Dan Jackson, founder of consultancy Sonicbrand®, gives a brief

overview of multi-sensory brand communications, and introduces a

recent research project undertaken to determine the current leaders in
the world of audio branding
Multi-sensory branding - what is it really?
Aristotle determined there were five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and
taste. Aristotle lived
2,300 years ago. There are actually (at least) nine human senses currently known.
To the above list can
be added thermoception (heat sensing) and nociception (pain) equilibrioception
(balance) and
proprioception (what your limbs are doing – you sense this without the need to see
it!).
Multi-sensory branding means that when designing brand experiences, whether in-
store, on the phone
or wherever, you take into account the fact that ALL these senses may in some way
contribute to the
customer’s decision to buy your product or service.
People are more than eyes and brains
The branding industry now and in the past has been obsessed with the visual –
logos, colours, fonts and
shapes. These have been used to grab people’s visual attention. Branding for the
rest of the senses has
followed the first rule of medicine – do no harm. As a result, smells, sounds,
touch et al have erred on
The Branding of Sound
GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
the side of safe and neutral. Safe and neutral does not lend itself well to deep
and meaningful brand
experience. Branding people tend to be really well educated in how to take ‘safe’
risks in visuals and
words but have no formal training in how to do the same for the other senses. A
new colour scheme or
tag-line is easily developed and sold but a new signature smell in store or
committing to a single piece
of music for more than five minutes?
The opportunity is to do for the other senses what has already been done for
sight. All the best colours
may have gone but not all the best tunes, smells or feelings. Right now, brands
need to take a little
time and budget to explore the possibilities because, generally speaking, the most
fastidious, exact and
well-defined brands are the most successful – and that is the point of multi-
sensory branding. It lets
your customers know that you want them to feel good and that you care about them
in every sense.
Audio branding – an introduction
After visual, audio is the second most powerful tool a brand has at its disposal
to communicate with
the customer. Audio branding is the use of sound for corporate identity and brand
experience. It is the
ownership of sound. And ideally, it is the use of this sound in all the places the
brand lives.
Audio branding is an established and successful specialism in advertising as well
as a constantly
evolving and surprising element of marketing communications.
At last count, over 70 of the UK’s top 200 advertisers use some consistent audio
branding as a
part of their corporate identity. These sounds have primarily been established by
advertising
agencies in response to the need for stronger, more multi-sensory branding
Now think. Do you really have a branded sound? The latest U2 track on your ad will
belong only to
them once your license runs out. The cheesy listening on your telephone hold
system belongs to the
devil…and most worrying of all, the in-store radio you have just signed up to
belongs to a third party
business with their anodyne, same-as-the-next-guy play lists. The fact is that
many brands who should
know better have given away their audio airtime to pop bands and Muzak. That is
why when a brand
comes along that truly brands in sound, it stands out a mile.
In the ten years since Intel unleashed its ‘audio logo’ on the world, the use of
short, musical sound
marks has dominated thinking around audio branding but the reality is that audio
branding is much
older than Intel and much more complex then a five note melody. At last count,
over 70 of the UK’s top
200 advertisers use some consistent audio branding as a part of their corporate
identity. These sounds
have primarily been established by advertising agencies in response to the need
for stronger, more
multi-sensory branding. But are any of them actually any good?
The following research documents and uncovers the truth about what it takes to
create memorable
audio branding, how to generate brand recall and whether consumers actually like
audio branding at all.
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GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
Audio Branding Research Wave 1
Background & Research Criteria
For this research study, we focused on the most fashionable element of audio
branding,
‘audio identifiers’, which have become common in advertising and product design
(user interface). We
have defined audio identifiers as any sound that is used consistently as a part of
a brand’s identity. This
opens up the subject of audio branding; from the prominent view that Intel is
audio branding to bring
into play the more subtle but equally effective types of audio identifier that
have been in use for many
years. For us, a spoken (or sung) tag line is classified as an audio identifier.
