf slapped against the sand in the background.
First over the radio, then later through 28 popular record albums featuring
well-known Hawaiian singers such as Alfred Apaka and Haunani
Kahalewai, Edwards was influential in engaging a worldwide audience
with a carefully constructed image of the Hawaii brand.
Hawaii Calls, partially funded by the United States’ legislature,
broadcast live every week for almost 40 years from the 1930s to the 1970s,
and was perhaps the most influential force in making mainlanders Hawaii-
conscious (with the exception of Pearl Harbor). As notes on one Hawaii
Calls vinyl record cover state:

beneath the Banyan tree … at the Moana Hotel on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii calls
the world by radio every Saturday morning. In that lovely tropical setting, more
than a thousand happy, gaily clad islanders and tourists gather as Webley
Edwards conducts Hawaii Calls – a program that is carried on the mainland’s
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 169

Mutual Broadcasting System, the Canadian Dominion Network, the Australia

Network, the Armed Forces Radio Service, by short-wave to Africa, Asia, and
Oceania, and over the Voice of Freedom to Europe.
Source: Hawaii Calls, Capitol Records

Edwards insisted that his show was the real Hawaii featuring real
Hawaiian music; however, one need not be Hawaiian to produce it.
In discussing their audience, one commentator suggested, ‘To them,
and millions like them around the globe, Web Edwards and the stars
of Hawaii Calls are Hawaii’ (from the Capitol Records LP Hawaii Calls
show, Webley Edwards presents). In Edward’s branding discourse, a
song written yesterday in Peoria was as Hawaiian as something written
a hundred years ago by a native if it had that ‘Aloha spirit’. Of course,
also at work were copyright laws and royalty payments. Most of the
songs on the Hawaii Calls shows were written – or at least copyrighted
– by whites. From ‘primitive’ rhythms, Hawaiian music was transformed
and modernized, for Western consumers. By recording the tropical –
and primitive – sounds of Hawaii on the latest in advanced recording
equipment, the recording industry offered up Hawaiian music as part of the
latest achievement of modern technology, and the state of Hawaii as the
latest achievement of modern democracy. In other words, Hawaii Calls,
its music, voices, and tropical sounds stood in for Hawaii, helping create a
distinctive and powerful audio brand.

Conclusion
Hawaii’s audio-brand image vibrates through strings of steel guitar on
the ubiquitous ‘Aloha Oe’, or ukulele and coconut shell bongos on famous
favourites ‘Little Brown Gal’ and ‘Lovely Hula Hands’ that appear on
thousands of ‘Hawaiian’ vinyl LP albums. This popular Hawaiian music
genre captures a primitive past – with seashell drone, wood block clicks,
and sharkskin drum thuds – a vision of paradise and an escape from the
modern world. Tropical location-associated sounds infused Hawaiian
music and provided a soothing soundtrack for backyard luau parties,
Hawaiian dinners at home, and other pupu platter-centred, tiki-themed
environments popular during that era – and enjoying a resurgence.
Hawaiian music served as a sonic resource that lends the Hawaii brand
an ‘authentic’ history that draws on cultural, mythical, and stereotypical
resources – about Hawaiian natives, paradise, and fallen monarchies.
Hawaii’s audio branding lures us to what we have called the ultimate
‘retro-escape’ (Borgerson and Schroeder, 2003).
170 Audio Branding

Hawaiian cultural codes, historical and fantastical, have provided

resources for building brand meaning, including visual and aural images to
suit huge varieties of contexts and purposes, such as international trade,
profitable tourist escapes, and imaginative cocktail bars (Cate and Cate,
2016; McKnight-Trontz, 1999). Hawaiian music provides a spectacular case
for analysis of the way music, brand culture, and retro-appeal cooperate
in audio branding. Of course, what became known as Hawaiian music was
often familiar easy listening created mostly by white mainland songwriters
with little or no connection to the islands. Nevertheless, the marriage of
modern technology and ‘authentic’ sounds was a potent force in the audio
branding of Hawaiian paradise. By associating certain audio elements
with Hawaii and capturing these on the latest advanced hi-fi equipment,
the radio and recording industries offered up a Hawaiian sonic experience
as part of the latest technological achievement, promoting paradise as
a sound as well as a place to visit. Hawaii provides an early, memorable
example of a powerful audio brand.

Guest biographies

Janet Borgerson is a Fellow at the Institute for Brands & Brand

Relationships, and a Visiting Research Fellow at Cass Business School,
City University London. She works at the intersections of philosophy,
branding, and culture. She earned a BA (Philosophy) from University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, and MA and PhD (Philosophy) from University of
Wisconsin, Madison. Her research has appeared in a broad range of
journals, including Consumption Markets & Culture, European Journal
of Marketing, Journal of Brand Management, Philosophy Today, and
Sociological Review, and she is co-author of From Chinese Brand Culture
to Global Brands and Designed for Hi-Fi Living.

Jonathan Schroeder is the William A Kern Professor in the School of

Communication at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. His PhD
is from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published widely
on branding, communication, consumer research, and identity. He is the
author of Visual Consumption, co-author of From Chinese Brand Culture
to Global Brands and Designed for Hi-Fi Living, editor of Conversations on
Consumption, and Brands: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, and co-editor of
Brand Culture and the Routledge Companion to Visual Organization.
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 171

Ca s e AXA

AXA off to a strong start: more to come

AXA tops the global rankings in the insurance sector. A business built through
acquisition of companies in different countries that, due to regulation and market
differences, doesn’t deliver the same products and services everywhere. With
over 150,000 employees, the company sought to assert its power to lead the
industry and set the standards for the category. They developed a unique global
advertising model in which they use branding musical advertising assets across
markets.
Facing increased competition, the brand expected its audio communication
strategy to meet four major challenges:

●● stand out from the competition through a distinct and unmistakable identity;
●● convey the new communication goals;
●● clarify and amplify the change in position;
●● create a more specific but universally consistent brand experience.

The overall audio audit revealed ample room to optimize the audio-branding
strategy. For instance, an analysis of the company’s global music use revealed
that, in lacking a set of brand audio guidelines, each country would select
songs varying in musical styles and genres. Sixième Son also found that some
songs were paid for and then only used one time, a costly behaviour for the
brand.
At the same time, the audit revealed a pattern of sameness in the category.
Three major music styles dominated financial services communications:

●● grandiose classical instrumentation: heavy strings and brass; sometimes use

of popular classical tracks (eg Bach, Beethoven);
●● musical theatre/cabaret music: naïve, bouncy piano melodies, choruses;
●● 90s’ popular rock song scoring, which had the ability to create connection but
no strong personality to transmit to the brand.

To help the brand stand out, the design of the audio DNA and audio logo was
focused on positioning AXA in a musical territory that would break these
trends.
In 2008, the company launched its new brand positioning around the world.
The brand’s aspirations were expressed in the tagline, Redefining Standards.
172 Audio Branding

The initial solution: AXA audio DNA, audio logo, and creative toolkit
AXA established its leading position and natural authority with a distinctive audio
DNA and very unusual audio logo: heavy, strongly assertive, with an unsingable
melody, and endowed with an uncompromising sound texture and powerful,
definitive ending. This audio identity with its distinctive five-note audio logo left a
strong earprint.
When the audio DNA and audio logo were approved, AXA and Sixième Son
focused on creating tools to facilitate the consistent and coherent global use of
audio over such touchpoints as radio, events, customer service call centres, and
meetings.
Being the most familiar item to AXA ad agencies, the end frame was the tool
that was adopted most quickly, but that wasn’t enough to bring a total brand
experience to TV spots. Agencies could still buy single tracks for a one-time use.
This practice didn’t maximize the communication of the brand values and nor did
it optimize budgets.

The expanded solution: adding the AXA global advertising audio library
The company decided to go beyond the usual adaptations to offer a unique
turnkey tool to support the dissemination of the audio brand: a unique musical
library designed to support the dramatic arc of various storylines and convey a
wide variety of moods.
A truly breakthrough approach to their audio identity, the AXA advertising
musical library was a resourceful invention that served the communication
needs of all their diverse businesses across the continents.
AXA invested in an off-the-shelf library of music based on the new audio
identity to make it easy for any market that needed to create a commercial to
get exactly what they needed. Sixième Son scored music segments based in the
brand’s audio DNA to convey and which were designed to support the emotional
content of almost any story.
The idea was simple. As the films are divided into problem/solution scenarios,
the music had to be too.
The complementary musical elements from two different sets of music gave
the markets the power to instantly score hundreds of commercials, all of which
had pre-approved music. Besides the speed and ease provided by this solution,
an additional barrier to decision-making and production time was removed. The
markets neither needed to calculate nor pay any licensing fees because those
had been covered under a global licence by the parent company.

