YOU’RE ALREADY USING SOUND, SO WHY NOT USE IT MORE EFFECTIVELY?
LET BIG EARS AUDIO CRAFT YOUR OWN UNIQUE SONIC IDENTITY
“BE HEARD, BE FELT, BE REMEMBERED”
Sonic branding is a great and effective way of cutting through the noise. People recognize and process sound much faster than visuals—from 10 to 100 times faster, in fact. So if you’re creating videos or digital ads, it’s the sound that’s making the first impression, not the carefully-chosen color palette. It’s critical that you weigh the importance of sound as much as you weigh the importance of visuals. The team at Big Ears Audio work closely with you to define what your brand sounds like.
Audio Creates an Emotional Connection
Sound connects us in ways words often can’t.
It meets people on an emotional level instantly, instinctively. If you’re building a brand and you’re not being intentional with your sonic identity, you’re overlooking one of the most powerful senses in the human experience.
When shaping your brand identity, you have the unique opportunity to decide how you want your audience to feel. Do you want to evoke a sense of trust, strength, curiosity, or connection? Sound can do that and more. It can reinforce your message, create memory cues, and deepen emotional engagement.
At Big Ears Audio, we specialise in crafting sonic brands that align with your values and speak directly to your audience’s emotions. We take the time to understand your brand from the inside out, so every note, texture, and tone we create helps bring your message to life.
Let’s design a sound that feels like you.
What is Sonic Branding?
Sonic branding is the use of music, sound, or voice (or any combination of them) to reinforce or highlight a brand’s identity. This sound is something that people immediately and unmistakably associate with a brand upon hearing it. This type of branding has the same end-goals as visual branding: stimulate an emotional response or attachment and evoke instant recognition.
A most obvious and successful example of sonic branding is Netflix’s sonic logo: the ta-dum sound, or two 16th note timpani strikes on D2 and D3. It is the sound you hear before you watch anything on the streaming service. It is simplistic and two beats long only, but it is indubitably Netflix’s, and recognized by every subscriber. More importantly, it has become one of the world’s most iconic sounds.
Sonic branding may serve as a substitute for visual cues, but the influence of voice on emotions and memory is nonetheless perceptible.
The Use of Sonic Branding A.K.A Audio Branding or Sound Branding
In the world of modern marketing, sonic branding plays a vital role in shaping how consumers perceive and connect with your brand. Music and sound in advertising aren’t just background elements they’re strategic tools designed to influence emotion, create recognition, and build loyalty.
Effective audio branding communicates with your audience across multiple levels. A carefully crafted sonic signature becomes instantly recognisable, helping to define your brand’s personality and values. More importantly, it evokes emotion and that emotional connection is what influences customer attitudes, deepens engagement, and ultimately drives action.
The right jingle, musical motif, or sound logo can leave a lasting impression, making your brand not only seen but heard, felt, and remembered. This makes audio branding an essential part of your overall marketing and advertising strategy. It’s about creating a complete brand experience.
With over 20 years of experience working with businesses across industries, Big Ears Audio understands the impact that great sound can make. Our team of producers and composers works closely with each client to craft meaningful, memorable sonic identities that speak directly to their audience.
Let Big Ears Audio help you find your brand’s voice and make it heard.
The Role of Sonic Branding
Why Sonic Branding Matters More Than Ever
Today’s advertisements are carefully crafted incorporating the latest in digital and print design, animation, typography, special effects, and more. But despite all this effort, much of it is lost on audiences. Consumers are bombarded by brand messaging at every turn, and they simply don’t have the attention span for content that doesn’t immediately engage them.
In fact, a recent study found that 86% of people experience visual “banner blindness” mentally tuning out digital ads without even realising it. So how do you cut through the noise?
You reach them through a different sense: sound.
Sonic branding also known as audio branding or audio brand identity is not a new concept, but it’s become more essential than ever. In recent years, global brands like Mastercard, Formula 1, Aldi, and Volkswagen have invested heavily in developing distinct sonic identities. These audio cues reinforce their brand presence in subtle yet powerful ways, fostering stronger emotional connections and increasing recall.
Just like a logo or colour scheme, a sonic brand must be thoughtfully and strategically developed to reflect your values, tone, and personality. When done well, it forms instant associations in the listener’s mind often subconsciously making your brand more recognisable, more memorable, and ultimately, more trusted.
At Big Ears Audio, we understand that sound is more than just a background element it’s a branding tool that speaks directly to human emotion. Our team specialises in crafting sonic identities that capture your essence and build lasting relationships with your audience.
Let us help your brand be heard and remembered.
The Benefits of Sonic Branding
1. Greater attention for your brand
Sonic branding helps to capture the attention of your audience and build brand recognition.
In an environment plagued by information overload, attention is perhaps your brand’s scarcest asset. Adding a sound to your brand identity can help you to get the focus you need. Additionally, sound can penetrate your customer’s subconscious even when they’re not really listening. While a visual logo requires someone to pay attention, a sonic logo flows through the mind regardless of where their focus might be.
2. Stronger loyalty
Sound triggers emotional responses far better than visuals.
