Sonic branding has been making something of a comeback in recent months, with new audio logos and catchy jingles making themselves heard on the radio, in TV ad breaks and in cinemas.
Essentially the advertising earworm that you find yourself humming hours after you first heard it, sonic branding – and audio advertising more generally – can be one of the most powerful and memorable ways to cement a brand’s name, tagline or catchphrase into the minds of the consumer.
A number of major brands – Direct Line, WeBuyAnyCar, Dominos and even Tetley – have been busy at the mixing desk over recent months, unveiling fresh sonic identities backed by significant omnichannel campaigns.
The London-based agency behind many of these, DLMDD, is solely dedicated to sonic branding and audio advertising, working with both brands and agencies to help perfect a campaign’s sonic strategy.
For an advertising medium that was once omnipresent, the old-fashioned ‘jingle’ has suffered something of a downturn in recent decades, becoming viewed as a rather unfashionable relic of the 20th century.
As a result, very few brands founded this side of millennium seem to bother creating one – despite the fact that those brands who do place a sonic identity at the heart of their media strategy, enjoy unignorably high amounts of brand recognition and recall.
Cutting through the noise
In an era when customers are bombarded with content from the moment they open their eyes to the moment they fall asleep, driving distinction has become the number one concern for brands.
With the average human attention span now estimated to measure around 8.25 seconds (depressingly less than that of a goldfish), brands must use any and all tools at their disposal if they’re serious about cutting through the noise. This will continue to be a problem as access to huge amounts of media becomes more readily available – the human attention span has decreased by 25% in the 15 years from 2000 to 2015, for example.
In this respect, sonic branding and audio can complement a brand’s strategy and identity without intruding visually on the customer, yet still acting as a highly effective recall device.
“Sound is one of the levers you can pull to make a brand distinctive”, DLMDD co-founder, Max De Lucia says.
“So if you’re not pulling it and your job is to build brands, you’re probably not doing your job properly. But… and it’s a big but, it’s one thing making a sound. It’s quite another getting it known.”
This is why audio is becoming increasingly relevant as a means to cut through the wall-to-visual avalanche that people experience on a daily basis – but brands must strive to invest soundly in their audio strategy, ensuring that it is distinctive, memorable and pushed out to the right channels.
De Lucia continues: “That’s the art of branding. There’s no point spending years designing a sound only for people beyond your marketing department not to know it. It’s only a crucial asset if you can see the bigger long-term brand-building picture.”
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The brands getting it right
With sonic branding experiencing something of a revival, in no small part down to the efforts of agencies like DLMDD, insurance firm Direct Line has recently brought back its iconic jingle from a decade-long hibernation.
The campaign itself was centred around the insight that – despite its ten-year hiatus – 62% of over 30s were familiar with the brand’s sonic signature.
“Direct Line is an example of sonic branding that real people down the pub know,” De Lucia explains.
“This was the insight that spurred the project – although it hadn’t been used for 10 years, people aged over 30 in this country know that sound. So together with Direct Line and Saatchi & Saatchi we’ve re-energised it and brought it back. Here’s to decades more of people knowing that iconic bugle!”
While the common ‘jingle’ might seem outdated to some, market-leading food delivery brand Just Eat has aced its sonic strategy for several years now, recruiting the crème de la crème of recording artists to take part, including Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry and, as of this month, Christina Aguilera.
De Lucia also highlights “We Buy Any Car’s” smash hit ‘Just Sold My Car’ ad as a shining example of a perfectly executed sonic strategy: “Just Eat have been smashing it out the park for some years now. Real people know it in a pub quiz and that’s the true measure of success.
“They’ve combined a catchy jingle, artist partnerships and a sonic signature. Plus they’ve gone and done it consistently while flexing it to have a bit of fun. So big kudos to them. Other call outs to WeBuyAnyCar who’ve reworked ‘Friday’ into ‘Just Sold My Car’ while still capping it off with their single tone repetitive sonic logo.”
Sonic branding back in the mainstream?
The emergence of agencies specialised in sonic branding like DLMDD signals a wider industry towards a reappraisal of the practice as a genuinely valuable cog in a brand’s marketing strategy.
As De Lucia points out, We Buy Any Car’s simple yet effective ‘Just Sold My Car’ campaign has supercharged its identity and has transcended the advertising world, seeping seemlessly into popular culture.
What We Buy Any Car truly nailed was the 360 aspect of the activation, and as results this campaign can act as a blueprint for other brands looking to replicate their success – which let us not forget stemmed from a relatively low-budget ad.
De Lucia continues: “My belief is that the next phase of sound branding is for clients to see beyond the ‘making’ of the identity. Just commissioning a sonic logo or a brand theme alone doesn’t make it famous by default.
“And there’s a lot of complex collaboration needed to build these assets into things real people come to know. If there’s more sounds being made that become properly famous, we’ll elevate far beyond a golden age and arrive at sonic heaven.”
As 2023 comes to a close, more and more brands are seemingly poised to put genuine effort behind their sonic strategies – let us also not forget about Domino’s’ immensely successful ‘yodel’ jingle – the practice as a whole is poised to enjoy a renewed stint in the media mainstream.
Whilst it might not work for every business – it is certainly an extremely valuable brand building tool that can help develop a creative legacy for decades to come. With the brand recall opportunities that a well-executed sonic strategy can offer, it will certainly be seen as a no-brainer for many.