How the library works

The music in the first group of compositions sets up the problem or situation. In
the second group, the music evokes the kind of emotions that might result from
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 173

the resolution of a problem: confidence, dignity, enthusiasm, hope, strength,

serenity.
The user selects one from the first group and one from the second, an on-
brand audio transition is provided to connect one half to the other – and all the
spots end with the punctuation of the strong audio logo.
This gave the agency and teams some freedom to choose which combination
of Groups 1 and 2 to use. Table 9.1 provides some examples:

Table 9.1 The music library: composition options

Group 1: Problem Music Group 2: Solution Music
Serious expresses quiet concern Enthusiasm reminds you of
happiness and
harmony
Music Box reminds you of the sounds Confident conveys a serious and
of your childhood and trusting atmosphere
conveys a nostalgic mood
Soft carries a rhythm based on Hopeful encourages you to
the ticking of stopwatch believe in the future,
like a promise
Enigmatic builds suspense Strength reminds you of bravery
and creates an uncertain and power
atmosphere
Unsettled creates a cautious and Dignity reminds you of pride
uncertain mood and humanity
Suspense creates a feeling of Serene provides a peaceful
the unknown but dynamic moment
Intrigue suggests a scheming
atmosphere
Source Sixième Son (with permission of AXA)

TV commercials tell wide-ranging stories as diverse as a man running through

a gauntlet of closed doors, another learning to ride an elephant and a family
having trouble scanning groceries. The music successfully enhances each of the
stories.
An Audio Style Guide details the various selections available and provides
advice and boundaries to the use of the library and other audio-brand
communication tools. The whole system not only offers choices but assures high
quality and coherence.
After seven years of the audio brand’s existence, its effects have been
extensive:
174 Audio Branding

●● Over 100 campaigns in places as diverse as France, Germany, Hong Kong,

Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the USA have successfully used the
library or have commissioned related music to create the soundtracks for
spots.
●● More than 150 TV campaigns endorsed by the audio logo in 59 countries
around the world.
●● Eight million views of content containing the AXA audio identity on YouTube by
1 April 2016.
●● Savings seen by AXA in terms of the purchase of musical rights alone amount
to over $500,000 per year.
●● Early research in 2008 showed increased perception of leadership based on
the comparison of the new end frame (the logo animation plus the audio logo)
and the previous one: the ‘leadership’ rating increased by 21 per cent.

The pragmatic but sweeping implementation of the AXA audio identity system
brought savings, consistency and power to the brand. Brand power that
promises to build one touchpoint at a time, over many years.
Said Marc Raisiere, former VP of Marketing Communications, ‘We act as a
leader, we look like a leader, we talk like a leading company that’s changing the
rules for the benefit of its clients, partners, employees, and shareholders. Now,
we sound like a leader and that sounds like no one else.’

CMO, Paul Bennett sees branding’s role growing

AXA Chief Marketing Officer, Paul Bennett, has ambitious goals for the brand.
In his estimation, the value of brand in the insurance sector has far to go. Today
the AXA brand drives about 20 per cent of consumer purchase decisions, which
Bennett says is in line with the category. This, he says, contrasts with the
banking business in which the brand contributes 30 per cent to sales and the
mighty luxury category, where the brand can contribute 70–80 per cent of sales.
Because, in insurance, the role of the company’s agent is diminishing and the
role of the insurance aggregator is growing, the role of branding has become
more critical. In an aggregator situation, prospects might be shown a list of
20–30 companies to choose from, so it’s vital that the insurer cultivate brand
affinity and nurture a direct brand relationship.
Bennett intends to move AXA from a transactional- to a relationship-based
brand, and foresees the day when the AXA brand will contribute as much as
35–40 per cent of sales.
One difficulty in building a brand today, according to Bennett, is in maintaining
brand consistency across the increasingly fragmented touchpoints. That task
has become more important today than it was 20 years ago.
 Maintaining and Evolving Your Audio Brand 175

The key challenge for AXA along with awareness will be brand differentiation.
Not just differentiation in what is shown on TV but what the customers
experience and feel. For instance, does the customer’s call centre experience
match up with the TV experience? The other critical touchpoints and interactions
along the spectrum need to be managed strategically.
Bennett believes the role of music as a brand tool has become more important
because marketers are trying new ways to cut through and to make something
memorable. He says that as the company seeks an emotional connection with
its customers, the ad agency can no longer choose music by asking, ‘Do I
like it?’ Today music should be considered at the brand level because, when
used consistently, it is a very powerful tool for creating that memorability and
staying at the forefront of the customer’s mind. But it is also about positioning
your brand, a task that can be done with words but makes a stronger emotional
impact with music.
He feels that AXA has done reasonably well in using music to drive a stronger
consistent global brand but has yet to unleash the potential of what its audio can do.

References
Airline Guys (2012) 6 reasons why United should reintroduce the ‘Tulip’, https://
airlineguys.com/2014/08/03/6-reasons-why-united-should-re-introduce-the-
tulip/ [accessed 11 December 2016]
Bañagale, RR (2014a) Arranging Gershwin. Oxford University Press, New York
Bañagale, RR (2014b) United Airlines and Rhapsody in Blue, OUP blog, http://
blog.oup.com/2014/08/united-airlines-gershwin [accessed 11 December 2016]
Borgerson, JL and Schroeder, JE (2003) The Lure of Paradise: Marketing the retro-
escape of Hawaii, in Time, Space and Place: The rise of retroscapes, ed S Brown
and JF Sherry, pp 219–37, ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY
Borgerson, J and Schroeder, JE (2017) Designed for Hi-Fi Living: The vinyl LP in
mid-century America, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Brown, S and Sherry, JF Jr. (2003) Time, Space and the Market: Retroscapes rising,
ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY
Canniford, R and Karababa, E (2013) Partly Primitive: Discursive constructions of
the domestic surfer, Consumption Markets and Culture 16, pp 119–44
Cate, M and Cate, R (2016) Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic cocktails, rum, and the cult of
tiki, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley
Connell, J and Gibson, C (2008) ‘No Passport Necessary’: Music, record covers
and vicarious tourism in post-war Hawai’i, Journal of Pacific History, 43,
pp 51–75
176 Audio Branding

Costa, JA (1998) Paradisal Discourse: A critical analysis of marketing and

consuming Hawaii, Consumption Markets and Culture 1, pp 303–46
Fahey, C (2016) Personal conversation with Herman Tiemans
Gustafsson, C (2015) Sonic Branding: A consumer-oriented literature review,
Journal of Brand Management, pp 20–37
Hanlon, P (2006) Primal Branding: Create zealots for your brand, your company,
and your future, Free Press, New York
McKnight-Trontz, J (1999) Exotiquarium: Album art from the space age,
St Martins, NY
Schroeder, JE and Salzer-Mörling, M (2006) Brand Culture. Routledge, New York
Schroeder, JE, Borgerson, JL and Wu, Z (2015) A brand culture approach to
Chinese cultural heritage brands, Journal of Brand Management, 22 (3),
pp 261–79
Smulyan, S (2007) Live from Waikiki: Colonialism, race, and radio in Hawaii,
1934–1963, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 27, pp 63–75
Wu, Z, Borgerson, J and Schroeder, J (2013) From Chinese Brand Culture
to Global Brands: Insights from aesthetic, fashion and history, Palgrave
Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK
 177

Music 10
and sound design
in environments
Ever noticed that many retailers, restaurants, shopping centres, other brands
with physical locations as a component of their offering or experience –
even sports teams – have a disconnected approach to the music with which
they present their brands? They take one approach to it in their advertising
and a completely different approach in their live environments such as the
store. Go from one retail establishment to the next and the story is virtually
the same: at branch, in salons, in restaurants, and at dealerships.
As we saw in Chapter 5, when music is perceived as a good fit for the
brand, the user perceives the brand as more authentic. One way to make
sure it is seen as a fit is to ensure that the music in the environment is coher-
ent with the tailor-made branded music in your communications efforts.
After all, a brand constitutes a promise to behave a certain way. When the
audience arrives in your environment, they should experience that place as
consistent with your total brand identity and your values as possible.
Unfortunately, brands that are clearly striving to transmit the idea of
authenticity in their TV commercials or branded content fill their stores with
the slightly metallic sound of voices altered by Auto Tune. We’ve seen – or,
rather heard – ‘natural ingredients’ restaurant chains who feature acoustic
instrumentation in their advertising confuse customers by using synthesized
instruments and mechanical drum machines in the restaurants themselves.
Retailers promising elegance, craftsmanship, and style blare voice-forward
teenage pop stars more appropriate to those that offer tween accessories.
(We suspect that the music, in the latter case of the high-end, elegant store,
supports their sales of impulse-purchase baubles, rather than their carefully
crafted leather goods.)
Alternatively, playlists may be too generic and predictable with no attempt
to convey any distinctive message about the brand (and subsequently come
across as ubiquitous). This indifferent approach happens in environments
beyond retailers, too. You will find it in airports, for instance. With such a
178 Audio Branding

convenient opportunity to create a sense of feeling welcoming to a specific

place, some opt for a standard playlist that often says they don’t care.
One day, while travelling south, Michaël Boumendil noticed that the
same music he had heard in the corridor of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson
Airport was what he was hearing in Miami International. Yet Atlanta and
Miami are both such great brands! These cities come with strong musical
heritages of their own, and both compete hard for convention and tourist
business, but they didn’t infuse any local flavour into the atmosphere of
their corridors or lounges that were busy with travellers arriving, departing,
and making connecting flights.
Then there’s the problem of announcements.
Most airports solve the problem of getting people to hear announcements
by pushing up the volume, not by providing a pleasant attention-getting signal.
Most in-store messages don’t take into account the sounds of trolleys, conver-
sation, and HVAC. For instance, at one French supermarket, a survey revealed
that only 5 per cent of their customers were hearing the messages. In other
words, their announcements of specials and events were blending in and when
they were noticed, according to our client’s research, were often perceived as
radio, not as a communication to customers from the store they happen to be
shopping in – clearly a wasted opportunity but not a terribly hard one to fix.
A trendy taco restaurant in Chicago, for another example, is carefully
decorated with bright Mexican tiles and tequilas, serves its guacamole in
earthenware cazuelas to their English and Spanish speaking patrons, and
plays a Pandora Radio selection based on the music of indie rock band,
Cold War Kids (except when they play a Jay-Z/Kanye West combination to
end the day). When employees asked the manager why he doesn’t sprinkle
in some Latin American rock bands, like Maná, he won’t hear of it. They
suspect it’s just a result of the manager’s personal taste.
Internet streaming has brought the opportunity for more variety into the
world of in-store music. No longer does music have to be shipped to stores
on CDs or downloaded onto local computer hard drives. This variety is a
boon to employees and to customers, both. But it still needs to be managed
in order to support the brand.

