John Smeddle, Head of Creative, WithFeelingSameness. It’s a problem in sonic branding that needs to be sorted out quickly if this marketing tool doesn’t want to be relegated to the status of audio wallpaper.
This may seem contrary to any number of posts or articles you’ve seen recently (including from us) about the increased deployment of sonic branding in the GCC as part of user experience and not just an audio signature.
But research suggests an alarming percentage of brands which are using original music and sound across all customer touchpoints are all sounding like each other.
That’s a polite way of saying that your sonic branding is, at worst, either delivering the user experience of your competitor and market category, or at best providing a pleasant but meaningless diversion at a customer touchpoint.
Is the problem AI? Yes, if it’s being used to generate material.Because as we all know by now, AI can only propose something it’s been trained to propose. So rather pull the plug after it’s completed its research. Then AI is not the problem. Is the problem the client?
Well, I’ve attended meetings with brand teams who have talked excitedly about sonic branding and the value it can add across customer touchpoints. They’re enthused about the musical instruments that are unique to the country or region, and the tunes beloved to those communities. You can’t really ask for more from clients when they react with this much enthusiasm.
So that leaves one last entity left to blame. The sonic branding company itself, for either leaning too heavily on AI or not doing their job by guiding a client’s enthusiasm back through the emotive pathway of the brand, rather than joyfully skipping through the alluring pastures of cultural pride.
Because as melodic and resonant as each individual piece of culturally relevant sonic branding may be, it’s doing nothing for your brand because it sounds like a lot of other brands which have travelled the same conception route as yours.
It follows the only connection the listener has to the music is going to be with another price of traditionally appropriate music.
It could be argued it’s not the sonic branding company’s job to understand the brand’s place in the market nor even the critical path the brand took to reach its current level of engagement. Surely they should be briefed on all of this stuff when they get the job? But that argument is at odds with the way commercial audio identities are being sold to clients.
They’re not a prop to support a brand, they’re ingredients every bit as active as a visual representation of the brand, and create a new dimension to consumer relationships.
If the sonic branding company you’re considering isn’t able to offer informed guidance about potential audio similarities between brands, they’re little better than those marketing services entities which everyone knows about, but few acknowledge: the hit and run artistes that view the GCC as being both rich and gullible.
So to the brand caretakers in the region who are primed for sonic branding, a cautionary reminder. If a member of your target audience hears your brand and says “I love this, it’s so us”, you’ve failed. Because that person is only talking about the music. But if they say “I love this, they’re so us”, they’re talking about you. Not the music.
Cultural relevance is the price of entry, not the show itself. So be careful of investing in something just because you feel it fits a familiar style. That’s just adding another ingredient to a bowl of soup.
Ask your potential sonic branding supplier to provide their point of view on the relevant market category. Then invite them to refresh the category. Or better yet, break it.
By John Smeddle, Head of Creative, WithFeeling
