Sonic branding has the potential to change a customer’s perception of a company, organisation, or business.
In a highly competitive environment, the emotions sparked by audio can alter brand awareness and ultimately influence buying behaviours.
According to 2021 research by Spotify, 63% of millennials believe audio is the most immersive form of media.
Despite this clearly enticing marketing strategy, just a handful of organisations have managed to nail highly memorable sonic signatures that have stood the test of time.
In 2023, retail insurer Direct Line relaunched its iconic “bugle” sound identity. Though widely recognised by the British public, it had not been used in advertising for over a decade.
Lucy Mildwater, senior brand campaign manager at Direct Line, explained to Financial Promoter how corporate audio identity is marking a new era for the company.
“Adding a distinctive audio asset to our arsenal allows for a multi-sensory experience that can set us apart within a competitive market and connects with consumers emotionally to provide an enhanced experience,” says Mildwater.
“In a sector where salience is key, sonic branding gives Direct Line the opportunity to increase recognition, making us a permanent fixture in the audience’s mind.”
Despite the bugle being off air for more than 10 years, consumers still associated the brand with its old sonic signature, according to research by the insurer.
“By reimagining our old bugle, we have re-energised and modernised the sound which builds on the years of equity already established,” Mildwater says.
Sonic brand agency DLMDD helped develop assets for brands including Direct Line and Standard Chartered.
Max De Lucia, co-founder and director, says financial services in particular has a need to drive distinctiveness, differentiation, humanity, and emotion in branding.
“Sonic logos are designed as pieces of brand punctuation – to drive recall, recognition, and memorability – and so when they work well, you experience an immediate memorability response,” he says.
Crafting emotion Three quarters of consumers don’t trust financial services companies to act in their best interests, according to 2023 data by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
For both established and challenger brands, marketers are tasked with building brand trust – an unquantifiable and intangible measurement. In lieu of being able to build trust on demand, marketers can take steps to incite emotions in customers.
Prof. Dr Peter Zec, founder and CEO of design and branding awards scheme Red Dot, says sounds are emotionally charged and have the potential to be remembered positively forever.
Amongst the overload of complex information in financial services, an unmistakable sound can illustrate a clear, unambiguous identity, he says.
“Even though we live in a visually overloaded world, our sense of hearing is more important than our sense of sight. In the dark we rely on our sense of hearing. It is helps us to find our way.
“This applies not least to our orientation in a world flooded with visual stimuli. Once we connect a brand with a certain sound, we always remember it,” Zec adds.
Ben Rhodes, brand director at Phoenix Group, says sonic branding has become an important component of brand building and establishing trust in the digital landscape.
“When we developed our sonic approach, we used the same core attributes that sit at the heart of our Phoenix Group brand,” says Rhodes.
“Staying true to being experts and empathetic, trusted, and reliable ensures that we remain relevant.
“We interpreted these attributes in the different layers of our sonic identity. For example, a strong and steady rhythm denoted reliability and trust and simple, clear phrasing denote expertise, and an uplifting leitmotif project optimism and progress,” he says.
Sonic branding is yet another touchpoint that organisations can form with customers – one that reveals a brand’s personality and values in a unique way.
At Direct Line, sound helps to establish a consistent brand identity across a variety of platforms and channels.
“Ultimately a great sound can bring cohesion across every touchpoint a customer has with a brand and provides the opportunity to create a positive emotional experience for customers,” Mildwater says.
Building the communication bridge Financial services organisations have long struggled to effectively communicate with clients.
According to a study by experience services company Foolproof, 20% of customers don’t understand the language used to describe financial products.
Unlike whitepapers or social posts, sound transcends the need for complex language and creates an emotive relationship between the business and customer.
A study by insights organisation WARC says 12% of British adults would be more likely to continually purchase from a brand with a sonic identity.
The same WARC study says this figure almost doubles to 23% amongst Gen Z – those aged 18 to 24. It’s clear that sonic signatures are an opportunity for marketers to leverage relationships with the younger generations.
“Insurance is a crowded market and Direct Line is one of a few direct-only insurers, so standing out for us is essential,” says Mildwater.
“Extensive testing has shown us that our sound connects not only with our traditional heartland audience who are familiar with our old jingle, but also new, younger audiences,” she adds.
In a world where homes are becoming more digital, personal devices are becoming increasingly hands free, and our attention spans are shrinking, sonic signatures allow customers to hear the logo rather than see it.
The cost of a sonic signature can range from £10,000 to upwards of £100,000, according to sonic branding agency WithFeeling.
With tightened budgets becoming the norm for financial marketers, measuring return on investment for each project is becoming even more crucial.
“We can measure the ROI of a sonic signature based on brand awareness,” says Professor Dr Zec.
Unlike visual effects, which have an expiry date once overused and need to be renewed repeatedly, brands don’t have to change a sound to evoke different emotions, he says.
“The recognition value of sound is exceptionally high. So, you only have to invest in a significant sound once.”
At Phoenix Group, Rhodes veers away from evaluating return on investment for sonic signatures.
“Return on investment is an efficiency measure related directly to commercial performance. This is not the most helpful approach to understanding the effectiveness of using sonics to increase memorability and recall.
“What we do measure is advertising recall and correct brand attribution,” he says.
TikTok research supports this measurement, reporting that distinctive sonic cues in ads increases brand linkage and recall by over eight times in comparison to elements such as slogans and logos.
When obtaining buy-in from key stakeholders, marketers citing brand awareness and recall as their motivation may face pushback from non-marketing board members.
Besides the plethora of research and benchmarking against competitors, the return on sonic signatures proves tricky to predict, though the results from those who have taken the plunge remains promising.