The trapped audience for environmental

music: the staff
The most affected audience for in-store music is your employee team. If the
music is too repetitive, too loud, or too grating, they suffer. And, oh boy,
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 179

don’t get them started about holiday music. Frequently, it is a very short
playlist of often smarmy songs which repeats incessantly from October till
24 December. ‘Honestly that’s the worst’, said an employee from a chain
drugstore, according to one client’s research. Her comments were echoed
by many. Let’s agree that these are cruel and unusual working conditions.
One thing to also note is that the customer-facing staff have strong opin-
ions about whether the music in the store suits the shoppers’ tastes, because
they get to hear the compliments and complaints first-hand.

Listen to your employees

Here is an excerpt from an interview with a sales associate at a high-

end Toronto department store, 18 July 2016. As you can see, employees
understand the audio needs of their customers:
‘Seven years ago when I started, the music was a mix. It wasn’t bad, it
was a little bit of everything: classic rock, R&B, dance mix music, nothing
too annoying to me. It was a wide variety and it wasn’t too loud either. But
as the years have progressed, it’s getting worse because they’re playing
Top 40.
‘It’s very inappropriate for our clientele because it’s a luxury retailer.
Especially because it’s on all four floors. It might be OK for the contemporary
and, maybe, even main floor but it’s absolutely not appropriate for the floor
of people buying designer pieces well into the four digits.
‘I get complaints every single day. Every day. Especially from the ones
who are spending the money. They ask, “Why is this type of music being
played?” “Who are they targeting?” A typical customer complaint is,
“What is this garbage they’re playing?” “Oh, my gosh, it’s too loud.” It’s too
loud for the store. We are trying to have a conversation. It’s like I am in a
nightclub.
‘I feel whoever’s choosing the music isn’t thinking about who the clients
are. They may be choosing the music they like or what they think is trendy
right now. The clients are an afterthought.
‘It’s on a loop. I hear the same song over and over. I even know some
songs that I wish I didn’t because they play it so often.
‘They play Christmas music in late October, even before Halloween. And
the clients say, “Isn’t it a little early?” Some of the carols may be religious.
And a lot of our clients are Jewish, they don’t like it. It’s too early and, then,
the people who enjoy the carols are not in the store yet.
180 Audio Branding

‘They think the retailer is trying to force it on them. Like, “You’ve got to
buy Christmas products now!” They’re not thinking of it for enjoyment: it’s
just a marketing strategy to get people to buy presents early.
‘You don’t need all that crazy beat. Some more pleasant music could be
played, something that’s not dominating the shopping experience. It should
be putting you in a relaxing mood, not an annoyed, frustrated mood. Maybe
if you’re in a Zara and Forever 21, it’s OK.
‘I’m open, I like all genres of music, I’m open-minded but there’s a time
and a place… and a certain volume as well.
‘There are some very, very high-value clients who do actually have the
power to get them to turn down the music a little bit. But it still it goes back
up again.’

What to do? Sorry to sound like a broken

record: it’s all about values
So how do you manage the brand experience, the need to address specials,
warnings, and announcements, the employee state-of-mind, the tastes and
aspirations of the shopper?
One approach is to choose music that fits your brand values, essence, and
personality.
If audio branding can help you find your way to the brand identity and
guide your various tactics, it can also guide you to your wider brand terri-
tory of music at retail and in other environments where your brand lives.
You can have distinctive, unexpected, and brand-supportive music in-store
if you lay your groundwork first.
The approach we use is to create a sample playlist for each of the key
values the brand intends to express and then, based on the importance of
each value, choose the right proportion of each type of content.

One brand’s values and music filters: authenticity,

intimacy, audacity, and virtuosity
What follows are short summaries that illustrate how four values-based
sample playlists would guide the music selection for a prestigious men’s
leather goods and clothing retailer:
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 181

●● Authenticity: Here, noble, acoustic instruments such as cello, double

bass, upright piano, or woodwinds were explored. These classical instru-
ments, however, have been played in a modern and contemporary way,
favouring a light and positive approach rather than one that’s impressive
and imposing. They help create a warm atmosphere that’s both elegant
and welcoming.
●● Intimacy: The goal here would be to recreate the magic moments of a
private concert. Some live songs were included, but not overly dramatic
ones. As in a private club, the sound would be sophisticated but not
‘trendy’, creating a convivial and friendly atmosphere.
●● Audacity: The brand includes culture as well as creativity, and the intel-
lectual playfulness that entails. So the music offers dashes of Italian
optimism and French charm. The selection of music in this group would
add a feeling of energy, creativity, and playfulness, and contain refer-
ences to art, in order to bring out the child and the artist in everyone in
the store.
●● Virtuosity: Because of the specialized craftsmanship found in the prod-
ucts, some short warm-up exercises used by classically trained musicians
provide a recurrent punctuation throughout the playlists. The sound
of instrumentalists practising their complex exercises on a piano or a
cello invites the customer to a privileged place, the heart of a craftsman’s
atelier.

Let’s contrast that to the jewellery store we also saw in Chapter 4, but this
time we will take it to a later stage of the process. The brand stands for
elegance, luxury, and beauty. Imagine the strategy and music selection have
been approved and the project has moved to launch. The handiest way to
keep the global teams aligned with the strategy is the Audio Style Guide.
This guide has two functions: to help staff understand the reasoning behind
the selection; and to set parameters. But it also allows for some flexibility
at the store-level: ‘…an eclectic selection, both classic and contemporary,
whereby arts, sensuality and creativity have been explored. Hints of cinema
and opera, exceptional voices as well as timeless songs of French musical
heritage and avant-garde pieces of music. A daring mix, for a unique and
innovative musical ambience.’
This music had been pre-programmed so a shuffle option enabling any
playlist to be played randomly at any time of the day. However, employees
could modify the pre-set selection and programme the broadcasting. They
had the option to control the musical ambience in their boutique or let it run
182 Audio Branding

by its own. Some 50 hours of music were provided with quarterly updates
of 14 hours of additional music:

●● Playlist 1 offers soft and soothing music for a voluptuous atmosphere.

●● Playlist 2 provides a selection of rhythmic music.
●● Playlist 3 combines calm music balanced with more rhythmic tracks.

And a children’s boutique has a different set of values that the music has to
evoke: purity, kindness, respect, and innocence. By now you know that each
one will inspire its own musical exploration and mood board.

Bringing the shopper back to the spirit

of the brand
Beyond establishing the brand territory of the selected music, we also
strongly believe in using sound to bring shoppers back to the brand after
every few songs. This can be done with a light touch, so it adds pleasure to
the customer experience rather than beating them over the head with repeti-
tive communications. The brand, in this example, is reinforced by what we
call ‘winks’ or ‘commas’. They can’t be bossy and they shouldn’t intimate
that ‘We’re the management here and don’t you forget it!’ (This tendency
is particularly prevalent among transportation systems.) The winks suggest
a friendly relationship with the customer. After all, a little bit of humour,
nostalgia, or reassurance doesn’t hurt:

●● For a luxury women’s brand, these special brand sounds consisted of a

collection of pieces that began with a 6- to 7-second glittering fountain
of diamonds and then led into a snippet of a song by an iconic actress or
singer from the 40s and 50s. This approach underscored the twinkling,
glamorous heritage of the brand.
●● For Fiat Motor Village, each auto line was given its own audio foot-
print. These short pieces all live within the same musical universe but
each reflects the special personality of that distinct brand: Alfa Romeo,
Abarth, Lancia, Maserati and Jeep. There’s also a short, evocative musical
piece that weaves in the sound of an early motorcar and underscores the
long heritage of the umbrella brand, Fiat.
●● For French clothing manufacturer Petit Bateau, the brand pulls you back
with snatches of children’s voices counting, questioning, conversing, and,
sometimes, just exuberantly shouting, ‘Petit Bateau’.
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 183

●● For a previously mentioned elegant men’s shoes and clothing brand, the
musical winks underscored their craftsmanship. Sprinkled among the
musical selections, you could hear the sounds of instrumentalists prac-
tising their scales or working on their fingering in short exercises that
classically trained musicians use. The idea: to highlight the practice that
goes into mastering a craft and to create the sense of intimacy that might
occur in a master’s studio.

Closely related to branded ‘winks’ are signals that precede any announce-
ment. But, in contrast, their purpose is to draw your attention to a piece of
information, rather than to charm you into a smile or a feeling of belong-
ing. In the SNCF case that we described in Chapter 1, we discussed the
importance of being sensitive to your audience’s needs and potential anxi-
eties in creating the signal that precedes announcements. It’s not necessary
to project the voice of authority; you might do better to create affinity. In
cases where there are many announcements to be made, you may even want
an interrelated system of signals. For example, one for basic, repeating
announcements, one for real news, and one for emergencies.

There’s no need to use your audio-branding

firm to manage in-store execution
Some clients want hand-picked music. If you are one of those, depending on
how many hours you’re open and how long people stay, you will probably
need about 60 hours of music. And you will need to update it regularly with
between 10 and 20 hours of music. Your strategic audio-branding firm can
do this work but there are plenty of other firms who can provide third-party
music that is either rights-cleared or covered by contracts with the artists.
And they have systems that let you include your branded moments and your
announcements, as well.
After the foundation is laid out by your audio-branding strategy, you will
have guidelines with which to manage a specialized resource or to provide
parameters to your own local management teams. Or, you can let the audio-
branding agency manage the resources or company teams for you.
A word to the wise: it needs to be said that music is protected by copy-
right law. Don’t let your in-market management teams assume they can use
their iPod playlists or even the radio (although, in the United States, some
small establishments can use the latter). The company could end up getting
fined. Since the rules are different in different countries, it’s best to learn
them for your locale. Your music supplier will be able to guide you or you
184 Audio Branding

may want to get help from a lawyer who has experience in this area and
knows how to negotiate licences. Using professional music services is not
only a matter of enhancing the customer experience, it’s also important for
your protection.

