Why brands should be paying attention to the powerful sounds their products make just as much as the songs that they license.
Flashback to 1990
Paula Abdul was big WAY before American Idol and I was a huge fan. When she released her album “Shut Up and Dance” I wanted it so bad. But it had a curse word in the title so my mom was not having it. Somehow I convinced her it was ok and I was able to buy it with my saved-up piggy bank money.
It goes without saying, although I’ll say it anyway, I was extremely excited.
I took the treasured cassette tape home and sat cross-legged on the floor furiously searching for a hole in the shrink wrap so I could tear it open. Once released, I opened it carefully to hear the familiar creak of the plastic separating and an extra rattling from the cassette cogs. Pulling out the cassette tape to admire it, I only knew one or two of the songs. This meant that six songs I’d never heard before would be coming my way.
I hugged my boombox to me as I opened the cassette door and slid the tape in. The click of the door closing meant we were good to go. All that was left was to make sure the volume was set (click, click, click) and that the boombox was set to cassette not radio (click, click). I pulled out the lyrics card and opened it with anticipation; ready to follow along.
This was it. I was about to experience something for the first time. The anticipation was delicious and intoxicating.
My finger pushed down hard on the play button till I heard the final click.
And then…
“He’s a coldhearted snake. Look into his eyes. Uh oh. He’s been telling lies.”
Back to present time
That walk down memory lane was so strong for me as I wrote it that I had to go dig out my cassette tape from the back of the closet to re-experience the experience. I was surprised to find that there actually wasn’t a lyric sheet on that one (I probably got it on sale) but everything else I remembered was spot on.
The most interesting discovery I made was that I tried to play the cassette first rather than bringing it up on YouTube immediately.
Why?
YouTube obviously has the cleaner version and it’s much faster to listen there than to have to figure out where my tape player went.
Unfortunately, the only device I have to play tapes now wasn’t working properly, so I still had to resort to YouTube in the end. Which definitely wasn’t as satisfying.
Why did I want to hear the album in it’s original format? And why was I bummed that I couldn’t experience the inferior quality version in the end?
Nostalgia is weird
Here’s why I wanted to play the imperfect format. Because the sounds and imperfections associated with the sound were what made that experience palpably strong for me.
The clicking of the tape, the creaking of the plastic, the fumbling with the player, and the scratchiness of the ribbon are powerful sounds. They were everything. That was the experience. That was what I remembered.
The experience of all the extra was almost stronger than the nostalgia of listening to Paula herself.
What does this have to do with branding?
Brands may be looking for the perfect top-rotation song to either represent their brand or fit into their latest campaign. But the powerful sounds their products make are just as important if not more so.
From the clicks to the hums to the spoken word, the sounds brands emit matter just as much as the songs they choose to associate themselves with.
There are so many sounds both digital and physical that circle around a product that no one realizes. And those powerful sounds play a huge role in decision-making and long-term memory recall.
We hear something we like and we remember. But perhaps even more important to note, we hear something we don’t like and we remember.
Sound can be a negative or a positive
I was interviewed by a writer from Car Wash Magazine a few months ago and the conversation went from creating sounds and jingles to making the physical sounds the wash made part of the experience.
I used the example of a squeaky brush in the mechanism playing the lead in this play.
That single squeaky sound could ruin the experience and lose that car wash a customer. It could also lead to a negative word of mouth or written review that could then send other potential customers to the competition.
A seemingly harmless sound, could ruin a businesses’ reputation.
However, there is another scenario. What if that car wash were to make the squeaky brush part of the experience? If workshopped and thought out properly, the squeak could be something of a positive talking point for the brand. It could also mean writing up a jingle that eluded to the brush making your car “squeaky clean” or something to that effect. Or that squeak could be mentioned in written copy where they poke fun at the brush and say something like “he just had to make a statement in his own squeaky way.”
Another alternative would be to just fix the brush so it didn’t squeak anymore.
But where’s the fun in that right?
A potentially bad sound experience could become a positive one just by changing the narrative.
It’s about the before and after and everything in between
When we think about sound in marketing, the first thing that comes to mind is music. But with the world of technology that we are currently navigating, there are so many audio touch points being activated that have nothing to do with sing-songy jingles and ditties.
People listen and respond to music but they experience sound. Sound experiences are locked up safe in the memory to be used to decipher future events. If that powerful sound has been deemed “good” in the past, it will remain “good” in the future and inspire positive responses.
My Paula Abdul tape was cheap and it’s now pretty beat up. Listening over and over again has mostly ruined the ribbon because it wasn’t designed to last as long as it has. The plastic rattling sounds don’t transmit “quality craftsmanship” by any means. But without those sounds, would I have remembered it as deeply as I had?
I honestly don’t know.
All I know is that if I had been able to re-listen to the tape itself rather than pulling it up on YouTube, it would have sounded “better”.
