Episode #193: The Magic of Sonic Branding
We’ve all heard them. Those iconic sounds that tell us our computer is starting, or you’re about to start bingeing Netflix. They’re sometimes subtle, sometimes more obvious, but always closely associated with a brand experience.
Today we explore the power of sonic branding, with real examples and a brief diversion into creating a sonic brand for The Copernican Shift.
RESOURCES
Every Mac Startup and Crash Chime
Copernican Shift Episode #162: What’s so Funny About Conversational Marketing
See all Copernican Shift podcasts
The Copernican Shift on Apple Podcasts
Bonus sonic brand answers: Coca Cola, LG, HBO, The Copernican Shift planet swoop
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Grad
We’re back. It’s been a while, Randy right? I’ve been busy.
Randy Choco
I’ve been here.
Grad
You’ve been here. I know you have. I’ve missed like 12 of these with you. Oh, man, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I just finished my first 30 days at PROS.com, which is a CFOs secret weapon in the fight against inflation and margin erosion. So more about that later. But I’ve been appointed CMO there. And it’s based in Houston. Fantastic company, an amazing group of people. It’s just an extraordinary culture, very reminiscent of Microsoft actually. So I’m feeling right at home. I have noticed that when I tell them, your culture is a lot like Microsoft, there’s a little bit of a “really”? But it really is, it’s a lot like Microsoft. The best parts of it. There’s some urban legend negative aspects of Microsoft culture, I didn’t really notice those when I worked there. I always thought it was amazing. But I guess there’s bad moments that happen in bad teams, but I always worked in great teams with great bosses. So never had those problems. And I think that’s kind of carried over. And I’ve got an amazing boss, Andres Reiner is the CEO at PROS, and he’s something special. And it’s one of the main reasons I went to PROS was for the people. And that’s been proven to be an excellent decision. So, way more on that though, way more on that, we’ll get into that. My first three days was a pretty deep dive into all aspects of the business. So I’ve been pretty consumed, but started poking my nose up above the water a bit and look around and thought I’d talk about marketing again, right? What do you think Randy, do a little marketing stuff?
Randy Choco
Let’s do some marketing.
Grad
Let’s do some marketing, alright we’ll do some marketing. Someone asked me the other day, they said something like, what’s your favorite thing about marketing? Like? Where do we start that conversation? But anyway. What I want to do today is talk about something that I had never talked about on the Copernican Shift. We’ve never blogged about it. And it may be a blog post on this too, it would be a good idea, Randy. Take all the ones we’re using for the raw material for this. And then let’s reference them all and make our own top 20 list or something. Get as many of these as we can. But sonic branding is something that’s been going on for a really long time. And it’s something that’s so subtle, I don’t think a lot of us think about it that much. It’s just sort of there. And you just assume… like when the MGM lion roars at the beginning of a movie, it’s like, oh, the MGM lion’s roaring again. But that is a great example. And a very, very old example of sonic branding. And sonic branding is becoming more and more important in a world of podcasts in a world of quick connect, in a world of three minute videos, and in the kind of world that we’re living in. What’s fascinating to me is that audio and sonic qualities are becoming more and more important all the time. And even you know Gary Vee, who is kind of take him as you like, Gary Vee has been pushing sonic branding not just for large corporate brands but also for individuals. And he’s got sort of a cute popping noise that he’s using for his because I guess cuz he’s really cheeky. So something like that. What would my sonic brand be Randy, what’s my sonic brand?
Randy Choco
Man… something…
Grad
This is not a good sign. Not a good sign.
Randy Choco
Something with Back to the Future and Star Wars.
Grad
A mashup of Back to the Future and Star Wars. You know what? That’s not a terrible idea.
Randy Choco
You can do that.
