Last month, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda collaborated with other artists and musicians around the world on a new project. It wasn't an album or a concert, but a melody for Mastercard.
The resulting tune — which Mastercard plans to use everywhere from its commercials to what's played when a customer completes a transaction — is one of the latest and most prominent examples of brands diving into sonic branding.
Major brands including Visa, Mastercard, and Pandora are increasingly using sound to reinforce their brand identities and positioning, just as they would use certain colors, designs, or words.
"Voice and sound have become a part of the cultural zeitgeist," Greg Hedges, the vice president of emerging experiences at the ad agency Rain, told Business Insider. "Brands are realizing that a signature sonic logo can represent their brand the same way that an iconic visual logo like the bull's-eye conveys that it's Target."
'We are in the midst of an audio and voice renaissance'
Sonic branding isn't new — NBC and Intel have consistently used their "Chimes" and "Intel Inside" sonic logos for decades.
But with the rise of smartphones, voice technology, and other digital devices and voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home, marketers are realizing that they need not only a distinct visual identity to be seen, but a sonic presence to be heard.
"We are in the midst of an audio and voice renaissance," said Lauren Nagel, the executive creative director at Pandora, which rolled out its sonic logo this week. "Consumer behavior is shifting toward sound and audio more than ever before."
According to eMarketer, by the end of the year 22.7 million people in the US will use smart speakers to shop, representing 32.5% of US smart-speaker users. And voice shopping is projected to reach more than $40 billion in revenue by 2022, according to OC&C Strategy Consultants.
"In places where we have visual real estate, we have optimized for our logo. But if there's no visual real estate, like on smart speakers, then it's all based on sound," Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard's chief marketing officer, told Business Insider. "That's why we came up with Mastercard's sound identity, our sonic brand."
Brands are getting savvier about their sonic identities
Research has found that sonic logos not only help marketers tap into people's emotions but help drive brand recall and strengthen affinity. They're designed to form implicit associations with a company.
"Sonic logos are a tactical asset," Nagel said. "Brands that can harness the power of sound can then drive attention, recall, perception, and even purchase intent."
So brands are getting savvier about their sonic logos, in terms of both how they're derived and how they're tailored to different audiences and situations.
Pandora, for example, took six months to develop its sonic logo, first identifying its core brand principles and then turning those into a pneumonic that communicated its brand, Nagel said. The company narrowed down 200 iterations of its logo to four through user testing. It's now planning to turn this expertise into another revenue stream, helping other brands craft sonic identities.
Mastercard, on the other hand, started by creating one base branding sound, then adapting it to different cultures, scenarios, and activities. Swiping your Mastercard at a coffee shop, for instance, would sound different from using it to shop online. The brand also created versions for different moods and musical genres, such as operatic and playful, as well as EDM and cinematic.
Demand for sonic branding continues to swell, but brands should be careful
Janet Levine, the managing director of Invention Studio at Mindshare, said that she had noticed a sizeable uptick in clients asking for audio strategies and sonic logos in recent months and that she expected the demand to continue as these channels become more mainstream.
"We have regular workshops with a suite of exercises and mechanisms aimed at helping our clients break down their visual identities and generating ideas in voice and audio," she said.
Dexter Garcia, a cofounder of the audio agency Audio UX, agreed, saying he had seen a 75% increase in clients asking for audio strategies and sonic logos. But he warned against brands doing overkill and using logos excessively, saying they should first and foremost serve the user.
"While consistency is key, sonic logos must be optimized for different touchpoints," he said. "Your flagship sonic logo should sound different on a flash briefing on Amazon Alexa versus your connected car."
Ultimately, successful sonic logos should not be interruptive but should give people experiences they want to repeat over and over, said Joel Beckerman, the founder of Man Made Music, a global sonic studio.
"It's not about producing ear candy," Beckerman said. "It's about curating the experience."
