If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
On Friday I made a post in our sticky songs section. The post used one of Canada’s favorite songs, the original theme for Hockey Night in Canada.
A few years ago the broadcasting company, CBC, decided not to renew the license for the theme song. To make sure they had a new song that Canadians liked they crowdsourced for a new song by using a competition and a large cash prize.
Crowdsourcing for an answer
Crowdsourcing for the new song worked well, however, the fans of HNIC were still attached to the original song. This is a problem for HNIC because they have lost an identity. Neither the competition or the new song helped the ratings either. In fact, HNIC has not seen good ratings until this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
Could you imagine Intel without its signature bong?
Many brands struggle with this issue because they choose not to make sound a property of the brand. I’ve also discussed a similar problem in a blog post called losing your brand voice.
The solution for brands is to purchase the rights to the music they choose to have in their promotions. You might be thinking that the cost of this is would be sky high but if your brand is willing to put out $75,000 for visual identity protecting your sound properties should be just as important – particularly in an age of digital media.
Love to hear your thoughts. Please post them below.