Audio as a Brand Growth Driver
Since the invention of the church bell, brands have been trying to support their message with sound. However, we have only recently learned how exactly this works. Sonic branding agency Tambr and market research agency Validators are mapping this out.
In her book Building Distinctive Brand Assets, Jenni Romaniuk describes how the consistent use of recognizable brand elements (sounds, but also shapes, colors and logos) can help to create brand awareness.
We call this increasing mental availability. And that audio is most effective in this was recently shown by research by Ipsos Views ( The power of you, Ipsos Views 2020). So it's no coincidence that marketers have started to take their musical brand assets more seriously. Tambr is also experiencing this, an agency that has been helping brands develop their audio identity since 2018.
A difficult question, because to make a statement about this you have to set up a large-scale experiment. Something that Validators - helped by the circumstance of a moved European Football Championship - could handle.
EK and OS
Because last summer we were spoiled with – indeed – the European Football Championship and the Olympic Games. Major tournaments with brand awareness, hefty media budgets and two pairs of brand new audio logos. In case you missed them, the European Championship sounded like this and the Olympics had this sound . These circumstances offered a golden opportunity, because it was now possible to gain insight into the effect of frequent and large-scale exposure to a new brand sound.
To monitor the course of this effect, Validators used a weekly questionnaire among a nationally representative sample of N=150. And what turned out? At the time of the European Championship final, the tune already had a familiarity of 29%. That is to say: after only four weeks, almost one third of the respondents spontaneously mentioned the European Football Championship when they heard the tune!
The Olympics tune had reached 14% awareness in its last week. A lot less, but easily explained because the Olympic Games lasted shorter and were not always broadcast on prime time. The greater the reach, the stronger the brand associations. Byron Sharp in practice.
Read the full article in Marketing Tribune.