How Important is Sonic Branding to Your Audience?
Sonic branding is the act of using sound and music to trigger a memory or emotion. Many successful, iconic brands use sonic techniques to solidify themselves into the consumer psyche further. Think McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle, or the popular Southwest 'DING'.
Music and sound is a language that anyone, anywhere, can speak. Its power transcends culture, time, and place. So, sonic branding should be a huge part of your marketing strategies, regardless of your company’s size or industry. It gives you the opportunity to distill your company’s vision and ethos into a few seconds of sound that will imprint onto your target consumer, conjuring an emotion that is aligned with your brand’s vision. So, how important is sonic branding to your audience?
1. Consumers are dependent on voice.
Content creation is accelerating at an alarming rate. More and more, consumers are relying on voice technology to help them sort through ever-expanding mountains of digital information. To better sift through content, consumers are starting to exchange their independence for fast, dependable information that is personalized, hence the rise of Amazon’s Alexa and other voice-activated devices.
Because consumers are starting to depend more and more on voice agents, those voice agents are standing between marketers and their target audience members. Going forward, it’s crucial that brands can create audio connections with consumers, and sonic branding techniques can help companies build their brand identity.
2. Sound is one of the most memorable of the senses.
Consumers are constantly bombarded with images and sounds. To make sense of all this information and data, the most memorable must be simplified and stripped down to its bare bones. As content creation continues to accelerate, catchy, memorable phrases need to be continuously shortened. But when it comes to sound and sonic branding, it’s power is ever-present.
It’s much easier to create a memorable jingle than it is to create an iconic tagline that will not only communicate the brand’s vision but also imprint successfully into consumer’s memories. Sound is much more memorable than words.
3. Sonic branding conveys and triggers emotions more reliably than visual marketing techniques.
Sound plays a strategic role in differentiating a product or service. Audio is stored in the emotional centers of the brain, and that’s why people can respond to and remember music and sound once it has been memorized. It’s one of the reasons why it’s easy for people to remember a song from their childhood, even if they haven’t heard it for decades.
Sonic branding is a way to better connect with your target audience as more and more consumers rely on voice recognition to make sense of information. With sonic branding, consumers have a greater ability to recall and trust your brand. Sound and music give you the ability to differentiate your products and offerings from your competitors further. And audio enables you to connect with your customers on a deep, emotional level. As you continue to hone and refine your marketing techniques, it’s important to understand how sound and music can enhance your campaigns and further build a mutually beneficial relationship with your customers.