Sonic Branding
The Nitty Gritty of Sonic Branding — Use Music, Sound and Voice to Grow your Brand
Women in Voice (WiV) Mentorship Team, Sonic Sound Byte Series Part 2
Colleen Fahey, US Managing Director at Sixième Son and Author of the highly rated book, AUDIO BRANDING: Using Sound to Build Your Brand discusses her views on sonic branding, the process, and how to start implementing audio into your marketing plan.
We’d highly encourage you to view Colleen’s 9-minute presentation video at the end of this article and to read Part 1, Getting Started in Sonic Branding.
“Having a unified brand identity in sound is coherent, elegant, and meaningful.”
- Colleen Fahey
The Sonic Ecosystem
As customers shift to voice-activated devices, a custom audio identity should be managed with the same care as your visual identity. Attention to music, sound, voice, and all things auditory are an essential part of a coherent strategy along with the rest of your brand’s business identity. Once your brand’s distinct sonic identity is discovered it will inform everything else in your marketing portfolio and even go beyond voice-activated devices. From television and radio ads to podcasts to human-machine interfaces to social and digital media or vocal identity for your on-hold music and even sounds that bring people into a meeting to get them motivated.
The Secret Sauce
Finding the right sonic identity for your brand starts with Step 1: Audit Sonic Landscape. Taking a deep dive into the sonic branding landscape that your competitors use, looking at what your brand has been using, and reviewing best practices used in similar companies and industry sets your brand in motion for sonic success.
Special emphasis is put on looking for ways to stand out including “ the whitespaces where nobody is playing, and your (brand) can be very distinctive. “
The valuable information gained in the first step would lead us into Step 2: Mood Board Exploration. Select the audio that defines the persona and personality of the brand that fits the company’s defined values. Some examples of ‘values’ are trust, effervescence, bold, leadership, and caring. Afterwhich, what Colleen calls the “distilling part” occurs. This is where the brief is written and tightened up for the sound designers and composers.
By following the first two steps outlined above, the next steps; Concept Development, Refinement, Finalization, and Testing will ultimately lead to a winning ‘Sonic Style Guide’. This guide is an important jumping-off point from which adaptations of the brand’s sonic identity to all the different touchpoints including visuals are achieved. Brands should capitalize on sonic branding to complement their visual marketing. We suggest viewing Colleen’s presentation at the end of this article to hear more about the process.
Read on to learn what is the hardest working part of your audio brand and more answers.
Appearing at the very end of, and in, almost any audio and visual touchpoint is the brand or company’s sonic logo! This key element bridges the visual and auditory dimensions of the brand bringing the essence of the brand to life. The logo is the easiest starting point for your brand and can be slotted into most touchpoints for an enriching consumer and employee experience.
To get more answers to your most pressing sonic branding queries, Sixieme Son has made it easy, by collaborating with a company called Pragmatic Digital to create an app. So the next time you’re around an Alexa or Google device say “Hey Google” or “Hey Alexa” “Launch Sonic Brand Answers” and ask away. The range of questions, opportunities, and possibilities we learned for sonic branding is infinite!
Click to view the 9-minute video presentation below and make sure to join our group to be notified of future events.
Meet up with your local Women in Voice Chapter today! We have Chapters in North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific Regions.
Special thanks to Erica Gardner for her feedback!