So are jingles, any short
pieces of music and functional sounds (such as the Windows start-up sound). All of
these can be heard
and are used by brands to form a part of their identity.
Audio branding needs to be at the centre of the advertising and marketing process.
It needs to
be inherently linked to good copywriting and art direction as well as the design
of products
and user interfaces
Although Intel has ploughed millions into its audio logo through broadcast media,
it is silent on-line and
has not put its sound mark in the user interfaces of the products in which it is
an ingredient. So, far
from being a ‘stuck on’ badge as the Intel sound mark is perceived to be, audio
branding needs to be at
the centre of the advertising and marketing process. It needs to be inherently
linked to good
copywriting and art direction as well as the design of products and user
interfaces.
With all this in mind, the research set out to identify best practice in audio
branding. Is a spoken tag
line more effective than a sung one? Is a sound mark more memorable than a jingle?
Who are the top
50 ‘audio branders’ in the UK market?
Glossary of Terms
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GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
Audio Branding – the creation and consistent management of brand identity and
experience in sound
Audio Identity – the totality of the sound of a brand
Audio Identifiers – any consistent audio elements that make up the identity
Types of Identifiers – voice, music, functional sounds, tag lines (spoken or sung)
& sound marks
(including audio logos)
Process
The research was carried out over seven days in August 2005 and with the help of
‘Other Lines of
Enquiry’, a Newcastle-based research specialist. Through Computer Aided Web
Interview (CAWI), we
asked a representative sample of 268 people, key questions about the audio
branding of 50 leading
brands in the UK.
For inclusion in the research, the audio branding must have been used:
1. In marketing communications on TV and/or radio in the last five years
Or
2. Used in more than one of the brand’s products
And
3. All audio identifiers must have been used in versions of five seconds or under.
These criteria were designed to select the most relevant and useful audio
identifiers for today’s
audience. ‘Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya’ may be the best audio branding for
the over 60s but it is not
current and along with countless old jingles, was not included. It is also worth
noting that the product
derived audio branding means that this is not simply a study of audio advertising.
The drive towards
shorter and stronger branding across all channels led us to the five-second rule.
(For reference, Intel’s
sound mark is 3.4 seconds long.)
Respondents listened to each audio identifier and were then asked three questions
before listening to
the next:
Question 1 (recognition): Do you recognise this sound clip?
Question 2 (brand recall): Which brand is it for?
Question 3 (likeability): How much do you like the sound clip? (1-5)
Findings & Conclusions
Fig.1: Top 10 ‘audio branders’ in the UK market (based on rankings for
recognition,
brand recall & likeability)
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GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
1. Kit Kat - “Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat”
2. Hamlet - “Happiness is a Cigar Called Hamlet”
3. HSBC - “The World’s Local Bank”
4. Danone - “Mmm, Danone”
5. Motorola - “Hello Moto”
6. Asda - Asda theme music
7. Garnier - “Garnier”
8. Frosties - “They’re Grrreat!”
9. Coco Pops - “I’d Rather Have a Bowl of Coco Pops”
10. Microsoft - Windows start-up sound
One: Be consistent for a long time… or buy lots of media
It may sound obvious, but it’s still worth saying that one of the most important
factors for successful
audio branding is exposure. Those brands that performed well overall are those
that have been heard
over a long time or very recently.
Kit Kat’s “Have a Break…Have a Kit Kat” has run consistently since the 1950s and
scored very highly
for recognition (Fig.2) and brand recall (Fig.3) – two memory-based questions.
“Talk Talk” has been
running for only a couple of years but the ‘recency’ of their audio branding,
being used to sponsor Big
Brother (hugely popular UK reality TV show) a short time before the research took
place, meant it was
able to score over 75% on recognition.
Over all, 7 of the top 10 most recognised ran consistently for more than five
years. HSBC, Motorola and
McDonald’s round out the list, despite being very young – McDonald’s only launched
“I’m Lovin’ It” in
2003 – and have all had very heavy media weight behind them.
