Apart from the growing number of communication instruments with acoustic components, audio branding and corporate sound are becoming more important also due to changing economic and communication scenarios. The explosive increase in the number of brands and products calls for consolidated measures and efforts to raise a brand image and to set it apart from the competition.  When brands become visible through audio logos, brand songs and characteristic brand soundscapes, it will be easier to discern and distinguish them from the mass of choices.

The number of communicative brand methods is increasing in the same way as the choice of brands and products is continuously growing. The classic communication methods are supplemented by other activities such as events, sponsoring and product placement. In addition, with the establishment of the internet, novel ways of communication have become possible. Consequently, media planning has become more demanding and provision of the optimum media mix has become even more challenging. Also, no longer able to take in the overabundance of information, the consumer is developing an increasingly negative attitude towards advertising. 

To ensure that a consistent and clear brand image is nevertheless conveyed, the methods of brand communication must be coordinated in an integrated communication concept. However, purposeful input of music and acoustic branding elements within the framework of consistent acoustic brand management can counter the decreasing efficiency of communicative advertising methods. This is supported by several reasons:

•The passive effects of music, which can be used to activate and attract attention, also work with a distracted listener and over several repeats.

•Sense of hearing is non-directive, i.e. while the consumer may not watch, he/she nevertheless continues to listen.

•Musical messages are easier to process than text messages since they require less cognitive effort and can also work unconsciously.

•Through the so-called “visual transfer“a few beats of advertising music are sufficient to evoke the respective commercial in front of the “inner eye“. Combinations of radio and TV spots, for example, can initiate visual transfer effects and as a result increase the advertising impact and the efficiency of the communicative method.

Due to tough competition and saturation of brands, almost no differences in quality or function of brand products exist. Differentiation through quality and product characteristics is becoming less and less possible. Instead, brand differentiation is increasingly done through communication and brands compete with each other in a proper communication contest[1]. In this contest, emotional and experience-driven factors play an ever important role since strong brands also feature a strong emotional bond. And how better to communicate emotion and experience than through music?

Imagine the effect of the Bacardi commercial without the appropriate sound. This is why relaying of consumer relevant experiences as well as emotional charging of the brand are today’s major challenges in brand communication and advertising. The experience profile is becoming more important than the product profile. For this significant reason, multisensory branding, i.e. branding covering a range of senses, is considered one of the central issues in brand communication of the future. Results from studies on “musical and voice-fit“ demonstrate the significance of brand-congruent acoustic elements.[2] Acoustic elements which “fit” the brand achieved significantly better results regarding brand awareness, advertising recall and willingness to buy than music that did not “fit” the brand. Unsuitable music can even have negative effects.

“In association with spoken words music can give a notional sharpness that is head and shoulders above speech itself“.[3] However, music can outmatch the effects of impact and expressiveness of images, as demonstrated by the movie soundtrack. In Great Britain, the movie “The Da Vinci Code”, based on Dan Brown’s novel of the same name, had to be toned down to be deemed suitable by the British Board of Film Classification for audiences aged 12 years and over. In fact, this was not due to its violent images but to the movie score. After revision of the audio score – the graphic material remained unchanged – the movie was eventually classified as suitable.

The fact that music and sound can have effects that cannot be achieved by images alone may be exemplified by the film adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s novel “Perfume”. In this movie, impact and power of smells and scents are transported mainly through music. The association between sense of smell and sense of hearing is obvious: Both are volatile, have highly emotional effects, recall memories and possess a strong associative character. This is reflected in the language of the movie, where scents are “composed” and base, middle and top notes of a perfume must be tuned like “chords”.

• [1] cf. Esch 2005, Strategie und Technik der Markenführung, p. 33

• [2] North, A.C., Hargreaves, D.J., MacKenzie, L.C. & Law, R. (2004). The effects of musical and voice ‘fit’ on responses to advertisements. In. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34 (8), 1675 – 1708; Zander, M. F. (2006) Musical influences in advertising: how music modifies first impressions of product endorsers and brands. In: Psychology of Music, 34 (4), 465 – 480

• [3] cf. Zander 2006, p.478 and Rösing 2005, p. 95