So, you’re looking to take your brand to the next level with an audio logo. This is great news because music is powerful my friend. But, before we get ahead of ourselves lets take a minute to figure out what goes into creating a memorable audio brand.
Play It A Lot
According to recent research done by Centaur Communications Ltd. there are a few things to remember when creating your company’s audio logo. The first being that frequency and long-term consistency is important. Going out and creating a jingle or audio logo that will only be used a few times doesn’t make sense. Neither does showing the audio brand once a quarter.
Tell ‘em Who You Are
The next thing to remember is that for people to remember and associate sound with your brand you need to use the brand name in the sound clip. The Centaur research team showed that 90% of people have heard the Intel (shown below) audio logo but only 38% of the participants could identify the brand itself. In comparison take a listen below at what East Side Mario’s has done.
Intel
East Side Mario’s
Give Value
Lastly, it’s vital that you link the sound to the benefits. One of the best examples of this is Kit Kat take a brake campaign (shown below). Not only is the brand name in the song but it also helps listeners remember why they should buy Kit Kat and not a competitor’s brand.
Kit Kat
Next time you are out looking for a new sound for you company keep these three things in mind.
In a recent move by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) Canadian businesses can now trademark their audio brand assets. This will allow brands to legally protect their audio identity including audio logos, sound IDs and potentially distinctive voices. It puts Canada closer to what has been the norm in many other countries and shows that as a country we are serious about copyright and trademark protection.
One company that will be extremely happy with the decision is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM). They have been battling their right to trademark their lion roar for nearly 20 years. Now they can enforce protecting their identity will greater force. We’re sure that others will be quick to apply for trademark protection as well.
As audio brand consultants we feel this is a great step in helping businesses see the value of having an audio brand. It truly means that businesses can have sound assets that will grow with them.
In many cases the best way to reduce waiting time to deliver a service is to adjust the delivery system. That said you can only go so far with this method before quality starts to drop. In this brief article I want to share with you a few ways music can help create a better retail environment.
Music is a powerful mechanism for improving mood. Many of you have seen the recent viral video of a retired man hearing music from an earlier part of life and when he does you can see the joy come right back to him as if he was 16 again. In a similar fashion you can use music to improve the environment of your store or on hold system.
The key to success in using music to influence mood is to make it congruent with the environment or what is expected of the environment. That means if you run a fitness club you can choose energizing music but if you are a classy upscale restaurant then you should try some jazz or classical music.
Music tempo, the speed of music, is an influencer in how fast or slow we do things. For example, if you are a restaurant and you want to turn tables over a little quicker during a dinner service without upsetting customers then a faster tempo music can be used to aid in speeding up eating habits. When this happens your staff will be able to move quicker without jarring the customer.
Volume also has an impact. In this case you want the volume level to match your target demographic. Loud music typically would attract a younger audience where is softer music would be great for your parents.
All of these things help to improve mood and in some cases help to change the perception of wait time. Again, the one thing to remember is that music played in your store is a piece of your brand so it must be congruent or it will fail to attract your target audience.
Okay, so this one isn’t so much a sticky song but it’s a memorable use of branded sound. That of course is the goal of audio branding and a key feature of our sticky song series.
A couple of weeks ago you read a post about the role of music in advertising and this week I wanted to take this a step further and give you a few goals that music in advertising can achieve.
Here’s a list:
Product recall (the good kind of recall)
Increasing sales
Creating and emotional connection to the product
Growing brand awareness
Creating a position for the product
Because of the variant types of goals for music in advertising you must be really clear as to what you want to achieve. Have the goal set out in your mind and in writing before you commission a music composer.
A Note from the Chief Noisemaker: Every once in a while I try to bring in a guest writer to the Sound Bytes blog. This is my first forray into what I hope to become a regular piece. If you’d like to contribute to the blog please contact us we’d love to hear from you.
Advertising though music is not a new concept, it has always been there, in the form of jingles and background music. What is new or gaining acceptance and popularity is the use of corporate advertising to further a bands musical career.
If you are old enough to remember the 80′ you will not have many recollections of major artists endorsing any products. My first encounter was seeing Michael Jackson in a Pepsi commercial and it was a big deal. Granted, he was already an established artist and received a ridiculous amount of money, it was generally considered to be selling out to the corporations. Over time the “selling out” point of view diminished and the benefits to bands began to be seen.
In September 2000 I enrolled at a recording school in Vancouver Canada. During that year I observed a recording session at the school by a former graduate named Jeff Dawson where he was recording our computer tech/drummer for a project of his. About 5 years later I was listening to the radio and the DJ announces the song as the new hit song from a Coca-Cola commercial. I had never seen this commercial or heard the song but it was somehow very familiar. The song was Bad Day by Daniel Powter, produced by Jeff Dawson. I later found out that the ad was aired in France where the song had gained popularity. It was one of the biggest songs that year and the experience was closely followed by all of us at the school. We later had Jeff in to give a talk to our students about the whole experience but the main thing to remember is that up until the use of the song in the ad, they were all just regular guys and musicians working every angle that they could to get their music out there.
What did the ad do for them?
The people involved were all talented musicians and the songs were good but having talent and a good song unfortunately isn’t enough, you need exposure. In Jeff Dawson’s case the song was complete and floating around for years. It took the exposure that Coca-Cola gave it to reach the masses and when it did it exploded!
Now it seems to be common place to have an initial exposure to a band or an artist through advertising, just look at Apple and their iTunes commercials. Not to say that you need to have a major corporation behind you in order to reach stardom but you do need exposure and teaming your art together with a product isn’t a bad avenue to pursue and at the very least, you’ll get paid for your music.