Zoning and dayparting: creating specific

moods within the same environment
Customers may have very different music needs in different parts of your
establishment. Take a hotel, for instance, where the same guest may respond
to the same music differently depending on whether he or she is in the fitness
centre, the business services centre, the elevator lobby, or in the bar. The
practice of breaking the space down into key zones helps the music planner
think through the specific spaces and preferred ambiences.
The guest also may prefer different moods at different times of day. For
instance, enjoying a relaxing lunch and a beer. But in the evening, it’s more
likely to be party time at the bar, calling for not just a more lively, spirited
style of music but a change in music volume as well. That is where daypart-
ing comes in. A good plan will take into account the shift in atmosphere
needed, especially in social areas (the business centre and the fitness centre
may not need varied approaches, as the guest’s goals there don’t usually
change between the daytime and evening).
All of us have been in establishments in which the music is mismanaged.
No amount of interior design, technological marvels, or even customer service
can help override it. This sensitivity is underscored by personal experience. In
a business hotel one night, the staff saw fit to play ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’
for the edification of the bedraggled transatlantic travellers checking in after
a very late night flight. That night, any small irritation resulted in angry
outbursts or frustrated tears. Exhaustion may have played a role but, you and
I both know, the tumultuous and piercing music was largely to blame.
This brings us to another best practice in the world of environmental
music design: not only should you provide examples of the kind of music
that is appropriate, you should also give examples of what’s not acceptable –
especially if your business is being run by franchisees, remote managers, or
rotating leaders. In the case of the business hotel above, perhaps the team
believed that they were supposed to play selections from the ‘Western classi-
cal music tradition’ but the guidelines had neglected to exclude certain types
of sections that might be inappropriate, if not downright painful.
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 185

Along the same lines, an establishment may wish to support different

products or services with different musical moods. Imagine a store that
sells jewellery in one department as well as warm winter coats in another.
Chances are the visual environment in each section has been designed differ-
ently to support the product mix. But what about the sound?
With the use of music, it’s possible to create a stylish, sparkling atmos-
phere in one and a comforting, cozy atmosphere in the other while staying
within the brand’s guardrails. As music has a way of raising sales of the
products that are perceived as being congruent with it, the better the fit,
the stronger the effect. Imagine playing nostalgic 1950s music in the tween
section. It wouldn’t work. But it might in the section selling pleated khakis
and golf clothing.
Need some examples on how to provide the instructions? To help, here
are some excerpts from the music guidelines created for a hotel chain. They
aimed to create an ambience in which people came to meet and to mix
together in a place that provided both comfort and energy. So the guide-
lines recommended a balance among four categories: 1) friendliness and
warmth, through positive, comfortable music; 2) modernity by using today’s
music; 3) elegance using refined musical genres; and 4) regional variation
(within boundaries).
It also describes what music should make up the total experience and
defines the type of music for specific areas of the hotel: lobby, bar, restaurant,
fitness and spa lounge, and executive lounge. For instance, the recom-
mended mood for the reception, waiting area, meeting areas, and elevator
lobbies during the daytime was ‘discreet, soothing, conducive to working
and relaxation’ with a music selection of ‘light, ethereal, pop, folk, electro,
easy listening, lightly orchestrated jazz and classical music’ played at a soft
volume. Conversely, the bar in the evening had the goal of creating a rous-
ing, spirited atmosphere via modern, rhythmic dance-like music. Here the
recommended genres were ‘electronic, electro-jazz, lounge, and rhythmic
pop’ played at a high volume.
The ‘Do Nots’ of the guide also tell a lot about what to expect by warning
against music that is:

●● aggressive and intrusive;

●● experimental and irritating;
●● inelegant and vulgar;
●● too heavily orchestrated;
●● loud singing;
186 Audio Branding

as well as to:

●● avoid those musical genres that are specific niche styles (hip-hop, techno,
folk, New Age, etc);
●● avoid radio hits (except in the evenings in the bar and the lobby).

These recommendations were accompanied with music playlists demon-

strating examples in each genre that indicated what was too baroque, too
cliché, too ethnic or too showy.

Environmental sounds: great

opportunities for wit and humour
Michaël Boumendil, whom you first met in Chapter 1, often counsels his
team that ‘the music should play with the architecture and design’. And,
what better way to create a sense of relationship with customers than to
surprise them with some little unexpected moments of humour or delight?
Thus, mermaids sing in the ladies’ room of a mall at the confluence of
two rivers; a plant wall is transformed into a tropical rainforest waking
in the morning, settling down for the night, or visited by a freak thunder-
storm; the clacking of local stork beaks provide the percussion for a town’s
shopping centre; and some waiting area chairs lead you through a relaxing
meditation. You never know what will be around the next corner.
These artful touches show your humanity and your interest in delight-
ing your customers. And by adding pleasure to people’s journey, you create
more affinity for your brand. After all, isn’t that the goal of branding – creat-
ing affinity? So if you are branding a mall, retail environments, restaurants,
entertainment venues, sports stadiums, hospitals, or other places where
people congregate, think what you can do make the experience even a little
better through the sounds of your brand. So why don’t you get started
today? After all, soon your brand will be singing the songs of success!

Some tips for music in environments

To help you get started, here are some of the key points to remember:

●● have at least 60 hours of music so as not to drive staff mad;

●● choose music with voices set back a bit;
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 187

●● include brand winks;

●● create a signal to catch people’s attention for announcements;
●● vary the dynamics;
●● refresh at least 15 per cent of the music every quarter;
●● have a POV on ‘Do Nots’ as well as ‘Dos’.

G u e s t p e r s p e c t i v e Mickey Brazeal

Audio branding in physical spaces

As there is with the use of sound and music, there’s lots of research into
the use of music in physical spaces. To help us explore that rich area, we
asked Mickey Brazeal, whom we met in Chapter 5, to provide us with his
thoughts and research. Enjoy!

An important consideration in audio branding is the environment in which it

takes place. Audio branding takes place in the corporation, at retail, and in
other environments. Different environments offer different opportunities for
the brand to interact with the customer. And different environments create
different limitations on how musical ideas can be exposed, how they will
be attended to and how they will affect the actions of the hearer.
To employ audio branding effectively, in the retail space, we need to
understand three things. First, we need to understand some strengths and
weaknesses of music as a vehicle for persuasive communication. Second,
we need to understand the needs, opportunities and limitations of the retail
space, in order to find the best theoretical opportunities. Third, we need
to understand previous experience in solving these problems: experience
derived from research and from the activities of early users.

1. Music as persuasion
Music is the expression of an idea, an expression as direct and sometimes
as influential as a verbal expression, or the expression of a visual idea.
This form of expression has different strengths and weaknesses than
other forms, and must be designed and focused to accomplish what it does
best. Here are some examples.
188 Audio Branding

A musical idea is not as cognitively explicit as a verbal idea. It cannot

be reasoned with, or be part of an argument which might persuade the
hearer to take a particular action. The other side of this is that a musical
idea cannot be argued with. One does not hear a melody and think, ‘Oh
that’s not true. In fact, the opposite is true.’
Yet a musical idea may persuade just as certainly as a verbal idea may
persuade. It can express a spirit that its hearer wishes to join with. If a
hospital wants to make itself feel like a warmer and more soothing and
reassuring environment in which to endure a high-anxiety experience,
verbal messages won’t get it done.
But music surely can. As you’re already heard, music can express
values that its hearer wants to subscribe to and support. Most of all, it can
provoke an emotional response that enlists the heart of the hearer. It has at
least as much power as the most eloquent words to move us to laughter or
to tears. And this strong emotional power may induce action on its own, or
it may make us more responsive to persuasion by visual or verbal means.
While a musical idea may be less explicit than a verbal idea, it has
a much greater power to differentiate. In the crowded categories
of commercial persuasion, many of the most relevant messages are
already associated with another brand. But we never run out of new
music. Variations on an already known theme are recognizable, and the
recognition is enjoyable.
Communicators work hard to come up with words that will be
memorable, and they don’t always succeed. But pieces of music will stick
in your mind, and pop up again and again.
In the meantime, visual ideas can be quicker, near-instantaneous, but
musical ones have a wonderful ability to build intensity through duration.
And a musical message carries the presumption of enjoyment. It doesn’t
feel like an imposition, or something you try to get rid of. When a moment
of melody has been associated with a pleasant experience, it brings to
mind that experience each time it occurs.
Music can evoke your membership or relationship with a group. It can
evoke ethnicity, age cohort, social class, region, or nation, all without
being offensive. What’s more, it can be cosmopolitan and universal, as the
communicator decides.
Music works with both active and passive listening, and may clearly
communicate an emotion in either mode. It doesn’t require you to divert
attention from what you are doing.
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 189

Music’s message is not subject to legal restriction. You can express

whatever values you wish, without making any regulated claim.
Music can magnify or accelerate other forms of persuasion. It can
intensify a verbal message or a visual message or both together. It can draw
new attention to a verbal message that has been around for a long time.
Outside of mass media, it is sometimes difficult for music to be confined
to a particular physical space. Music played in a particular supermarket
aisle, for example, will leak over into adjoining aisles.
The pioneers of audio branding have found that they can create a
repeatable musical mini-event that expresses the values that a brand uses
to build a relationship with its customer. If a brand is ‘a promise about the
customer experience’, music may be able to communicate that experience
more emotionally, more authentically, more believably than a verbal
assertion can. As brands move more and more beyond a proposition to an
experience, music becomes more and more important in communicating
what the brand is.

