HeyPapaLegend Studios

I am pretty positive the vast majority of marketers in South Africa or their research partners have not defined a research matrix to help calculate just how much impetus music and sound design can add to a brand’s connectivity to its target audience, or how much value to its equity. Or, even, how much science is applied to the thinking behind placing a soundtrack to a commercial.

In the 50-odd years since the concept of “branding” has been introduced to the ad industry lexicon, some pretty smart people have designed some pretty convincing data metrics to add to the strategic planner’s arsenal. Nomenclature, packaging, products, Colours, fonts, copy, design, strategic intent all figure in the crafting of a brand’s architecture; but I haven’t come across a model which calculates the value that well-crafted sound can add to a brand’s essence, identity and appeal.

Well, apart from the one in my head.

Having read somewhere that some 30 000 commercials use music in the UK annually, and that in a survey conducted among agency attendees and brand suits at the 2008 Cannes awards only five tracks could be correctly attributed to the brands they were promoting, I took a look at the media around me.

I see what’s happening. Editors, directors, writers and AD’s shoot film, then find a track to cut to. Nothing wrong with that. Creative advertising people are in the business of elevating their art to levels of perfection unknown in most other industries (OH, that the guys who make our cars and appliances could care this much!)

Problem is, it is so personal. It is impulsive, and usually pressed up against a quivering deadline. And, as often as not, let’s face it, this leads inevitably to an uncomfortable level of relevance-disconnect.

Getting back to the numbers.

A brand equity study conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in 2005 revealed that more than 60% of a company’s value is attributed to “intangibles”.

So is it possible that every brand out there has a double helix which can be matched to a particular style of music, sound design, noise?

I would say so. It makes sense that a certain style of music will reflect one brand’s character better than another’s; certain chord sequences, harmonies and arrangements will reflect one brand’s essence more emotionally than another’s.

With the amount of detail that goes into researching “consumer tribes” and what brands they deify, in order that a creative team can better understand the creative world their client’s jeans or beer should exist in, surely there is enough knowledge to collate a template for a brand sound as well as a brand look and feel?

Of course there is.

Marketers who simply choose a track to cut picture to based on the iron whim of an editor or copywriter might think twice about how much more clout the track would carry if it was selected based on the brand’s DNA as expressed in other intangibles such as model looks, film colouration techniques, typography etc.

It’s about finding those cultural characteristics common to both the specific musical genre and the brand itself. It’s about identifying a “voicing” of musical genre that is sustainable, not the tidal fad variety. It’s about understanding that positioning is not something clients and agencies do to a brand, but what consumers do to it. Which supports the insight that adding a specific music colouration to a brand’s electronic media-voice begs a wider look at the sustainability of that sound-feel to fit the brand’s intended expression through more than just one execution. It goes beyond finding that one track; it’s about defining a sound palette that connects with every other brand-defining intangible which make up the brand’s unique persona. With the wide selection of electronic channels to market available to marketers, it makes more and more sense not to leap from one track to the next within a brand’s range of electronic communications but to nurture a unique musical identity through all executions to add a richly coherent and recognisable aspect to the brand’s appeal.

Invest a little time, resist the impulsive temptation, explore the intangible synergies and harness the power of sound.

By Allan McDonald, HeyPapaLegend Music Brand Consultancy