| Issue 5 | March 2004 | ||
| Branding never sounded better. Take a walk on the aural side. A recent article about Siemens in Fast Company caught my ear. In its quest to reshape its corporate identity, the German engineering and electronics giant is adding sound to its brand. ?By defining an audio signature and sound moods,? the Siemens Web site states,?we are widening the scope of our corporate design to include new audio elements - rhythm, melody, voice, sound and tonal color.? According to Carl-Frank Westermann at MetaDesign, the firm that developed the corporate sound for Siemens, the goal was to create a complex sound environment that offered more than just an aural logo or a simple advertising jingle. Jürgen Barthel, a corporate communications officer at Siemens' Munich office, explains: "With an eye toward integrated communication, we will pay much closer attention than in the past to the aspect of sound and music when presenting a brand." In other words, sound for Siemens is becoming a unifying thread in their brand communications in the same way that typeface and color already are. In a second stage of the project, Siemens corporate sound will be rounded off with what they term "sound moods"?a complete toolbox of sounds and acoustic signals to experiment with on TV, radio, the Internet, at trade fairs, and even in its telephone hold music. So what does the Siemens brand sound sound like? Listen for yourself. MetaDesign is Germany's leading design agency (according to their press release). Tapping into the aural aspect of sensory perception makes sense from an integrated brand communications standpoint. Still, it sounds a bit pretentious when you say it out loud. My guess is it should appeal to companies that already take themselves too seriously. I wonder how much Siemens shelled out for their sound. I love the sound of brand names in the morning. ?The sound of a brand name can make a world of difference in how the brand is perceived. And how successful it will be.? So says Jim Singer, President and Creative Director of Namebase/Medibrand, which provides branding and naming for pharmaceutical products. In a white paper he authored, Mr. Singer maintains that certain sounds have intrinsic meaning in the way they sound. ?E" sounds, as in "teeny," tend to be perceived as small while "o" as in OMEGA or " a" as in "AMERICA" sounds large. Steve Manning, the managing director of Igor, a San Francisco branding company concurs. "Some letters look better in print, make sounds people like saying and are associated with innovation." Mr. Singer also believes (based on a comparison of 200 top brands) that companies with brand names containing plosives are more successful. A plosive is a speech sound like "P" ,"T" or a "K" that requires you to build up air pressure in your mouth and forcefully pronounce the sound. PROZAC which Medibrand helped name, is a good example. It starts with a plosive ?P,? then adds a ?Z??zzzz?which builds up the force for the final plosive?"AC!" According to the New York Times, drug makers have their favorite letters?they run the gamut from X to Z (their joke, not mine). Speaking of new brand sounds, try plucking this with your bow. This item is from BBC News in the U.K.: ?Computer scientists at York University developed a virtual musical instrument capable of creating sounds not possible in the physical world. The software allows musicians to create sounds by exploiting the principles of how strings, drums and wood blocks work in the real world. As a result it is possible to create a variety of new sounds?for example, a cymbal that sounds as if it is being plucked with a bow.? Think of the possibilities! Does Heineken sound better than Lapin Kulta?
What's next--flushing toilets?
| Hey, what's that sound, Everybody look what's going down. For What It's Worth, About Making Sense Making Sense is an email digest sent free to more than 15,000 communications and marketing professionals n the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and other countries. Its content is relevant to anyone in advertising, public relations, marketing communications, corporate communications or investor relations. Making Sense is neither tactical nor self serving. Rather, it takes a critical look at communications strategy today. Welcome to the fifth issue of Making Sense To all Making Sense subscribers: Well, I made it through another annual report season--ended up writing five, including Delta Airlines and Progress Energy. But, hey, enough about me. This is the first issue of Making Sense for 2004. I?ve added new links to interesting sites that make sense (at least to me). And I've changed the format for reference material. Instead of footnoting references, I've included hyperlinks to them in the text. As always, email comments, brief essays, relevant book reviews or what have you to Robert Roth.
A matter of taste. Joe Polidoro of Polidoro Marketing Communications sent this comment on the Burger King tag line article in Making Sense 4 "Burger King?s reversion to a tag line touting its taste superiority is not new. That was its classic mistake in the ?60s/70s?McDonalds? focus groups unearthed the idea that mothers found McD?s made life easier for them? McD?s built its campaigns, including tag lines, on that insight in those decades. Burger King fought back on the taste front (char broiled), but it turned out that consumers didn?t care about taste. They probably still don?t." If you haven't had your fill of tag lines yet, Joe also sent a link to the Advertising Slogan Hall of Fame at AdSlogans.com, a tag line database service in the U.K. New links that make sense Lexical FreeNet Plazm.com Writing911.com Old links that still make sense Identityworks.com Symbolism.org Edward Tufte www.whatbrandareyou.com See what you?ve missed Download past issues of Making Sense or read them online. Opt in?Opt out Add your email address to the subscriber list. (If someone forwarded this copy of Making Sense to you.) Remove your email address from the subscriber list. Click on my logo to visit my Web site.
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