2. Persuasion issues in the retail space

The retail environment has needs, limits and opportunities that are
different from the mass media space and the corporate space. The
following are some of them.
First and most important, retail spaces allow for instant action in
response to persuasion. Even a relatively small and temporary persuasive
event can produce a transaction. The distance between choosing to act
and not choosing to act is nowhere else as small as it is at the retail point-
of-sale. And yet a small change in the conversion rate – the percentage of
visitors who make a transaction – is an earth-shaking event for the retailer.
What is more, in many categories, a first transaction has a large effect on
attitudes toward the brand. Most musical experiences in mass media, even
online, do not provide such an instant opportunity to act.
The retailer’s goals include both differentiation of the retailer, and
differentiation of brands within the retailer. Either or both can provoke
action. Either or both can grow the business. Each is available to the
persuasive power of music. It can be directed at the identity of the store. It
can be directed at the identity of a department within the store. Right now,
some supermarkets try to differentiate their high-margin imported foods
section. And music is a logical tool for that.
Or, in a department store, for example, it can be focused on a section
that showcases a single designer brand. This will not work where the
190 Audio Branding

brand has only a tiny space – a facing on a shelf – but it is common for
designer brands to have a small section of their own, and a musical brand
can work in that space.
Differentiation between retailers is largely emotional. Competitors
deliver similar services, but customers develop strong preferences for
one or the other. Where differences are primarily emotional, emotional
persuasion can have a powerful and immediate effect on behaviour.
A retailer’s brand identity has a powerful effect on its margin. Some
stores can charge a lot more for arguably similar products. Where musical
persuasion can change or intensify a retailer’s brand identity, it can create
or sustain a margin advantage.
In many categories, retailers struggle with scepticism about explicit
verbal claims. ‘Best value’, ‘longest lasting’, ‘finest craftsmanship’ are
all empty words. A need is created for a kind of message that does not
provoke disbeliefs. The kind of value statements made in a brand’s music
do not trigger scepticism or disbelief. But values are recognizable in
an audio brand, in the moment of music that a customer is exposed to
in-store.
A critical problem in retail operations is creating a consistent
experience. Retailers have to ‘live the brand’. But the theatre of retail is
performed by fallible human beings, in real time, with all kinds of personal
or mechanical or supply-chain issues that threaten the consistency of
the experience. Audio branding provides a part of the experience – an
emotional part of the experience – where consistency is easy to produce.
It is not a contradiction to say that, in addition to providing a consistent
experience, the retailer is constantly asked to create the sense of a
special event, a momentary difference in the experience that is a special
opportunity for the buyer. You can always put up another ‘Sale’ sign. But on
an emotional level, you can also help to create the sense of an event with a
change in the music environment. It can be within the bounds of a musical
brand, but new and different and more intense. It can magnify other verbal
and visual communications of the special event. It can fit in with the visual
imagery of the event. And it leaves room for other special events down the
road, each one different from its predecessors, unless the marketer wants
them to be the same.
Sometimes a brand at retail has to encompass a whole bundle of unlike
things. This is an obstacle for visual communication, because a picture
needs to be a picture of one single thing. It can be difficult to make a
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 191

picture of the brand essence, of the values held in common by the various
products in a brand. That kind of visual is not often seen at retail. But
musical persuasion is well-adapted to this task. It can sing the brand no
matter how many or how diverse the products are.
A problem at retail is the amount and density of verbal and visual
messages. A supermarket aisle is intense visual popcorn: messages on
almost every square inch of shelf space, often the same size and shape
as dozens of others in the category. If you want to add a message to that
maelstrom, it probably cannot be another verbal or visual message – there
is no power to grab attention from what’s already there. But you can add a
musical overlay – like the exotic background a supermarket might provide
for its imports section – for the audio space is wide open and uncrowded.
The United States is grossly over-stored. In big cities and suburbs, the
competitive environment is brutal. If you could magically make every fifth
store disappear, in almost every category, the shopper would hardly even
be inconvenienced. There would still be someplace close, someplace that
speaks to your segment, someplace that carries pretty much exactly what
you want. And so, for the retailer, now more than ever, differentiation is a
survival issue. A clear, distinct and desirable brand identity is almost as
critical as a competitive price-point. Audio branding is the differentiation
tool that has yet to be employed in most competitive categories. It
can communicate a difference in style and values that magnifies and
intensifies everything you do with merchandising and store décor and
signage and brand choices. And like every other innovation at retail, in will
deliver its richest value to the early adopter.

3. What can we learn from what has already been done?

Though audio branding in its current form is a recent development,
retailers and people who study retailers have experimented and tested
alternative forms of musical persuasion for years. Their experiences and
findings close off some pathways and open lots of others.
Dr Philip Kotler of Northwestern did early work on what he called
‘atmospherics’ (Kotler, 1974). His conclusions help to frame a lot of the
work that came later. Kotler said people respond to the whole experience
of buying and consuming a product, including ‘atmospherics’, and
that in making choices, atmospherics can be more powerful than the
characteristics of the product itself. He found atmospherics to be most
powerful at the place where the product is purchased or consumed, and
192 Audio Branding

more important in decision-making where product or price differences

are small. Kotler found that atmospherics modify both the information the
consumer collects and the consumer’s affective state. He traced effects
in attracting attention, in message creation and in emotional response
creation. Han, Back and Barrett (2009) found 60 different academic studies
in which changes in atmospherics changed consumer behaviour.
The psychologist Janishevsky studied low-involvement decision-making
in buying and consuming products. He asserts that attitudes can be
formed about a product without conscious thought (Janishevsky, 1988). He
describes a phenomenon called pre-attentive processing, in which people
monitor sensory inputs to detect where they should shift their attention –
without being consciously aware of doing so. His research found support
for the idea that preferences for one brand or perhaps one retailer over
another can be generated independent of conscious thought. If this is
true, then it is important for the audio brand-maker, because music could
presumably be a powerful way to form pre-conscious emotional ideas of a
brand. Numerous other studies have replicated the effect of strong musical
influence on purchase behaviour in low-involvement situations.
Mehrabian and Russell proposed a structure for measuring the effects
of atmospherics, a structure which many others have adopted, called
PAD (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). It proposes three responses to
atmospherics:

●● pleasure/displeasure (P);
●● arousal/non-arousal (A); and
●● dominance/submission (D), by which they mean a perception by the
shopper that he or she is or is not in control of the experience.

The P dimension is associated with time spent. A higher P score means

more time spent in the store. The A dimension is associated with interest
in, or focus on the product, and willingness to explore. The D dimension
seems to control satisfaction with the experience of a retail store visit. The
idea is that the marketer should be able to measure the effectiveness of his
in-store atmospherics, and modify them to produce desired changes.
Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn et al (1994) used the PAD instrument to
get shoppers’ perceptions of a store’s retail experience after five minutes in
the store. The scores significantly predicted liking, enjoyment, friendliness,
willingness to return, and expectation to spend more than expected.
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 193

The pleasure/displeasure part alone predicted most. The dominance factor

was not predictive. The scores were shown statistically to be ‘additional’
to cognitive factors like price, quality, and perception of value. Changes in
store liking (50 per cent) were greater than extra spending (12 per cent), but
both were clearly connected to the PAD score. The same study (along with
several others) associated a positive musical experience with spending
more time in-store. In some retail categories, more time spent predicts
more purchases (Donovan et al, 1994).
Several studies (North et al, 2004; MacInnis and Whan Park, 1991; Dubé
and Morin, 2001) have demonstrated that music is a statistically significant
factor in impulse buying and that changes in music will change impulse
buying behaviour.
Two studies (Beverland et al, 2006; Mattila and Wirtz, 2001) suggest
that mistakes in choosing atmospherics can produce negative changes
in behaviour. What appears to be most important is ‘fit’ with expectations,
brand perceptions, and the other atmospherics.
Two studies (Areni and Kim, 1993; Dubé and Morin, 2001) have
suggested that music will usually be the primary influence among the
atmospherics. Factors within music were genre, style, voice, tempo, and
lyrics.
Building on these studies, Ballouli and Bennett (2014) found several
consistent effects on consumers from music experienced at retail:

1 Shoppers who hear brand-specific music will perceive a higher degree

of ‘fit’ than shoppers who hear generic music.
2 Different shoppers have measurably different levels of responsiveness
to music in the retail experience.
3 Shoppers who perceive a ‘fit’ between the music and the brand/store
had a more positive evaluation of the environment, and therefore of the
shopping experience.
4 Perception of ‘fit’ increased satisfaction with the experience, which
produced an increase of positive attitudes toward the brand.

The Areni and Kim (1993) study referenced above describes a specific
experiment in which a wine shop played on alternate occasions classical
music and music described as ‘Top 40’. At a statistically significant level,
they found that the classical music occasions were associated with larger
purchases – not more bottles, but more expensive wines. A similar wine
194 Audio Branding

shop experiment associates a shift from French music to German music

with a shift in purchasing toward more German and fewer French wine
purchases (Ballouli and Bennett, 2014).
Finally, a controlled experiment, run by the Audio Consulting Group
(Langeslag et al, 2011), exposed visitors to a supermarket chain to in-store
music which included a well-established and well-known audio brand for a
particular wine. During the period of the experiment, sales of the sparkling
wine category grew (as year-end holidays approached) by about 18 per
cent. But sales of the brand whose brand melody was included in the
music increased by 48 per cent, more than twice as much.