Grad
A lightsaber sound. That would be really awesome. Please make it so. I really really like that idea. I think this is just an example of how easy sonic branding really is. So let’s go through sonic branding for a minute and let’s talk a little bit about some examples of it because as I go through them, I think a lot of you will do an, oh my gosh, I could of had a V8 kind of moment. Because if I said hey, give me your top 10 favorite sonic brands, I don’t think most people would be able to rattle them off. But if I said hey, you know, think about the Netflix “da-dum” sound, do you think of that as a sonic brand? Yeah, that’s a sonic brand. I am about to Netflix and chill. I’m about to binge watch the next ten seasons of Game of Thrones or whatever it is you’re gonna watch, right? So I think that Netflix sound has become a really strong sonic brand. I actually like the Amazon Prime one as well. Whenever I hear that I think about Man in the High Tower, which is the very first show that I kind of binged on Amazon Prime. And so that sound became associated with that show. And apparently the Netflix sound actually was associated with… what’s that first show that was really big on Netflix about the president. And it’s that disgraced actor, Kevin…
Randy Choco
Oh, yeah, yeah. Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey.
Grad
What was the show? What was the show? Yeah, come on, people. People are screaming at me right now as they listen to the podcast.
Randy Choco
Neither of us can remember.
Grad
Well, they’re thinking about it. They’re thinking about it. Now we got to get…
Randy Choco
House of Cards
Grad
House of Cards. See, it wasn’t that hard.
Randy Choco
So, yeah, I used Google.
Grad
You used Google. Don’t say that.
Randy Choco
I just remembered it.
Grad
Good job. Excellent recall. All right. So what else we got? The Intel sound. I think most people like that Intel sound. I think what we’ll do Randy is as I’m doing these, giving these examples, I’ll leave a little space here. So I’ll put a colon in the podcast so that you can insert the sound. So people will say, oh right. Oh right. And the sounds are typically around three, three and a half seconds long. Classically, what a sonic logo lasts for. Some are longer, like the Windows 95 sound, which Brian Eno wrote, which is pretty cool. The Windows 95 sound is six seconds long. And ironically, written on a Mac. So I don’t know what that’s all about. But that’s how Windows 95 got it’s sound. But anyway, we’ll leave a few seconds and you can insert the sound. So let’s try it first with Intel. For example, the Intel sound. Thanks, Randy. So that sounds good. About the right amount of time, Yeah?
Randy Choco
That’ll work.
Grad
You’ll go for that. Okay. All right. And then THX is another great one. The audience is listening. Oh my gosh, I love that THX sound. Every time you hear THX you’re just thinking this is going to be an AMAZING film. And it was always so exciting. It always started so quiet right? And then the blue line come in and says the audience is listening, and it just builds, almost like some kind of scene… it almost felt a little bit like Alien, a little bit. THX, what a great sound. That is really one of the great sonic brands. McDonald’s you know, I think they’ve done a nice job. The I’m Loving It campaign. When they first came out with I’m Loving It, I was like, Are we? Are we loving it? But they have this kind of “ba ba ba ba bum” and I think that really works. And the I’m Loving It just sort of created a very joyous quality about McDonald’s, which I think has really worked for the brand. So I was I was wrong about being skeptical about that in early days. So here’s an example of that McDonald’s sound. There you go, they did a good job in that one.
There is a really cool YouTube video, it’s a couple minutes long… I will put a link to it in the blog post. But it’s every single startup and crash chime on a Mac. And it’s a pretty cool video. If you’ve been a Mac user for a long time… I’ve been buying Macs since a long time ago… 80s It’s kind of cool to see them all in order. I think I had that one. I had that one. I had that one. It’s pretty fun. But we’ll probably just think about any kind of startup sound, the startup sounds are a form of sonic branding. Windows 95 I mentioned a second ago, let’s listen to that Windows 95 sound. It’s a six second Brian Eno song. Brian Eno was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle and they he talked about creative brief. And he said they had this really long creative brief and wanted a piece of music that’s inspiring, universal and, you know, blah, blah, blah, optimistic and futuristic and sentimental and emotional. It’s like this whole long list of adjectives. And then at the bottom it said, and it must be three and a quarter seconds long. He thought it was funny and amazing. And he described it as like a little… this little piece of music is like a tiny little jewel. And that Microsoft piece, it was pretty neat. We talked about Netflix, Xbox has got a pretty good sonic brand as well. Yep, there it is. And T-Mobile, I mean the T-Mobile one’s excellent. It’s so sweet. It’s so quick. I mean what I love about the T-Mobile song is it’s a telephone. But it’s not. It’s like a different kind of phone. That T-Mobile one is amazing. I think another one which is great is Southwest Airlines. The “bing,” essentially the call chime for the flight attendant. I think that’s another great piece of sonic branding. They tie into the selling line as well. And there are many, many, many others. So, Randy, what would you add in? Do you have any favorite sonic brands?
