What And How Much We Sell Is Dependent On What Our Brand Sounds Like
What is sound and why is a sound strategy so important to a brand?
Ultimately, we are sound. Sound is caused by vibrations which are caused by motion. Everyone and everything is in motion. So, ultimately, we are sound.
If all things make sound in one way or another, then so does our brands and products. It is our responsibility to represent our brand’s sound sincerely and honestly.
You wouldn’t let your logo design be determined by how a bunch of paint splatters on a piece of paper would you? Or would you tell Midjourney to “create something with pretty colors” and take it as is without any kind of manipulation and personal creativity? I hope not.
We design our visual branding strategy so that it tells the message we want it to tell. Same goes with a sound strategy.
You don’t leave sound to its own devices. Especially if the sound happens to be creating the wrong experience or breaking brand messaging.
Sound has this incredible power to make up your mind about one thing or another in seconds. A negative opinion is near impossible to reverse.
So save yourself the trouble and make sound on purpose. Create a sound strategy to invest in the future of your brand marketing.
Still not convinced? Here are 8 ways that sound influences the consumer right now and why sound strategy must be considered alongside traditional visual branding.
Sound requires action. This may be as big as a physical movement or as small as thought interpreting what is being heard.
By implementing a sound strategy into your marketing, you’re actively engaging your audience. They can’t just close their eyes or look away, their ears actively are hearing your message.
We can cover our eyes but we can’t close our ears without some pretty big physical movements.
For example, voice responsive ads require immediate action. Audio advertising will have a call to action and ask you to take initiative at a later time, but responsive voice ads require a response in the moment and, more importantly, when you are most interested.
Sound can cause an immediate response that could mean an immediate sale.
In the 80’s, Ronald E. Milliman conducted a study that found that playing slower music in grocery stores increased sales by 38%. This theory was later proven by scientists in 2011. The slower pace of the music subconsciously slows people down and helps them to create more mindful decisions and purchases.
“It is possible to influence behavior with music, but this influence can either contribute to the process of achieving business objectives or interfere with it.”
Ronald E. Milliman
Fast forwarding to today, these findings still apply. According to a report from Sept-Oct 2020 by Veritonic, “voice ads had 27% higher purchase intent than the audio ad benchmarks for those who engaged the ad.”
A lot of people go to the default of songs and music when thinking about audio ads or sonic branding. But sonic branding is so much more. Sonic means sound and sound covers a whole lot more consumer touch points than music does or could. And those audio touch points are different depending on industry, platform, and market. These outlets are growing exponentially with every new innovation that comes along.
For reference, here’s just a few: on-hold music, presentation music for events, muzak for a retail store, app sounds and ringtones, sonic logos, theme music, video marketing music, hardware and other functional sounds, brand voicing like Siri, Alexa, and Bixby…and the list goes on.
Identifying sonic branding as sound rather than just music gives us an incredibly large pallet to paint on. This is a good thing.
Not always true of music but sound is most definitely relatable everywhere.
According to a study done by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two thirds of the world’s languages were found to use (or avoid), “the same sounds for common objects and ideas”. Researchers found that a considerable amount of 100 basic vocabulary items associate strongly with specific kinds of human speech sounds. These are from unrelated languages and from largely diverse geographical locations.
Although we may not understand all the specific words in any given language, we can understand context through sound; inflection, timbre, and rhythm.
Sounds can take us back. Again, not talking about music necessarily but that is generally the easiest way to think about it.
I love this quote from Social Media Week back in 2015.
“More messages, more alerts, more photos, more videos, and more advertisements are thrown in our faces now than ever before, and when we see or hear something that connects with our past lives, we just seem to freeze, take it in, and transcend back to that moment in time.
Social Media Week- 2015
It’s not quite like an ordinary advertisement or piece of content that we can easily ignore and watch it fly by. Nostalgic content is completely different. It’s emotional.”
The fact that sound can make us stop…and think..and listen…when we’ve never been busier and bombarded with more and more information hit at us constantly is absolutely amazing.
According to a research study published in Saudi Journal of Sports Medicine in 2014, auditory stimulus takes 8–10 milliseconds to reach the brain. Visual stimuli take 20–40. Through the act of repetition, rhythms, and patterns, sound can train our brain to remember its message in the short term and in the long term.
Sound plays into both the short and long term memory models. A sound strategy insures that this continues.
In 2019, Pandora analyzed the best placement of brand mention in a 30 second ad spot. They found that, “…listeners were 7% more likely to remember a brand’s name if it was presented in the first three seconds of an ad.”
Think back on the last TV commercial you listened to. Did they mention the brands name right away or at the very end? Was the mention buried in the middle somewhere, or was it even mentioned at all?
Do you even remember the last TV commercial you watched?
Through the pandemic, we all learned to use Zoom in the same vernacular as Google but most of us are over it now. Video conferencing, although super helpful in that season, was tiring on our bodies and eyes.
What if we could stay connected without engaging anything other than our ears and perhaps our voice?
Although Clubhouse isn’t quite as popular as it was in 2021, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it became a hit. And I know it won’t be the last audio only platform. With the importance of a sound strategy on TikTok, the next audio only app will hit a lot more nails on the head because of Clubhouse’s trailblazing influence and accolades.
I interviewed a few people from Mindshare a few years back. Mindshare is a global media and marketing services company. In 2018, they had a short video series that they put together called the Media Dystopia. Their episode, Sound as The Savior was specifically noteworthy. Their example that they presented was of a world where people got so addicted to their machines that they had to “untether”.
Sound familiar?
They pitched the idea of sound being “a savior”. That it called to us in a very primitive way as storytelling of the mind has existed far beyond video and even books.
According to neuroscientists, it has been proven that when you listen to audio content your brain triggers something called Self Visualization, a personal experience in your own imagination. Further studies found that audio has the ability to evoke even more emotion than video content.
Voice first and voice only is here to stay and as we watch it develop and evolve in real time, new audio touch points are popping up constantly. With these amazing creators and products comes innovation. With innovation we must respond in kind with a solid sound strategy.
We have to be creative and be aware of what’s going on. We can’t just respond to how people are using audio currently.
We need to try and think ahead and see the potential of what sound could be in the future.
Voice tech is moving fast. Those without a sound strategy are going to have a hard time catching up.
Sound statistics to leave you with.
Here’s just a few statistics to leave you with on the emergence of the sound revolution.
According to Think With Google in 2017, “72% of people who own a voice-activated speaker say that their devices are often used as part of their daily routine.”
In 2018 headphones outsold smartphones (source-Statista). In the US, more people subscribed to podcasts than to Netflix.
Sound is a part of us. It is how we function and process information. Sound helps us to relate to one another and our environment. It makes us feel things and it creates action. Sound is how we make decisions on what we buy and don’t buy.
Sound is influential to our brand and bottom line whether you like it or not. Your brand will sound one way or another. Are you in control of that sound? Are you using it to your best advantage?
So what does your brand sound like?
Want to learn more? I have an eBook, Sound’s Power and Influence in Marketing, outlining all the inter-workings of what sound was, is, and what it means to market 2023 and beyond. 100+pages of information and work-booking fun for those that want to up their marketing game by learning something few people truly understand.
