Music for fun or for being serious ?

Sound branding comes in many forms. A company such as Intel uses only the same “static” sound logo as an auditory signature in commercials for many years. McDonalds have bought a song from Justin Timberlake and later converted into a sound logo which they have modulated and chanced other the years and have country specific variations. Others such as Giorgio Armani hire Beyoncé in a product campaign and Red Bull have an entire music academy.

Heartbeat International have given their suggestion of how to make sense of all these approaches and describes in their Music Stairway four steps to fully strategically integration of music in the brand (see the picture or visit the link to read the entire article). Step 1 is the unconscious stage with an ad-hoc play-as-we-go approach. Step two is the Conscious Music Usage stage where a sound identity is implemented with sound logos, theme songs etc. Step three is becoming Involved in Music through music oriented marketing campaigns, partnerships with artists, live events with artists etc. Last step is to own a Strategic Platform in Music such as Red Bull Music Academy. Here companies becomes a kind of record labels, managers etc. to artists in the industry.

However, to business-to-business companies – companies that have other companies as customers and not end-users – the last two steps do not necessarily make sense. The process to a fully integrated sound identity is a difficult process in itself and for many companies this is a goal alone; not a step towards something “bigger”.

I suggest that there are basically two different approaches to sound branding. One is through the usage of music artists and collaboration with the music industry, the other is the usage of sound designers and composers – the sound branding bureaus that develop “personal” corporate sound identities for companies.

Typically the approach where artists “entertain” the consumer in commercials, live events, etc. is used by consumer oriented companies (business to consumer) with “low involving” products where personal identity and feel-good-emotions are important to impulsive shopping and the personal image building.

The approach where companies use specially design corporate sounds and music to express certain corporate values and to make a corporate “red thread” through the communication touch points are most often seen in companies that operates business-to-business or sell "high-involvement" products - products which demands serious product evaluation before making a buying decision.
Here corporate music is used to create credibility and a clear corporate image instead of being an entertainment element. This is important as brand likeability is an important part of any buying decision and high involvement products has a large impact on the customer (e.g. financially, psychologically, socially, etc.) and arguably a music artist will make such companies less credible and maybe "blur" the corporate image.


In fact, I have not been able to find a single business-to-business company that use music artists in the marketing communication to other companies. UPS, Intel, Danish Crown, Q8 are all business-to-business companies that use sound branding, but the communication where it is used is directed to the end-user. Do you have a pure business-to-business sound branding example where a partnership with artists or bands has been made?

In the exploring sound logo setup we use very different companies which all have different customer groups; it is going to be very interesting to see if there are any differences in the perception of sound logo between the different types of companies.