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What’s It All About?
Ever wondered why, in those halcyon days of your misspent youth, the ice cream truck was able to elicit such euphoria and excitement with just a simple four note jingle? The answer lies in recesses of our mental faculties, where sound is a powerful trigger for recalling memory and attendant emotions. Sound, as well as music, provides strong links to both emotions and mood, and can thus be utilised by branding initiatives to enhance their image and subsequent consumer awareness of products or services.
Fundamentally, Sonic Branding acts as an aural equivalent to a brand’s graphic logo, playing a significant role in the establishment and reception of a brand within the marketplace. Unlike more traditional and overt forms of advertising, Sonic Branding operates at both an emotional and logical level, delivering a lasting impact upon the consumer that cannot be equalled by visual branding alone. Sonic Branding is so effective because it capitalises on the brain‘s capacity for retaining audio signatures and sound bites, operating on a more subliminal level in comparison to the more route-one directives of visual advertising. Further, the emotive capabilities of Sonic Branding are matched by its versatility; it can be used to complement existing forms of visual advertising or utilised to create wholly distinct brand development. Sonic Branding is a crucial element in building brand awareness and maintaining a cohesive,
desirable brand aesthetic.

Why Is It Necessary?
The perceived values of products, brands and companies are obviously tantamount to
commercial success, but consumers in the 21st Century are bombarded by advertising on a daily basis and have thus become very media savvy, therefore it is up to the advertisers to devise more incisive and memorable marketing strategies to combat the public’s familiarity with traditional advertising techniques. Communication through colour, images, symbols or words has become somewhat saturated in recent years, which has fuelled interest and investment in alternative forms of sensory advertising, particularly Sonic Branding.

Why Is It So Effective?
Although it is far from a new phenomenon, Sonic Branding is fast becoming one of the most prominent advertising vehicles for targeting key demographics as well as new consumers. As traditional media such as television and radio continue to grow alongside burgeoning digital mediums heralded by the advent of the internet, companies are able to reach the consumer in a myriad of new ways - a diversification that must be mirrored by increasingly innovative forms of advertising. An amalgamation of speech, sound design and original musical composition, Sonic Branding harnesses the power of music to trigger an emotional response whilst also conjuring up associative elements of excellence or dependability to define the brand. The effectiveness of Sonic Branding can be found in both its inherent flexibility and amorphousness; it can be tapered to ever-changing consumer/brand relations and applied anywhere from the brand’s website to broadcast advertising: regardless of the context, Sonic Branding is a pivotal advertising tool in reinforcing a brand’s defining traits and creating an invaluable sense of familiarity between consumer and product. The marketing effectiveness of Sonic Branding is principally driven by its ability to transcend language and cultural barriers;
music speaks to everyone, regardless of race or background and can deliver corporate
messages on a global scale.

Sonic Branding Success Stories
From the more subtle Sonic Branding exercises such as Windows’ ethereal opening sound bite to brand identities rooted in the musical elements of their advertising (from Danone to Starbucks), more and more companies are focussing on Sonic Branding to circumnavigate consumer familiarity with traditional advertising forms. Perhaps the most successful case of Sonic Branding, and a testament to its capabilities, is the McDonald’s “I‘m Lovin’ It” initiative. The company’s first global brand campaign, the now-ubiquitous “I‘m Lovin’ It” jingle has, in just six months, cultivated an 86% public awareness of the adverts in McDonald’s top ten countries. Clearly, there is a palpable response to high-quality Sonic Branding; strike the right chord and the success will resonate as far as you will allow it.

The Delicate Art Of Sonic Branding
The borderless nature of Sonic Branding means that it can be effectively applied in almost any advertising context, yet its successful application is a far more intricate process than it may initially appear. Effective Sonic Branding must be sufficiently adaptable to integrate into a wide variety of advertising environs and cultural locales, remaining timeless yet relevant. Always familiar yet never tiresome. Always slightly different but always exactly the same. The right sonic signature must complement existing brand facets and be suitably designed to convey new characteristics without ‘cluttering’ the brand template. This is most effectively performed with original compositions, constructed specifically with the brand’s message in mind, as established industry logic suggests that using commercial music already well-known
to popular culture can overshadow and disrupt branding coherence, ultimately contributing little to the advertising dynamic by piling focus onto the band; not the brand.

The Bottom Line
At Taniemusic we believe our responsibility as an agency is to help clients establish a
cohesive brand identity and express their commercial ambitions in a way that helps
consumers believe in these values through the emotional associations of Sonic Branding. Utilising the latest technology alongside classically-trained composers, Taniemusic strive to capture the emotional experience of the brand in a manner which cannot be expressed in words. Superior Sonic Branding is instrumental in the construction of a unique and distinctive brand identity, building promise and consumer awareness which in turn can be translated into brand loyalty and commercial success.

Oli Simpson

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