Over the years of studying music and brands I’ve found a few common themes that many marketers follow when using music. Here lets discuss one of the themes that seems to get people in the most trouble.
The one theme I’ve noticed is that advertisers use music as a single event. You get a piece of music for your ad at the last possible moment, put it in and forget about it. Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing, music carries a message just like in the visual world. That message can be repeated if we want or we can confuse our audience and give them another message. In effect confusion is what most advertisers do when it comes to music.
I want you for a moment to think about getting into your car and driving away. There are a number of sounds that will happen in this sequence like the click of the door opening, buckling your seat belt, the thud of the door closing, the start of the engine and that nice chime that plays through your speakers. Companies like Audi spend hours perfecting the sound of their cars. Why? Because the power is in the details.
Now you don’t need to be a multinational company to achieve success in audio branding however you do need to put thought into it. Simply asking “What does my brand sound like?” will go a long way. One of the things we are sure of is that brands that engage all of the senses will be remembered.