In other words
As brand communicators, music messages work quite differently than do
verbal or visual messages. They have different strengths and weaknesses,
and so must be used differently. Strengths include a power to differentiate,
a power to deliver clear and compelling emotional messages, and the
ability to make a particular environment or experience more pleasant and
more satisfying for the hearer.
Musical messages are particularly effective in the retail space, and
can be matched closely with basic retail strategic objectives, including
the differentiation of a store from competitors, changes in shopper
behaviour while in the store, such as time spent, impulse buying, the level
of involvement with specific products, pleasure and satisfaction with the
shopping experience, and attitudes toward brands formed while in the store.
A large cohort of peer-reviewed and published academic and
business studies demonstrates and quantifies the power of persuasion
via music. It includes such effects as creating, clarifying, and intensifying
emotional responses to products, creating pre-conscious attitudes toward
low-involvement products, increasing impulse buying, intention to return
to the store, and others. Several elaborately controlled experiments
show quantifiable sales changes produced by changes in the musical
environment at retail. Results are replicated over and over again by many
different researchers.
Now let’s look at other service environments with audio branding.
Designers of the customer service environment can learn a lot from
the retailer’s experience using music as a way to increase customer
satisfaction. But there are also three enormous opportunities specific to
the service sector.
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 195

1. Music as a vehicle to brand the service experience

Consider the hotel. Most of what it offers is pure commodity. But subtle
differences in the guest experience are the key to differentiation, preference,
and the loyalty that is key to profitability. Many hotels have learned to play
background music in their public spaces. But now a few have begun to use
music strategically, as a tool for branding. Mangini and Parker summarize
research that measures their successes (Mangini and Parker, 2009).
Background music has been shown, in a long series of studies (Mangini
and Parker, 2009) to increase verbal exchanges, and other affiliative
behaviours between customers and service representatives. A positive
interaction with service reps will generalize to the brand, and may be a key
to preference.
Hotels, like many service environments, have occasions for customer
anxiety, about scheduling, coordination, and other details of the service
experience. There is evidence that background music can reduce anxiety
during waiting situations, and increase the presence of a relaxed state
(Mangini and Parker, 2009).
Several studies say people spend more time in environments where
music is perceived as congruent with the desired experience. For hotels
with lounges and restaurants and so forth, that time is money.
Brand personality can be a differentiator, a driver of trust, a source of
preference and loyalty. It can be a sustainable competitive advantage.
For hotels, the physical environment, more than anything else, expresses
the brand personality, creates a mood, forms and alters perceptions and
attitudes. The strategic use of music is a simple and powerful way to
tailor the customer’s perception of the environment. In an experiment, a
restaurant’s shift to upscale, classical music made customers perceive the
restaurant as more intelligent and more decorative. Music that consciously
reflects a chosen set of brand values should be able to help make the
experience more consistent and more differentiated.
There is a critical role for music on the website of a service
organization. The website has become the first resort, the front line of the
service experience. Now, a website is not like other media. To an extreme
degree, the customer using a website is engaged simultaneously in a
media environment and an unmediated environment – on the site and in
the physical world. Experiments with music on a website demonstrate
more interest in the content, more emotional arousal, and less attention
to the physical environment (Mangini and Parker, 2009). Another study
196 Audio Branding

says that music can improve access to Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow state’,

‘intrinsically enjoyable’ and ‘accompanied by a loss of self-consciousness’
(Hoffman and Novak, 1996). An increase in the flow state has been shown
to increase information retention, and is associated with more positive
perceptions of the website experience.

2. Music for anxiety reduction

A common characteristic of the service environment is that the customer
is not in control. Outcomes might be more desirable or less desirable, and
the customer’s ability to determine outcomes is limited. A large number of
tests over a broad range of circumstances illuminate the role of music as a
reducer of anxieties.
The extreme situation most frequently studied is anxiety in a hospital’s
pre-op waiting room, where patients spend time before a surgical
procedure. There is an ongoing increase in ‘day surgery’, where a patient
comes in for a procedure and leaves the same day. Day surgeries have
significantly longer pre-op waiting times. They produce higher anxiety
because the patient is in this new environment without much time
for orientation (Cooke et al, 2005). Now, this kind of powerful anxiety
is medically significant. Anxiety creates both mental and physical
discomfort. It affects cognitive abilities. It slows recovery and increases
post-operative pain. It can be addressed with drugs, but hospitals don’t
want to give anxiolytic medicines to people who will be released soon
(Lee et al, 2012).
An experimental study by Lee et al (2012) attempted to measure changes
in anxiety in response to music, as measured by heart-rate variation, and
a traditional measure, a visual analogue scale (VAS) in which the patient
describes his own anxiety level on a 10-point scale. The study used music,
delivered via headphones in the pre-op waiting room. The experimental
group got the music and a control group did not. The experimental group
experienced significant reductions in heart-rate variability and in the
VAS score. The control group did not. The experimental group also got
significant reductions in low-frequency heart-rate variation, and in the
ratio of low-to-high heart-rate variation. They got an increase in high-
frequency heart-rate variation, which is seen as a positive. (It is associated
with deep, even breathing.) The control group did not.
Fourteen similar studies were reviewed by Cooke, Chaboyer, and
Hiratos. All but two found significant anxiety reduction, and significant
differences between experimental and control groups, including various
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 197

physiological measures and the proven 40-item STAI anxiety measurement

questionnaire (Cooke et al, 2005).
It is not useful to overstate the relationship between pre-surgery anxiety
and the milder anxiety you might experience at the auto repair shop, or
some other service location. But it does appear that appropriate music has
demonstrated a powerful ability to reduce anxiety, and that there is a clear
case for experimentation in other places where service anxiety occurs.

3. Can music reduce the annoyance of service waiting time?

Waiting time has an almost perfect negative correlation with satisfaction
in the consumer service environment (Bailey and Areni, 2006). Managers
try to address it with improvements in operational efficiency, but that is
seldom enough. Service operations have tried many ways to manipulate
perceived waiting time. There are studies of environmental colour
schemes, entertainment, tasks to complete while waiting, reassurances
from service personnel. Results are not definitive.
One small bright spot is waiting time on the telephone, on hold. It’s easy
to experiment here, and people have. Results seem clear (Ramos, 1993).
Change your tune and you change the number of hang-ups.
But experiments with music involving in-person, on-premise waiting
time don’t tell a very coherent tale. North and Hargreaves, building on
earlier research, tried to find the appropriate level of complexity in music
that might reduce perceived waiting time (North and Hargreaves, 1999).
Their experiment exposed four groups of waiting respondents to different
musical experiences: music of very low complexity, music of moderate
complexity, and very complex music, plus a group that got no music at all.
The no-music group had three times as many people who left early, but the
three music groups had roughly identical patience.
Bailey and Areni (2006) propose a model with two countervailing
factors. If music works to shorten perceived waiting time, perhaps it works
by reducing attention you pay to monitoring passage of time. Less temporal
information is encoded by the brain, and perceived time spent is shorter.
If that’s true, familiar music will work better. However, the more things
recalled as having happened during the waiting period, the longer it is
perceived to be. So if a lot of musical events are specifically remembered,
the perceived duration of the wait will be longer. Then the ideal would be
music that is liked, but perhaps not noted in detail. Sounds like a problem
not entirely solved.
But a third study (Stratton, 1992) suggests that, independent of
perceived time, respondents waiting with music find the wait less stressful.
198 Audio Branding

Ca s e Barnes-Jewish Hospital

The future of audio branding in healthcare and beyond

Way back in Chapter 1, when we were giving examples, we talked about a

hospital. We invited you to walk into the admissions area and hear the clatter of
trolleys, the chatter of announcements, the buzz of phones, everything that says,
‘You’re in an institutional environment’. Nothing that says, ‘Welcome, friend’. No
sounds to help convey the experience you wish for the patient, family, or staff,
such as confidence, optimism, teamwork, or scientific rigour.
Let’s revisit this hospital. We bring this up because hospitals present more
audio opportunities than do most brands.
Would you like to make people feel they have waited less time on hold? Could
you make their walks down long corridors more pleasant? Would you like to help
patients relax as they get out of their cars at the car park? Want them to feel
your brand values, even if they’re not actually paying close attention to the TV or
video when your organization’s ad runs?
These are just a sampling of the places where you can put custom-tailored
audio to work for your organization to create a unified and coherent experience
that builds your brand in dozens of subtle ways.
In hospitals, besides the advertising and masses of branded content, there are
car parks, corridors, customer service lines, treatment rooms, and community
events. In fact, these days, hospitals create so many videos about nutrition tips,
brain tumour care, nurses’ week, hospital tours, patient stories, and ‘Why Dr X
loves working at Hospital Y’ stories that they own a built-in platform to build a
long-lasting brand earprint. Some hospitals we’ve researched have more than
700 pieces of video content online. Imagine if they all merely began and ended
each video with their own brand’s audio logo. As NBC does with its famous
three-note chime (G, E and C), a hospital can easily distinguish its content from
that of its competitors with an audio logo as well as other audio-branding tools.

Twelve places a hospital marketer can capture the value of its audio brand
The hospital has more places than most brands to turn a casual touchpoint into a
brand experience. These include:

1 advertising;
2 videos;
3 podcasts;
4 on-hold music;
 Music and Sound Design in Environments 199

5 car parks;
6 corridors;
7 waiting areas;
8 health fairs;
9 treatment rooms;
10 website;
11 mobile apps; and
12 shuttle services.

Barnes-Jewish put its music where its brand is

Barnes-Jewish, a large teaching hospital in St Louis, which is known for its
excellence in medicine and its innovation, has done much to enhance the
patient experience. From the facilitation of communication in 90 languages,
to concierges from 5-star hotels, and night noise-level reductions to a less-
confusing check-out process, they are constantly looking for ways to improve
their encounters with patients and their families.
At the same time and unlike many other hospitals, they have looked deeply
into creating distinctive music that can help carry this message of care and
compassion along with the confidence of their medical expertise. And with
an eye to the long view, they assembled a cross-functional group including
corporate, nursing staff, cancer centre, marketing, and agency to help define the
audio vocabulary that expresses their evolving brand.
The result is a distinctive sound within the hospital category. Still new to the
world, it’s being used in their new TV commercials and will replace the music
in their older ones, creating coherence and saving them the cost of renewing
music licences.
Though the commercials are scored differently according to their narratives,
they carry a coherent and recognizable audio sound throughout their musical
scores. For instance, one spot tells the touching story of a victim of nerve
damage who had the use of his arm restored, starting with very poignant
and slow piano and building in instrumentation and tempo to a triumphant
conclusion; the other follows the bicycle ride of a man who used to suffer from
a heart condition, in which the music is treated more rhythmically. When the
logo appears in both commercials, the audio logo underscores it, leaving a
memorable earprint.
So often, when logos appear in TV, the music either stops dead or flows along
almost pointing your attention away from the logo and tagline. Distinctive audio
should support and punctuate the appearance of the logo in the end frame.
200 Audio Branding

This music is destined to move beyond commercials and, following the 12

points we identified above, into the holistic brand experience. Since the hospital
is challenged with speaking in more than 90 languages, their move to using the
universal language of music is yet another way to make itself understood.