Randy Choco
You hit Xbox, which is a favorite. How about the Green Giant? Does the Green Giant count?
Grad
Oh my God, let’s listen to that one for a second. That’s great. Yeah, Green Giant’s an excellent example. Nokia is not a bad one. They had a really interesting ringtone. Let’s listen to that for a second. NBC, you know, that’s a great sound. Let’s insert that one here for a second. Listen to NBC. All right. And then, there’s so many others. I think what we’ve almost missed sometimes, is just how many sonic brands there are out there. And I will say this is a pretty big marketing trend. Everyone’s trying to get into it. Everyone’s trying to create a sonic brand that makes the company stand for something. I’m gonna be working on a sonic brand for PROS. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun and we’re all gonna have a little fun with it and I think we’ll have a sonic brand for The Copernican Shift pretty soon. What else will we do besides lightsabers though Randy? Let’s brainstorm this for a second. Lightsabers is a great idea. Love lightsabers. What else can we have? Because it’s the Copernican Shift. Is there some kind of sound that would be like the planets rushing around the sun?
Randy
Yeah, space. You can’t hear that in space. That would be very quiet.
Grad
[wooosh]
Randy Choco
That sounds like a lightsaber. Yeah.
Grad
Maybe a combination of lightsaber spinning in the air. Very Copernican shifty. And this whole concept of brand, let’s talk about this for a second. Because when people come to brand, there’s this… and this is where I think we can have this broadcast conversation conversation, which is, the broadcast marketing of the 20th century was very much the, I’m going to tell you what my brand is. And the 21st century is all about conversational marketing, which is, you tell me what you think of me. And what other people think of you is your brand. Not, that’s always been true. It’s always been true that what other people think of you is your brand. It’s just that people weren’t able to network, amplify and connect on what they thought of a brand the way they can today. And so brands are being more heavily judged by the opinion of others, because there are more visible opinions, and more connected opinions. Now, the cool thing is, of course, with products like Sprinklr, and many other things that are out there, you can actually now measure this. And so you can pull it in and you can actually understand what the sentiment about your brand is. And so it’s a bit of a double edged sword. I mean, on one hand, some people… I don’t I don’t agree with this… but some people bemoan the fact that the connected networks control brands in ways they didn’t before. But on the other hand, you’ve never been able to know what consumer sentiment was about your brand, as well before. And so I think the positives far outweigh the negatives, because I think in the past, people always had some sort of negative or some perception of your brand that you couldn’t really measure very well. And now you can.
