So you’ve spent a lot of time and energy on your logo. Maybe you’ve even done a full branding package with colors and fonts and margins etc. You’re proud of it. You should be!
Now what about your sound?
Huh?
With smart technology, social audio apps, voice search, and the low touch economy booming, sound is 50% of the brand experience.
Sonic Branding
Sonic branding is the creation of unique branded sound for a company or brand. This sound can then be incorporated into the brands’ audio touch points.
It may seem like a sonic logo or even a full sonic branding package is a luxury that you only hear with the big brands like Mastercard. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be.
Sonic branding is available and accessible to brands both big and small.
Sound offers the opportunity for a small business to market at the same level or beyond what a larger business can do. It’s all about strategy and imagination. For more on small business sonic branding, check out this article.
With proper strategy and care, sound can add a level of emotion and depth to your brand that is hard to rival. With sound, you can reach consumers at a more guttural level, thus speaking to them individually within their own context and perspective.
Sound Grows in Real Time
When you come up with a visual logo, you plaster that sucker everywhere. It’s all over your social, website, letterhead, and packaging. When the time comes to re-brand that logo, you have to go through it all over again. You have to take down all that hard work to create and upload your re-brand. Exhausting but definitely necessary.
With sonic branding, as you choose to graduate to a newer/fresher sound, the old sonic branding can still live on as you slowly filter it out or even as you play with a new iteration.
Orange will always be orange and Times New Romans will always be Times New Romans. But with sound, you can alter and mold and manipulate one sound into another depending on its usage, intent, genre, demographic, and any other thing that might come up.
I’m Lovin’ It
For example, McDonalds I’m Lovin’ It. In 2003, we all witnessed the journey of the ba da bah bah bah with Justin Timberlake. McDonalds sneakily launched the new “jingle” under the guise that it was just a new Justin single. Then after buzz was generated, the McDonalds campaigns launched linking famous singer to famous fast food through the now familiar and buzzy mnemonic.
As time went on, McDonald’s was able to extract the actual lyrics, extract Justin’s voice, turn it into a whistle, and bring back the lyrics with a new singer. I would wager the next step would be to bring in different singers of different backgrounds and genders dependent on the specific campaign.
McDonald’s iterates many versions of the same sonic logo at the same time giving exponential life to the creative.
Why Do It? Why Now?
“Well Jeanna, that’s still a lot of work and money. My visual logo is working great on its own. I think I’ll stick with what I have.”
A screen-less and more mobile society is our present and our future. This is not a maybe; it’s a fact. How do you market through smart speakers or social audio apps like Clubhouse? What about on radio advertising blasting through malls and other brick and mortars, how do you stand out from the rest of the noise?
Now is the time as well as the opportunity for brands to explore and discover sonic branding within their own branding before EVERYONE has caught on and the prices get astronomically high and no sound agency has time for your sonic branding project.
Sound is a language we all speak and the consumer is just waiting to hear yours.
Related Articles on Sonic Branding
For more articles on Sonic Branding, check out:
How Dove Succeeded Creating a Massive Sensorial Experience
The Difference Between Jingles and Sonic Logos
Seinfeld; Building an Iconic Sound
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