The future of music in the healthcare sector

While creating the desired image for your organization is one important goal for
your audio efforts, it is also important to know that, moving forward, sound may
also have some other tangible impacts as well. For one instance among many,
researchers with the Bill Wilkerson Center at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center have received a grant to explore music’s impact on brain functioning
and determine how it can be used to treat a variety of illnesses and conditions.
While more work needs to be done to fully understand the connection, this is an
exciting field that holds much potential.
What this all means is that perhaps in the not-too-distant future, music and
the use of other sounds may move beyond being an identifier and messenger to
actually a method of treating ailments.
By then, the smartest healthcare systems will have their own established
audio identities from which to build new (and identifiable) music treatments.
More importantly, smart marketers in virtually every field can learn from this
in the use of music direction and discover ways they can use music and sound
to truly add value to their efforts. Come along with them and see what you can
do with sound for your brand and your customers. Once you do, you just might be
playing a new tune in brand equity and customer satisfaction.

References
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behaviour: classical vs top-forty music in a wine store, Advances in Consumer
Research, vol 20, pp 336–40
Bailey, N and Areni, CS (2006). When a few minutes sounds like a lifetime: Does
atmospheric music expand or contract perceived time?, Journal of Retailing,
vol 82 (3), pp 189–202
Ballouli, K and Bennett, G (2014) New (sound) waves in sport marketing: do
semantic differences in analogous music impact shopping behaviours of sport
consumers?, Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol 23 (2), pp 59–72
Beverland, M, Lim, EAC, Morrison, M and Terziovski, M (2006) In-store music
and consumer-brand relationships: Relational transformation following experi-
ences of (mis) fit, Journal of Business Research, vol 59 (9), pp 982–89
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Cooke, M, Chaboyer, W, Hiratos, MA (2005) Music and its effect on anxiety in short
waiting periods: a critical appraisal, Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol 14, pp 145–55
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revisit intention: The roles of emotions and switching barriers, International
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pp 48–64
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stimuli on purchase behaviour, Audio Branding Academy Yearbook, 2011/2012,
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music listening reduces pre-operative patients’ anxiety, Biological Research for
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music on high- and low-involvement consumers’ processing of ads, Journal of
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for hotel firms, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol 15 (1), pp 53–61
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MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
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musical and voice ‘fit’ on Responses to advertisements, Journal of Applied Social
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 203

GLOS S ARY

Audio branding as a discipline is still consolidating its vocabulary. To help ensure

we’re speaking the same language, we’ve captured some of the most common
terms, providing our definition of them.

Acoustic branding see audio branding

Audio adaptations The pieces of music that are derived from your brand sound
and that specifically fit the unique psychological and contextual needs of each
touchpoint.
Audio branding The big one! It’s how you sound to the world. It’s both a system
and a discipline. You want people to recognize your audio brand, no matter
where they hear it, whether their eyes are open or closed, whether they’re listen-
ing to a radio spot, in one of your locations (or trade-show booth for a B2B
brand), on hold with your customer service centre, or watching a how-to video.
To achieve this goal, you should create a system of music that conveys the
meaning of the brand at each touchpoint. You manage it so your stores, your
ads, your service line, and your customer support don’t sound like four totally
different brands.
It’s also important to note that audio branding has also been called music
branding, sonic branding, sound branding, and acoustic branding.
Audio DNA A short (under one minute) original composition that captures the
values, personality, and core promise of the brand as well as defines the musical
vocabulary of instrumentation, tempo, melody etc that the brand will use across
your multiple audio touchpoints. It’s your musical bible.
Audio identity The bad news is that you have one of these, whether you manage
it or not. It’s the sum total of the audio impressions your brand makes. And it
impacts your visual brand as well. Cacophony or coherence? Take your pick.
Audio logo The hardest-working part of your audio DNA, your logo appears at the
end of every piece of communication. It’s the perfect partner to the animation of
your visual logo.
To describe these short 2- to 3-second sounds, you might also hear the word
‘mnemonic’ used but the original meaning of that word refers to ‘memory’ or
‘memorability’ so we feel this usage is weak. At other times, people say ‘sting’,
which sounds as if its role is attention-grabbing. But a logo is more profound. It
performs both the aforementioned functions, but also conveys meaning, values,
and personality.
Audio Style Guide This handy piece catalogues all the audio elements available that
are based on your audio DNA and gives you the rules of the road. Some are
interactive, so employees, partners, and agencies can hear samples of each piece.
204 Glossary

Audio touchpoints Points of employee and customer contact that create big and
small brand experiences that are audio-enabled. An audio identity unifies them
so that when you hear it, you attribute the positive experiences to the brand.
Here are three examples:
•• Branded content Like any show in TV or radio, a recognizable intro, a variety
of on-brand musical interstitials and a memorable ‘outro’ helps your audiences
remember that you provided the content without banging them over the head
with announcements. (You will find a more complete list of touchpoints in
Chapter 4.)
•• Customer service line Branded music for pre-pickup and on-hold that aims to
give your callers pleasant brand experiences and, in the best cases, discourages
them from hanging up. Sometimes your on-hold includes ambient sounds and
scripted recordings by voices that best capture the personality of the brand or
meet the needs of the audience.
•• Meetings and events In meetings, there’s a real chance to subtly immerse your
employees or other audiences in the sound of the brand. As they walk into your
meeting they hear anticipatory background music, then more energetic music
signals the event is about to begin. A further rise in energy introduces the key
speaker, branded musical transitions between each speaker let people know
there’s a change coming, and exit music has them walking out carrying the
emotion of the event.
Brand Another term for your product or service or what prospects and customers
think about your product or service and what it provides to them functionally
and emotionally. Some in the branding world also use this term to refer to the
visual logo, a reference to a branding iron and the mark it left on the cow.
Brand essence The core of the brand – what the marketer wants the brand to
represent. Often structured as two words bordering on the oxymoronic, it helps
define the brand’s outer boundaries and what it will provide the consumer func-
tionally and/or emotionally.
Brand promise see brand essence.
Brand values The behaviours and beliefs the brand holds valuable, often aligning
with the behaviours and beliefs of the brand’s ideal consumer.
Environmental sound design Here we are talking about the soundscapes for physi-
cal spaces like shopping centres, spas, airports, or expos, where music and
sounds are used to create the environment you desire. For instance, the sound-
scape is designed to make the audience feel comfortable, relaxed, awestruck, or
amused. If you already have an audio brand, you can drop little hints of that
into the sound of your environment.
Licensed music Typically, this music has been created for entertainment purposes
rather than for branding. To use it on behalf of a brand, you have to pay a
licensing fee. One thing marketers must also do when using licensed music is
ensure that competitors aren’t using that same piece as well.
Mnemonic see audio logo
 Glossary 205

Music branding see audio branding

Sonic branding see audio branding
Sound branding see audio branding
Sound design When we use this term, we often mean the manipulation of sounds or
the addition of sound effects, but it’s an evolving phrase. Another usage refers to
creating the sounds that are used for devices or vehicles. And a third for chang-
ing the sound that an instrument makes. For instance, near a display of electric
cars, you might manipulate audio to make the music feel more electronic and
near petrol-powered vehicles let it sound more acoustic. Or, in a video, sound
design can add the sounds of people eating in a restaurant or walking in a
rainforest.
It also can refer to creating an appropriate sound for the medium – that
sound will be different for a mobile phone than for a giant theatre.
Sting see audio logo
Winks Also called brand winks and clins d’oeil, are short reminders of the brand
woven, now and then, among the music being played in brand environments.
They often include the audio logo and a further sound, words, or song segments
that bring out the personality of the brand. The intention is to lightly and,
usually, playfully bring attention back to the brand.
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i n de x

Note: Italics indicate a Figure or Table in the text.

Abercrombie & Fitch 38, 77, 132 Audio Branding Congress xiv–xvi
AC Nielsen 93 Audio Consulting Group xv
acoustic branding 203 audio DNA 16, 23, 27, 41, 51, 59, 60,
advertising 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 16, 21, 66, 72, 61, 65, 66, 82, 88, 89, 90, 125,
81, 82, 94, 95, 113–16, 128, 145, 127, 128, 130, 136, 137, 140,
156, 157, 158, 162, 171, 172, 141, 144, 156, 157, 160, 171,
177, 198 172, 203
advertising awareness of 113 audio identity 2–3, 10, 41, 104, 129, 144,
aided and unaided awareness 113 157, 203
Alka-Seltzer 149 audio library 75–76, 77
Alstom 14 audio logo 1, 66, 72, 90, 91, 118, 128,
Apple 4, 9, 22, 33, 50, 130 145–46, 157, 203
apps 57, 155 audio logo system 161
Areva 6–7 audio ‘mood’ boards 124–26
Asian Paints 37 examples 125–26
Atkinson, Rowan 4 Audio Style Guide 129, 143–44, 161, 203
Atlanta 70–71, 178 example 144–49
Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB) audio touchpoints 66–77, 91, 146, 204
case study 134–37 AXA 6, 88
‘atmospherics’ 191–92 case study 171–75
audio adaptations 203 global advertising audio library 172,
audio brand launch 139–56 173
approaches 140–43
audio branding 1–18, 27, 65–83, 90, B2B 29, 30, 52, 65, 113, 136
203, 205 Baby Bell 6
as a system 3–7 Banagale, Ryan Raul 159
brand launch 139–56 Barclaycard 4–5
cues 23, 28, 115–16 Barňes-Jewish Hospital 198–200
deconstruction/layering 105–06 Bennett, Paul 174–75
differential through sound 23–24, Bingham, David 151
78–79, 80, 175 BMW 8–9
digital age and 19–44 Borgerson, Janet 162
do’s and don’ts for marketers 89–92 Boumendil, Michaël 11–15, 17,
emotional responses 60 178, 186
environments and 5, 73–74, 187–98 Brace, Christopher 33
feedback 131 Brainjuicer 31, 36, 39
lifestyle and 8–9 brand audio identity 85–101
maintaining/evolving 157–76 assessing strength 128
process 121–22, 123, 124–37 leadership style and 85
protecting 160–62 luxury and 87
reasons for 51–52 structure 86
‘re-lift’ 161 symbols 85, 86
role of senior management 161 brand briefing 122, 124
sharing with employees 160, 161 brand tracking 111–16
tools 65 design of 113–14
variety 160–61 insights from 112
see also music branded content 204
208 Index

