McDonald's' sign in Harlem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The voice of McDonald’s is a worldwide contest to discover, recognize and reward the most talented singers among the more than 1.7 million employees working in McDonald’s restaurants. From a branding perspective it’s a nice combination of employer branding, employee motivation and public relation. The competition was kicked off in 2005 and in 2011 more than 20,000 employees entered Voice of McDonald’s IV.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Posted in Sound Branding
Sound Icons are sound branding elements in their shortest design. Common examples are signal sounds at the computer. A computer by Apple sounds different than a Microsoft PC. Another example are sounds in GPS devices. The objective is to trigger acoustic recognition: the development of a unique sound with character and emotional profile.
Do you agree or disagree with this definition? Is anything missing in the definition we use? Please post your ideas in the comments section.
Eight Mile Style, the company that is responsible for licensing Eminem’s songs, has filed a lawsuit against Audi in the Hamburg regional court in Germany, claiming that the Audi A6 commercial uses a version of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” without permission. (Source: Spiegel News magazine)
The Eminem song was used in this year’s Chrysler’s Super Bowl spot. Moreover, the Audi spot … Continue reading
The other night I saw a new Audi commercial on TV. I became curious what is going on in other countries regarding the new Audi Sound Branding. Here are some of the latest TV commercial from Audi.
This one is for the Audi A1. Some sounds “sound” familiar:
Here is another spot for the Audi A7. It is for the US market. Here I miss… Continue reading
Sound Logo is the acoustic match of the visual logo and therefore one of the most commonly used elements of sound branding. It should be a distinctive sound (differentiation) which reflects the brand character (brand fit). Moreover it should be easy to remember (memorability) and flexible enough for usage at the relevant brand touchpoints (flexibility). In most cases it is a short (1 – 2 sec.) melody (Nokia), sometimes just a sound sequence (e.g. BMW). Some refer to it as the soundmark of a brand. The Sound Logo should be used… Continue reading
Have you ever seen a business graph and thought how does it sound? National Public Radio (USA) translated this idea into a project. They took the Case-Shiller home price index as a basis for a composition – a kind of sonification – and converted the graph into musical notes.
Source: Case-Shiller Home Price Index, via Standard & Poors. Credit: Alyson Hurt.
Then they gave the sheet music to a bariton from Julliard School of Music, New York City. And that’s how it sounds “a decade of U.S. home prices”:
And here is a “decade of Miami home prices”:
I would not call it Sound Branding but it shows how graphs and data streams can be converted to sound and music. In a next step it could be woven into Sound Branding Elements…. Just some food for thought.
Have a great weekend :)
