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Florencia Abila
I spent the last week before the holidays on recovery from a wisdom tooth extraction - maybe fortuitous given *gestures everything going in the world* - but a pleasant, almost forced relaxation after a whirlwind of a year.
Not only did it start to give a name to sounds that we had essentially married into our subconscious over the years, but the more I dived into it the more I learned that it was an actual branch of marketing - complete with strategies, agencies, and opportunities for brands.
Like anything in marketing, it seems simple from the outset but naturally complex in the actual process - Brian Ono created almost 84 different tunes for the iconic Windows 95 logo, quite a task for something that was *checks notes* about three seconds long.
When I first wrote about jingles last July, I became fascinated by the science behind why certain songs get stuck in our heads more than others and came up with a short framework to distinguish famous jingles from forgotten ones: MES.
Because of this, sonic branding needs more than just a catchy sound to capture hearts and minds - it needs to rely on the other two parts of MES very heavily: emotional connection and exposure.
Smart speakers are another exciting opportunity - imagining that you could turn on lightbulbs, microwaves, and thermostats with an Alexa gives essential household appliances suddenly the same sonic wield as an Apple. Any home appliance company can now think through whether they want a different identity with the functioning device. Checking the weather or a sports score could also come with its own sonic introduction - the equivalent of the NBC chimes for basic information.
One of the biggest changes for audio and day-to-day brand and product experience will happen in the mobility sector. With the gradual disappearance of the combustion engine, we're re-inventing the sound of mobility all together. The best of both worlds would be to focus on safety whilst keeping it ownable for your brand. But how do you do that? I bet there are a few Research and Development people at Harley Davidson HQ already pondering over that.
Sure, this is still likely not an immediate priority for most brands, and the easiest shortcut may be to tack on an identifiable sound at the end of a youtube video. But sonic branding is still a growing concept in the marketing world, and there is still lots of time to be early in adopting any part of a sonic identity: a logo, a simple transaction sound, or more. Agencies like Massive Music are among many agencies now curious about sound.
Sonic logos were common in the realm of international shortwave broadcasts. Each station had its own Interval Signal, which was repeated over and over during breaks in actual broadcasts, or during the few minutes before a scheduled broadcast started. Tuning on shortwave was tricky, and you sometimes needed to try a different frequency when the atmosphere was being unfriendly to your usual frequency. Hearing the Interval Signal for Havana or BBC told you instantly that you were there, ready for the start of real programs.
The days were mostly blurry, lost in a sea of new yogurt brands and a tantalizing rotation of painkillers, but I did what most people do when they\u2019re physically comatose: end up watching a lot of streaming.
TUDUM is Netflix\u2019s in-house name for the \u201Cstartup\u201D sound when the logo appears on the screen. As a fun tribute, Netflix apparently held a global fan event called \u201CTUDUM,\u201D all about unleashing new trainers and announcements.
One of my favorite definitions of sonic branding comes from an Adweek piece from way back in 2013 around the concept: the process of \u201Cdistilling a multimillion-dollar brand into a few seconds of sound\u201D. Typically, the outcome of sonic branding is a good sound or short jingle that can imprint a brand into your head - a \u201Csonic logo,\u201D if you will.
Think about every time you\u2019ve started or rebooted a computer in your life. You\u2019ve probably heard one of many unique chimes from Microsoft (Shout out, Windows 95, and Windows XP) or Apple (I\u2019m an Apple fanboy, but none of them are that great, let\u2019s honest) that distinguishes their computer from others. Every time you sit down to watch a show, start a game or hear a ring tone on the phone, you hear some product of sonic branding.
First, it\u2019s not uncommon for humans to be extremely sensitive to sound. Some of our first cerebral connections are made with objects and sounds - birds chirping, cars driving on the road, parents yelling, and more. Our fight and flight uses sound triggers constantly. The sensitivity is even apparent in science: it only takes around 0.146 seconds for human beings to react to sound.
The amount of memory you need to store a song is very different from the simple inhalation of sound. With songs that get stuck in your head, they tend to have very familiar melodic contours, simple lyrics, and a short length - generally 15 or 30 seconds. This is common with many of history\u2019s best jingles.
Sonic logos or sounds also need to get stuck in your head to the amount where you recognize them - but because they\u2019re so short, they\u2019re essentially competing with every other sound you hear.
You might not talk to someone while they\u2019re listening to a jingle - but you\u2019ll certainly talk to them while they\u2019re starting up a computer or buzzing up their fourth straight hour of Netflix.
Sonic logos are usually short enough to exist in your echoic memory - a subset of memory that relates to remembering sounds. Echoic memory is usually fairly automatic - if you talk to someone and understand them, it\u2019s because your echoic memory has retained your understanding of words over time.
If you think about the best sonic logos out there - HBO, Netflix, Intel, Xbox, and others - they\u2019re usually predicated on a pretty solid benefit. If you\u2019re watching television, you\u2019re getting top-notch entertainment. If you\u2019re playing Xbox, maybe you\u2019re motivated by the larger vision of a game. If you\u2019re logging onto a computer, you\u2019re ready to work on something important. Like jingles, it\u2019s not enough for a sound to exist. It should stir in you a carnal desire for something greater than just the spark of your echocic memroy.
Exposure is tougher compared to jingles. People don\u2019t walk down the street shouting \u201CTU-DUM\u201D or whistling the Intel logo while at work - exposure almost has to come from direct interaction with the product.
Social audio apps have seen a bit of a lull from the very apparent slowness of growth with Clubhouse. Still, with a growing portfolio of options from Spotify to Meta also introducing app rooms, there is a unique opportunity that sonic branding here has from an advertising perspective for brands. People may not want to hear long advertisements in a social audio space in the same way they\u2019re comfortable doing so on podcasts (where fast-forwarding is available and encouraged). In this case, something like a recurring sonic logo has a huge opportunity to make strides.
In-person experiences can also benefit from many sonic branding tweaks - custom soundscapes in public places, sound-based activities, and even sounds accompanied by simple things like receiving orders at a restaurant or changes in happy hour prices. The corollary to Instagrammable experiences are experiences that keep you engaged and willing to promote after they\u2019re done. Take a look even at this Burger King campaign about showing Ronald McDonald in the mirror if someone says \u201Ccanceled clown\u201D - points to the much larger potential of where audio-based experiences are headed.
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