Tag Archives: Sonic Branding

How does money sound?

Posted on April 29, 2011 | 4 comments

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.

Case-Shiller

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 :)

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Sound Art: NYC’s High Line or the subtle way of Sound Branding

Posted on December 3, 2010 | 1 comment

Ryan Francis, a Juilliard School of Music graduate, has composed  an ode to the city’s elevated train track, the High Line, which opened to great acclaim last year. The High Line, his winning composition in a prize sponsored by LVMH and the American Composer’s Orchestra to create a Greener New York City-inspired sonic branding for the park.

How did Francis create the aural experience and evoke the audio essence of the High Line experience? According to the brandchannel Ryan Francis comments about his composition: “I did … Continue reading →

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Selling the Sound of Silence – How much do you charge?

Posted on April 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

How can I differentiate myself from my competition?

Everybody is trying to communicate as much as possible. We want to be louder, sharper, and more innovative than our competitor. Everybody is getting husky (at least they would if communication was a live event) and nobody understands what the others say. The good news is that we found the loudest, sharpest, most differentiated and most innovative instrument in modern marketing communication of our time:

Silence Continue reading →

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Another wake up call for Brand Marketers

Posted on February 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

A TIME magazine article titled “Neural Advertising: The Sounds We Can’t Resist” reflects the value of sound in advertising and underlines the importance of „everday sounds“: a baby laughing, fizzing soda, or the sound of barbeque. All these sounds activate certain parts of our brain and can set us in a different mood. That is true but if every diaper brand uses the laugh of some baby, what will be the difference? Which brand can actually own this sound? An everyday sound is generic! Continue reading →

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The 10 Most Addictive Sounds in the US?

Posted on February 24, 2010 | 7 comments

Today I ran across an article by  Martin Lindstrom.

„The 10 Most Addictive Sounds in the World” shows again how important sound branding has become in today’s daily environment. Often sounds immediately influence what we do, but we don’t even think about it anymore. I guess nobody would doubt that.

Doubtful indeed is the way Lindstrom presents his “scientific” material in the fourth paragraph of this article. There should be more information about the mentioned study like year, selection criteria, and sample statistics. At least for those who would like to read more about this study there should be a reference link. Continue reading →

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Why do some Sound Branding elements work some don’t? Does neuroscience gives us the answer?

Posted on February 23, 2010 | 4 comments

A study of the Stanford School of Music which I believe has great relevance to the area of Sound Branding was already released in 2007 (Link to the news release), however; it has yet not been widely discussed in the field of Acoustic Identity/ Sound Branding.

Using brain images of people listening to short symphonies by an obscure 18th-century composer, a research team from Stanford has gained valuable insight into how the brain sorts out the chaotic world around it.

The research team showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. The study showed that peak brain activity occurred during a period of silence between musical movements. That may be the answer to the question why some Sound Branding Elements work much better (recognition & recall) than others.

The researchers caught glimpses of the brain in action using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which gives a dynamic image showing which parts of the brain are working during a given activity. Continue reading →

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Why Sound Branding?

Posted on February 17, 2010 | 3 comments

You can’t turn off your ears. We can look away from something but hardly stop listening. For our ancestors the never sleeping hearing sense was crucial to survive. Hearing is embedded in the emotional part of our psychological system and the instinctive part of our brain. Music and sound is a universal language understood by all humans.

In the power of sound lies a huge potential for brand communication. This potential is hardly used in a systematic approach. Sound Branding gives a brand a new dimension: an Acoustic Identity.

Why do corporations invest in a clear visual identity? It increases recall and differentiation from competitors. Sounds are even more powerful. If you hear the tones of a famous song you can hum the melody. This power is utilized by Sound Branding. Continue reading →

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