Fig.2: Most recognised audio branding
General likeability also tends to score most highly when exposure to audio
branding has been recent.
Frequency over long periods of time seems to play a part in making the longest
running audio branding
– Hamlet, Kit Kat & Kellogg’s Frosties – score very well on likeability. It is an
advertising adage that the
agency and client get bored of creative work far more quickly than the consumer.
It is also true that
advertising tends to thrive on selling new and fashionable concepts to marketers.
This research
certainly backs up the saying that ‘patience is a virtue’ and that staying with
audio branding for a long
time leads to greater success.
The Branding of Sound
GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
Two: For consumers to remember your name, you need to say it!
Intel was the 9th most recognised piece of audio branding with over 90% of
respondents saying they
had heard the sound mark before. Only 38%, however, were then able to name Intel
as the sound
mark’s owner. Most said ‘a computer company’ or Microsoft. Similarly, British
Airways had the 4th most
liked audio branding (Fig.4) with their use of Delibe’s ‘Flower Duet’ from the
opera Lakmé.
Unfortunately, only 2% of respondents could name the brand. An exception to this
rule was Asda;
having run the music consistently for over ten years, its distinctive style has
obviously been strongly
associated with the brand (Fig.3).
Fig.3: Highest brand recall
Three: Link your audio branding to a benefit of your brand
Kit Kat, Hamlet and Asda all link their audio branding directly to a brand
benefit; the first two using
taglines that highlight when one would enjoy the products (“Have a break…”), while
Asda links to low
prices – associating the song with the infamous pocket pat. These brands performed
strongly across
the board because the benefits, as well as the audio branding, are memorable.
There is a caveat to this. Philips launched its ‘sense and simplicity’ campaign
with a large media spend
in 2004; its audio branding was designed to convey simplicity, using only two
rising notes. It is possible
it was a little too simple and, as a result, only 17% recognised it and brand
recall was a lowly 1%.
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GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
Fig.4: Top 10 most liked audio identifiers
Four: Be creative and distinct. Remember above all that NOBODY IS LISTENING (but
they can all hear you)
Sound is a powerful medium for emotional communication and there is a lesson in
the overall results
that tells us that the more emotional associations and the richer the texture
within the audio branding,
the better it performs with consumers. Audio branding can be made up of any
combination of music,
voice and sound effects. Combining all three allows for true distinctiveness and
‘ownability’. Hamlet’s
audio branding has not run for nearly five years, and yet is still the most
remembered. It is also the
only brand in the research that employs voice, music and a sound effect (the match
strike) within a
cohesive whole. It also conjures the richest memories of the advertising in which
it ran.
More complex audio branding is far better at causing the switch from the passive
act of
‘hearing’ to the more active, conscious decision to ‘listen’. The best audio
identifiers reflect
the values of a brand
The less personality the audio branding has, the worse it seems to fare. Some of
the driest (Sony
Playstation, T-Mobile, Apple, Duracell, Philips) are also the least recognised,
branded and liked. The fact
that 6 out of the overall top 10 were also in the top 10 for most liked (Fig. 4)
highlights the fact that an
emotional connection is important for audio branding to work. And conveying a
personality helps to
achieve this.
The reason for this is probably that nobody is really listening out for audio
branding. In order for it to
be truly effective, it must be strong, stand for something and be, in some way,
ear-catching. More
complex audio branding is far better at causing the switch from hearing (passive)
to listening (active).
Brand fit, particularly between music and brand, also seems to be a characteristic
of good audio
branding. Linking to a brand value or promise can generate a strong memory and
give audio branding a
meaning beyond “listen to me!” The best audio identifiers reflect the values of a
brand.
