sonic logos

Mark Dent wrote an article for The Hustle titled Why so many brands use sound to make you buy stuff  (14 July 2023).

« Halls and Vicks dominated the market, accounting for ~67% of all US cough-drop sales in 1987. Ricola, which entered the US in the mid-1980s after decades of crafting herb-based lozenges in the Alps, was a non-player. So Ricola brought in a yodeler. And an alphorn player. And in a famous 1994 commercial, they stood in the shadow of the Matterhorn and belted out a sound that echoed through the mountains.  RI-CO-LAAAAA! … By 2005, Ricola was the second-leading cough-drop maker in the US, trailing only Halls. The company remains a top seller today, using the same sonic logo. »

« But for every Ricola, there’s a litany of sounds that nobody recognizes. »

« NBC developed a short audio logo with its chime sound in the 1920s… Intel’s four-note bong offered a modern twist to a jingle — a lyric-free sound that was further popularized by Netflix. »

« According to Courtier-Dutton, a relatively small share of major companies, ~10%, have sonic logos… SoundOut has analyzed data from thousands of consumers to produce widely cited reports about sonic branding in 2021 and 2023. »

« “You’re trying to get the consumer who’s standing in the aisle in the store… You want them to be able to call upon something that they’ve heard or seen,” said David Allan, a professor at St. Joseph’s University and author of Super Sonic Logos: The Power of Audio Branding. »

« “You can shut your eyes,” noted Laurence Minsky, co-author of Audio Branding: Using Sound To Build Your Brand, “but you can’t really shut your ears.” »

« But average consumers often struggle to recall sonic logos… For Netflix, the sonic logo has been a massive success. SoundOut found the company had a recognizability rate of 81% in its 2023 report. But Netflix is more of an exception than a rule.

• The attribution rate or recognizability rate (i.e., the ability of somebody to hear a sonic logo and correctly identify the company) for 89 out of the 135 brands examined in SoundOut’s 2023 report was less than 33%. The companies with low attribution rates included huge brands like Mastercard (14%), which went to great lengths in 2019 to market a new sonic logo and audio strategy. 
• The vast majority of companies with new sonic logos, those less than two years old, had recognizability rates of less than 20%. One exception was TikTok, which clocked in at 34%. »

« Of the top 20 most recognized sonic logos in SoundOut’s 2023 survey, 18 featured the name of the brand being sung or spoken. (The two exceptions were the “ta-dum” of Netflix and “pizza pizza” of Little Caesar’s.) »

Courtier-Dutton recommends melodic sounds and repetition.