And so where does sonic branding fit into that? To a certain extent, I think the sonic brand is something that is a little bit more broadcasty, right? It’s a little bit more like, this is what we stand for. On the other hand, it does create a handle for conversation. This is what I think is quite interesting. It’s got a conversation kind of connection, because the sonic brand itself so quickly communicates what the brand is, that it’s a little more subtle, and it makes you drive a brand impression without the brand yelling at you. And I’ll tell you what I mean. I’ve used this example of comedians many, many times, so I’ll briefly mention it again. For those of you who have not heard this, we’ll give you a link to a more lengthy description of this. But I’m gonna do the quick one right now, which is: the great communicators, in my opinion are comedians, because they have a very specific communication objective. They want the audience to think that they’re funny. They have different reasons why, they have different brand characters, but their goal’s identical. Every single comedian wants you to think that they’re funny. If they were to go on stage and behave like a marketer, and say that they’re funny, and tell you that they’re funny, and repeat that message over and over again, you wouldn’t think they’re very funny. You would get the message, but you wouldn’t believe it. And this is unfortunately, what most marketers do. Most marketers tell you what they want you to believe about them. But you’re like, I’ll read the reviews, or I don’t believe you. In fact, the more you tell me that you’re this way, the less I think you are. It’s really tricky when someone tells you how to think about them you tend to back away from that. What does a comedian actually do? They send out a stimulus? See where I’m going here? Yeah, thank you. The sharp ones in the audience pricked up their ears. They send out a stimulus. That stimulates gets a reaction. You laugh, hopefully. And while you’re laughing, you think to yourself, Wow, she’s really funny. And it’s that moment of she’s really funny that you say to yourself… sometimes you might say to a seatmate or something… but you say that to yourself, and you believe it, because you are laughing. You know that she’s funny, because she’s making you laugh. And so, when someone asks you, how was the comedian? Your comment is, she’s hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing. You’ve made that conclusion on your own. And it’d be very difficult for someone to shake that out of you. If someone could say, No, she’s not. She’s not funny at all. Like, no, she’s very funny. And you’re like, I don’t think she’s funny. Well, okay, but I thought she was hilarious. Like, you would not really be shaken from that. I can’t even imagine what it would take for you to deny the reality of the experience you had.
Okay, so sonic branding, I think somewhere in between broadcast and conversation, in that what the sonic brand does, is it just elicits a moment. Right? So if you think about that Netflix sound, it’s not “Netflix was here!” right? It doesn’t say that. It makes you: oh, what’s that sound? It makes you replay the brand in your mind, without the brand telling you to replay it in your mind. It makes you replay the brand name in your mind, without the brand name being inserted in your mind. Or the experience, it could be starting with experience, or whatever the thing is that you’re meant to recall. So what sonic branding does, and this is where it’s I think highly nuanced, and I think very, very powerful, is that, when you hear that sound, you are doing a brand recall and probably attaching some emotion, because music elicits emotion, attaching some emotion to that, that makes you feel excited or happy or more engaged with the brand.
The Windows 95 one, I’ll just go back to that for a second. I mean, that was a really big launch for Microsoft. Windows 95 really changed the company. And what they were looking for is inspiring, exciting music that made people excited about creating and doing new things. It wasn’t like a drudgery sound. Let’s face it, most of the time, people were starting up Windows 95 was to do an Excel spreadsheet. But the Windows 95 startup sound made me feel like the future was possible… then I did my Excel spreadsheet. And I think there’s something very powerful in that. And so as we are thinking about bridging between broadcast and conversation, I think sonic branding is a key part of that. I actually think sonic branding may be more important today than ever before, as a way of reinforcing brand equity and creating a conversational back and forth inside the customer’s mind that make them think in positive ways about you. So that’s why you’ll see me doing more in sonic branding than I’ve done in the past and talking about it more as well. So that’s my soapbox for the day. Any other good sonic branding examples, Randy?
Randy Choco
Well, this isn’t exactly an example, but Harley Davidson tried to patent the sound of their motorcycles.
Grad
Well, let’s hear that sound for a second. I think I get that. I mean Harley Davidson. It’s a very distinctive sound.
Randy Choco
It is very distinctive. So that’s their sonic brand.
Grad
Tesla could do theirs. Tesla could just patent their sound to be just silence.
Randy Choco
Which is the same sound as planets spinning around the sun.
Grad
Well, you’re being very technical about this planet spinning around the Sun thing by the way,
Randy Choco
In space, no one can hear you scream.
Grad
Yeah, well screaming. But you can hear the planets, come on. It’s the scream you can’t hear. Anyway, so if you think of any others Randy, fire them in at the end of this. Just throw in a set of random sounds, and at home you can all play along and see if you can guess what the sonic brands are. And then we’ll update it in the blog post. But that’s it for today. So, thanks for listening. I’m Grad, this is the Copernican Shift, and I’ll see you later.