Remember Airtel’s classic promotional jingle…
Britannia’s Ting Ting Ti Ting…
Ponds’s Googly woogly woosh…
These are not only just nostalgic melodies by brands but perfect examples of sonic signature, demonstrating the excellent use of sonic branding.
Branding plays an important role in today’s complex market for businesses, ideas and products. Your brand identity needs to be cohesive and consistent. A sonic branding strategy can help you achieve this goal. Sonic branding involves the use of music, sounds, or any audio to create a memorable brand identity. It’s an effective way to promote your business and establish a strong connection with your target audience.
Why is Sonic Branding Significant?
As audio becomes more important than brand content, it is crucial to keep an eye on the entire audience. Building an audio element to your brand is often an afterthought or even something that people don’t think about at all. I am sure you all are aware of how audio content is taking flight with the podcast marketing these days, and Spotify is of course leading the sector. There are many ways to strengthen your audience’s association with your brand. From marketing to Instagram/TikTok reels, your audio selection plays an important role in shaping your brand identity. So make sure you learn the basics before starting.
Sonic branding is still a relatively new concept and people are just starting to think about using music for the purpose of marketing. But for music to be recognized as a commodity, to be bought, it must be quite appealing. Music that doesn’t adhere to existing music business marketing frameworks and definitions isn’t marketable in the short term. Sounds like a marketing speak? That’s because it is! It’s marketing speak for you to be part of a dialogue and to be aware of how your sonic branding choices can change the perception of your business, positively or negatively.
What is Sonic Branding?
Sonic branding is a collection of audio touchpoints that convey the values and personality of your brands. With Sonic branding, your company’s unique soundscape can be used in various elements like the sonic logo, interactive voice messages (IVR), commercials, digital ads, videos and podcasts, and the sounds customers use when using your apps and websites. Sonic branding has three major components: music, voice and sound effects wherein music is the most demanding element because of its distinctiveness.
For example, the sound you hear when you turn on your computer, phone or Amazon’s Alexa that follows your commands in an acoustic signature. Sonic branding communicates emotions and feelings as opposed to images and texts. It conveys factual information through sound but is less sustainable than visual images. Think, for example, of the sound generated when you switch from Netflix to your TV, or when you receive a text.
How to Use Sonic Branding for Your Business?
When people get to know your brand through a specific sound or song, they associate those distinctive sounds with your organisation, product, or service. If played well, this strategy can make customers immediately think of the song or jingle when they think of your brand–or think of your brand when they hear the specific song or sound.
Music is directly related to emotions. Different types of sound represent different emotions. For example – drum rolls and trumpets usually denote heroism, tabla and sitar denote something Indian, djembe denotes something African, birds chirping denotes nature or morning time, strings can be used to represent both happiness and sadness.
The use of the right sound for your brand can help you communicate your brand message in a better and creative way.
As you all know, visual logos and branding programs are really iconic today. But audio brands are the future, they are likely to become iconic very soon. The shift has already begun. If you do not have an audio brand, now is the perfect time to get started. When done right, your efforts can provide rewards for years to come.
Here is a small fun activity for you –
CAN YOU MATCH THESE SONIC LOGOS TO THEIR BRANDS?
Take our quiz to find out whether you can recognize the brand based on its sonic logo.
