Perspective in Amplifying your Venture at Large
The unique capacities of sound in emotional expression and abilities to steer the perception of an audience are truly fascinating. With a background in psychology and business, audio branding was where all my interests merged and it’s very exciting to see that now it matters more than ever.
Bombarded with visuals, brand communications in these mediums are losing effectiveness and even altogether a significant withdrawal can be seen. Besides people have a thirst for collaborative components in media consumption which audio provides. Along with the unique capacities of sound, the demands that it has on cognitive processes are considerably lower. This so-called low-involvement medium has been underplayed and with voice technology a remarkable emergence is underway. Now is also the time that calls for amplification of your brand values at large. Similarly, at once sound expression adapted to the current demands of content has become a necessity.
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It is strange that brand equity and assets appear not to be on top of mind for many business ventures. Across the specific touchpoints and media content of businesses, audio is also not leveraged coherently, in fact if at all. What we do see is financial and insurance services heavily invested, and their wish to transfer an audio brand to voice tech (a prime example is Capital One). Particularly these companies seem to understand the significance of a strong connection with their clients. What this entails is curating a dedicated strategy and devising yourself to the current demands of content. It can perhaps be around your existing audio branding elements. Brand fit is what is imperative; the alignment of your sound with brand values and ambitions. In this way, you achieve a rich and distinctive positioning with specific parts of content and hereby actually transmit intended associations to your audience.
Another layer are feature-specific qualities of the many different episodes that are now infused with your identity. The considerations here are how do I synthesize interplay of modalities and content while at the same time truly enhancing memorability and immersion of the audience. As a developer, the objectives are aligned since your focus is on UX and to really elevate your creation. With stock elements, say the Skills Kit or Sound Library possibilities do exist yet for a strong branded experience, customization is necessary. Key here is do not overdo it. Just like it’s quite easy to overshoot with too many SSML features, the recipe is balance. On a further note, a first impression can often serve as a good indicator for the experience. Yet decision-making at large, way too many times follows personal preferences over independent judgment.
In pursuit of seizing the capacities of audio branding for your venture, the parameters for audio integration on interfaces are quite uncompromising. Furthermore, there are distinctions like between Actions and Skills alone. In the former you are presented with 96Kbit and possibilities for Opus file type and 48Kbit MP3 in the latter. These are the audio processing considerations to optimize for and you still face mono over stereo apart from hosting factors. Clearly the voice space is shifting rapidly and a holistic strategy and audio brand in place allows to swiftly attune your assets for any changes to come. Note the gains by recent sample rate changes for Alexa and what is next in wearables as well as by Facebook. The flexibility, combined with leveraging the capacities of sound in line with scientific insights and an edge at turning points in communications: that defines branding 3.0. I hope you now have more context and that it was possible to provide valuable insights to audio branding in a voice-first world.