branding 2, 31 Dengvaxia 6
auditory 50–51 Dial Soap 157
consumer value 46 DiSanti, Ben 31–34, 76
cultural differences 108–10 Douroux, Jean 82
example questionnaire 109 Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. 150
metrics 29, 30 Dyson 152
organizational culture and 139
purpose of 46 Edwards, Webley 168–69
rhyme and rhythm of 131–33 Enel 140
sensory 45–64 Eno, Brian 50
strategic role 20 environmental music 177–201
tactile 48 airports 177–78
touch 48 anxiety reduction 196–97
US spending on 20 as persuasion 187–89
visual 46–47 ‘atmospherics’ 191–92
see also audio branding, rebranding audio branding and 5, 73–74, 187–98
brands 12, 19, 204 brand ‘winks’ 187, 205
audacity 181 hotels 184–86
audio 24–29, 85–101, 128 humour 186
audio DNA 16, 23, 27, 41, 51, 59, 60, impact on staff 178–7
61, 65, 66, 82, 88, 89, 90, 125, internet streaming 178
127, 128, 130, 136, 137, 140, 141, learning from experience 191–92
144, 156, 157, 160, 171, 172, 203 listening to your employees 179–80
authenticity 96, 181 public announcements 178
champion 130 reducing annoyance from waiting 197
congruity 104 retail space 189–91
DNA 27, 50 shoppers and 182–83
see also audio DNA sound design 204
emotional engagement 35–36, 39, 80 tips 186–87
essence/promise 24–25, 122, 204 values and 180–82
internal launch planning and zoning/dayparting 184–86
roll-out 129–30
intimacy 181 Fabrigas 49–50
launch 139–56 Fanichet, Christophe 17
retailing and 76–77 Fat Duck Research Kitchen, The 54
similarity to religions 157 FedEx 132
target audience 122 Fiat Motor Village 182
touchpoints 66–77, 91, 146, 204 Fitch 37
values 50, 106, 157, 180–82, 195, 204 Frey, Don 151–52
virtuosity 181 Fritz, Thomas 7–8
Brazeal, Mickey 92–96, 104, 187–98
Budweiser 118 Gains, Neil 46, 49, 131–33
Burberry 38 Gallup 36
Byron, Ellen 149–52 GE 151
Generation Z 140
Cadbury 157 Gilmour, David 17, 71
Cinnabon 37
Clinique 149–50 Harley-Davidson 4, 50, 132
Coca-Cola 132, 157 Harvard Business Review 29
Cochini, Laurent 97–99 Hawaii 162–70
Condiment Junkie 54 audio branding 165–69
Continental Airlines 5, 15 craze for 163–65
‘continuous partial attention’ 22–23 healthcare 198–200
copy testing 114–15 Heineken 132–33
Costco 39 Hershey Company, The 32, 33, 34, 162
customer service line 204 Hicks, Ken 31–34, 76
 Index 209

Hobkinson, Caroline 55 Method Products 151–52

Hoffman, Susan 25 metrics 30, 103–19
household products 149–52 close rate 30
Huggies 6, 161–62 company valuation 30
case study 40–42 perceived price/value 30
Hulten, B 45–46 unsolicited enquiries 30
Michelin 6, 88, 158
IBM 2 case study 81–82
Iddings, Drew 34 Microsoft 22, 50
ING Direct 9 Millennials 140
Intel 1, 4, 50, 72, 89 Minsky, Laurence 24
case study 116–18 Mitsubishi 257
Internet of Things 74–75 mnemonic see audio logo
Mood Media 49
James-Lundak, Molly 22 music 67–68
Janishevsky, C 192 ambience and 133
jingles 3 as persuasion 187–8
Johnson, Angela 5, 41, 42 brain and 87
brand authenticity and 96
Kearon, John 39 brand ‘winks’ 183, 205
Kellogg’s 149 branding the service experience
key performance indicators see 195–96
metrics colour and 88, 136
Kia Motors 47, 49 conveying luxury 87
King, Lisa 150–51 copyright law 183–84
Koelsch, Stefan 8 cultural differences 7–8,
Kotler, Dr Philip 191–92 88–89, 108
Kraft Recipes 67 customer service line 67, 204
Kroger 34 decision-making and 95–96
Krug 56–57 emotions and 75, 87, 94, 107
environment and 73–74m
La Roche-Posay case study 61 177–201
Lancôme Beauty Institute 6 expos/trade shows 70–71
Lewis, Lena 34, 39 financial sector 9
listening committee 124, 125, 136 impact on sales 110–11
logos 2 licensed 66, 184, 204
audio 1, 66, 72, 90, 91, 118, 128, meaning and 87–88, 93, 106
145–46, 157, 203 meetings/conferences 68–69, 204
visual 1, 24, 66, 72, 91, 118, 122 memory recall 94, 110
L’Oréal Group 61 messages and 93, 94
Louis XIII Cognac 59–61 mood/behaviour and 94–95
new product reveals 73
MACSF 142 press events 73
Mahoney, Tim 151 product sounds/signals 71–72
marketing purchasing intent and 96
digital 20–21 repetition 90
do’s and don’ts 89–92 research on effects 92–96, 106–08
landscape 20–24 retailers and 76–77
metrics 30, 103–19 ringtones 69–70, 147, 155
sensory 30, 45–64 spicy 57
targeted audiences 21 storytelling 132
touchpoints 21, 66–77 surround sound 77
Marriott Hotels 48 TV commercials 93, 177
Max Plank Institute for Human Cognitive videos 148
and Brand Sciences 7, 8 worldwide language 7–8, 90
McDonald’s 1, 25 musical messages 12, 14
210 Index

Nadal, Rafael 99 experience 31–34

Nestlé case study 59 functional engagement 36
Neuro-Insight 110 impulse buying 193
Nike 25–26 inspiration and 35–39
Nokia 4 multisensory triggers 36–39
North, Professor Adrian 87 music and 96, 182–83
storytelling 33–34, 76
Ogilvy 40 Siemens 157
Ogilvy Argentina 42 Singleton Sensorium, the 56
on-hold 50, 204 Sixième Son xvi, 11–15, 16, 24, 41, 65, 70,
marketing 143 76, 88, 89, 97–9, 105, 127, 129,
music 2, 23, 67, 90, 91, 130, 146, 135, 142, 153
154, 198 sonic seasoning 52–58
Owen, Ted 149–50 sound 54
design 205
Paris Auto Show 77–80 household products and 149–52
PepsiCo Inc. 150 meaning and 1
Peters, Julia Tang 19 senses and 54
Petit Bateau 182 taste and 55
Peugeot 6, 8, 88 Spence, Professor Charles 47, 52–57,
Pfizer Animal Health 140–41 58, 92
Pink, Racheal 152 Springate, Andrew 150
Presley, Elvis 168 Starbucks 38
Proctor & Gamble Co 151 Stella Artois 133
Stone, Linda 22
rebranding 27–29 synaesthetes 53–54
Remy Martin 60 Syntegrate Consulting 33
Renault 9, 70, 78
brand perception 154 Tagg, Philip 87–88
case study 152–56 TapestryWorks 131
RENFE 9 eSense framework 133
Resorts World Sentosa 49 Target 25, 31–32
ringtones 69–70, 147, 155 Thomas Pink 49
Robertson, Grant 117–18 Tiemans, Herman 160
Roland Garros (French Tennis Open) Topper, Gene 104, 111–16
case study 7–99 touchpoints 2, 10, 21, 22, 28, 38, 49,
Royal Air Maroc 88–89 51, 65, 66, 77, 91, 128, 139,
144, 156, 172, 174, 175,
Sabesp xv 203, 204
Samsung Galaxy 4 Trunk Club 47
Schroeder, Jonathan 162–70 TV commercials 72, 92, 93, 110, 156, 173,
Schultz, Howard 38 199–200
SCNF 9, 71, 103–04, 107, 114, 158, 183
case study 16–17 Unibail-Rodamco shopping centre,
senses 45, 131 Lyon 5–6
sight 46–47 United Airlines 5, 158–60
smell 37, 38, 48–50 Rhapsody in Blue 5, 158–60
sound 50–51, 131–32 ‘Safety is Global’ video 159
taste 47, 55
touch 48 Van Aelst, Geert 33–34
sensory marketing 45–64 Vanderbilt University Medical
‘sensploration’ 57 Center 200
SFR 141–42 visual logos 1, 24, 66, 72, 91, 118, 122
shopping 19 Volkswagen 151
emotional engagement 36 Volvo 78
 Index 211

Walking Brand xiv Xiol, Ramón Vives 77–80

Walmart 25
Werzowa, Walter 117 YouTube 7
Wilson, Andrew 134, 136, 137
winks 76, 182, 183, 187, 205 Zander, Mark 93
Winther, Julie 22 Zanna xv
Wrigley 33, 34
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