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GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
1. Talk Talk
2. Hamlet
3. Kit Kat
4. British Airways
5. Kellogg’s Frosties
6. Stella
7. Asda
8. Motorola
9. Microsoft
10. McDonald’s
Summary
This is the first major study into audio branding that has sought to understand
why it can work and why
it sometimes fails. In fact, the ‘failures’ are perhaps the most interesting. PC
World’s famous jingle ticks
all the boxes for ‘recency’, frequency and, to an extent, brand proposition (cheap
& cheerful). It should,
by all accounts, be well liked by the consumer but it performed badly for
likeability in this survey. A
possible conclusion is that it has ‘burned’ and is ready to be updated – maybe ten
years is too long for
a jingle to run?
Sound is a powerful medium for emotional communication and there is a lesson in
the
overall results that tells us that the more emotional associations and the richer
the texture
within the audio branding, the better it performs with consumers
The biggest lessons we have learnt are that consumers hear audio branding quite
differently to us, the
practitioners. We believed that Intel and British Airways were great specimens,
but both showed their
weaknesses in the ‘brand recall’ category, where consumers were concerned. This
has really important
implications for the advertising and marketing communities. Whilst audio branding
is a specialism it
also has to be tied into copywriting, so the ad agency and the audio branding
agency need to
collaborate closely.
Our understanding of the true potential for audio branding is still growing. More
research is required –
particularly into why consumers like some more than others. Additionally, more
benchmarking work is
required to establish what is an acceptable level of recognition, recall and
likeability for given media
spends, but these are in the future.
That future seems to hold an increasing number of opportunities for brands that
know how they sound.
As the opportunities multiply, the need for getting things right and being
consistent will multiply with
them. Only by listening to consumers and hearing our brands through their ears,
will we be able to
achieve our full potential as audio branders.
Credit:
Daniel M. Jackson is the founder of Sonicbrand®.
More information at www.sonicbrand.com
dan@sonicbrand.com
The Branding of Sound
GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
Top 50 audio identifiers in the UK market
The Branding of Sound
GDR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE 2005 Issue 19
1. Kit Kat – “Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat”
2. Hamlet – “The Mild Cigar”
3. Coco Pops – “I’d Rather Have a Bowl of Coco Pops”
4. PC World – “Where in the World? PC World!”
5. Danone – “Mmm, Danone”
6. HSBC – “The World’s Local Bank”
7. Motorola – “Hello Moto”
8. Asda – sound mark
9. Frosties – “They’re Grrreat!”
10. McDonalds – “I’m Lovin’ It”
11. Direct Line – sound mark
12. Garnier – “Garnier”
13. Microsoft – Windows start-up sound
14. Gillette – “The Best a Man Can Get”
15. O2 – “See What You Can Do”
16. Intel – sound mark
17. Stella Artois – sound mark
18. Maybelline – “Maybe it’s Maybelline”
19. Talk Talk – sound mark
20. Army – “Be the Best”
21. Charmin – “Ch-Ch-Ch Charmin!”
22. Camelot – “Think Lucky”
23. Tesco – “Every Little Helps”
24. L’Oreal – “Because You’re Worth It”
25. UEFA – Champion’s League sound mark
26. EA Games – “It’s In The Game”
27. British Airways – sound mark (‘Flower Duet’)
28. Nokia – ringtone
29. Daily Express – “Express Delivery”
30. Mazda – “Zoom, Zoom”
31. Yahoo – “Yahoooo!”
32. T Mobile – sound mark
33. Castrol – sound mark
34. Seat – “Auto Emocion”
35. Virgin Megastores – sound mark
36. eBay – sound mark
37. Strongbow – ‘Arrows’ sound mark
38. Brita Water Filter – sound mark
39. Travelocity – “Hello World”
40. Fairy Liquid – “For Hands That Do Dishes” music
41. Daily Star – sound mark
42. Playstation – sound mark
43. Mail on Sunday – sound mark
44. Duracell – sound mark
45. Emirates – sound mark
46. Philips – sound mark
47. Siemens – sound mark
48. Easy Jet – sound mark
49. Apple – sound mark
50. Vauxhall Vans – sound mark