If you’ve ever tried watching a horror movie with the sound on mute, you’ll find that you don’t get scared anywhere near as often. On the other hand, just listening to a spooky sound can be enough to set your skin on edge. With sound, you can use emotion to tap into the loyalty and commitment of your target audience. You just need the right sonic logo.
3. Better brand recall
You don’t just want your customers to know your company; you want them to remember it too.
According to clinical studies, listening to sound or a piece of music can initiate the memory section of your customer’s brain, leading to better brand recall.
4. Conveying purpose and value
Because sonic branding resonates with your customers on a more emotional level, it can be a great way to convey your values and brand purpose.
Music is emotive, and it has a way of communicating complex ideas in a way that’s easier for your clients to understand. The right sonic logo or audio identity can express what you stand for as a company.
How Do I Create a Sonic Brand for My Product or Company?
There are a number of different techniques that can be used in sonic branding. Some of the most common include sound design, music composition, and sound effects. Each of these elements can be used to create a unique sonic identity for your product. Sound design is the process of creating specific sounds to represent your product. By creating a unique sound for your product, you can make it instantly recognisable to consumers.
Music composition is another common element of sonic branding. This involves creating a piece of music that represents your product. By using music to represent your product, you can create an emotional connection with consumers.
Sound effects are another way to create a unique sound identity for your product. Sound effects can be used to highlight the features of your product or to create an atmosphere of excitement. By using sound effects, you can make your product more appealing to consumers.
Tips for Developing Your Sonic Brand Identity
When starting on your own sonic identity, a good number to keep in mind is 0.146 seconds. That’s because it only takes 146 milliseconds for the human ear to hear and respond to an audio cue. Which means that the sounds in your videos, radio commercials, podcasts, etc. are quite capable of immediate impact.
Developing your own sonic logos and overall audio brand identity really comes down to 1) understanding your own brand and goals and 2) learning how to use the right audio tones and tools to convey your brand’s emotions quickly and accurately.
Here are some basic tips to follow:
- Work off your current logos and color aesthetics: Just as certain colors evoke specific emotions, certain sounds work the same way. So draw from your current colors and brand aesthetics as a base for forming your own sonic branding.
- Keep it short and simple (and memorable): As you can hear in many of the examples above, the best sonic logo jingles are short, quick, and to the point.
- Use pleasant tones and harmony: The best sonic brands are the ones that make customers feel happy. That’s in part because they’re using elements like major chords and harmonies as part of their musical theory arrangements.
- Say something about your brand in your audio: The best sonic brands are the ones that are subtly telling you something about their brand.
- At the end of the day, your sonic brand really should be a holistic part of your complete brand identity and brand experience .
Sonic Branding Examples
Netfix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV3HUDMQ-F8
Sonic Brands also known as audio logos become most effective through repetition. And Netflix’s distinctive intro, which plays before you start watching any show on its platform, is certainly getting a huge amount of that right now.
The audio logo for the streaming service, which is now available in over 190 countries, is comprised of “two 16th note timpani strikes on D2 and D3, simultaneously which with are played three dotted half notes on D2, D4, and D5”, according to its official trademark document. Or, in layman’s terms: it kind of goes ‘Ta-dum’.
Windows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miZHa7ZC6Z0
While historically Apple has been the hipper choice for creatives, Windows scored quite a coup with its Windows 95 release, by getting art pop icon Brian Eno to compose its startup sound.
While Eno played in Roxy Music and has worked with everyone from Bowie and David Byrne to Coldplay and Damon Albarn, his Windows chime is almost certainly the most widely listened-to piece of music in his entire career. And a quick re-listen now instantly reminds you what a powerful, otherworldly piece of audio it is.
It was Microsoft designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk who originally got Eno involved. As the musician recalled in an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle they wanted “a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional, this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said: ‘and it must be 3 1⁄4 seconds long.’ I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel.”
Mc Donalds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE1B3N_a7fE
Love it or loathe it, McDonald’s certainly knows branding. So it’s perhaps surprising that the corporation, first launched as a franchise operation in 1955, waited almost half a century before it launched its first global marketing campaign, in 2003.
The wait, though, was worth it. The slogan ‘I’m lovin’ it’, accompanied by a super-catchy “ba da ba ba ba” vocal hook, was universally popular and instantly recognisable. So much so, that there’s been a great deal of controversy within the pop and hip-hop communities about who actually wrote it.
The secret to this audio logo is that it’s ultra-flexible, and easily adapted to local markets, languages and cultures everywhere, as well as specific campaigns and different musical styles.
Partly because of this, it still seems fresh and relevant today, 16 years on, as it did.
Intel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ihRPi4wcBY
Created by Austrian musician Walter Werzowa in the 1980s, Intel’s three-second audio logo has become one of the most well-known in history. A simple five-note mnemonic, it’s estimated to be played somewhere in the world every five minutes.
Werzowa was originally hired by Kyle Cooper, a friend employed at R/GA LA and told the sound needed to convey reliability, innovation and trust. He spent 10 days composing the jingle, and finally had a breakthrough when he started singing the words ‘Intel Inside’.
It works partly because it’s a very catchy sequence of notes, but also because of the sound of those notes. The original recording used a combination of different synthesisers, xylophones, and marimba. And while it may sound simple, it’s actually made up of 20 different audio layers.
