Those fortunate enough to own Ferrari’s new all-electric Luce may be preoccupied with whether the supercar can retain the Italian manufacturer’s famed engine sound. But listen more closely and it becomes clear that just as much thought has gone into the sounds inside the cabin, as Emmy-winning composer Nick Wood knows well.
“From the engine start to indicators and warning tones, these are very simple noises. But they had to have a Ferrari feel to them, not sound generic like your open fridge door,” says Wood, who designed what he calls the Luce’s “sonic universe”.
Every sound the car makes is the product of live recordings of organic sounds – from pianos and cellos to banging wood on pipework and the growl of vintage Ferraris – manipulated in the British composer’s Tokyo studio.
“The importance of sound can come across as so nebulous that it can be hard to validate,” says Wood. “Brands are unsure about how to approach it. They’re all about cool video but have, until recently, no consistent identity for the way they sound. But, from product sounds – like those the Luce makes – to the music played at events, the idea of what’s called sonic branding is something more of them are waking up to.”
Wood, one of the field’s pioneers, has worked with Chanel, Fiat, Uniqlo, Apple and the spa at Claridge’s hotel, and writes pieces of sound lasting anywhere from a second or two to several hours.
Of course, the idea that brands should associate themselves with a sound is nothing new. Russell Boiarsky of Texas-based Stephen Arnold Music, which has worked on sonic identities for Airbnb, CNN and UPS, points out that the first radio jingle, for General Mills’ Wheaties cereal, was broadcast in Minneapolis a century ago this year.
“But the difference is that jingles were meant to be earworms that you couldn’t forget whether you liked them or not, which is not always a positive thing. Sonic branding is about expressing the values of a brand through sound,” he explains.
Think of Netflix’s start-up “ta-dum”, which suggests drama and a sense of occasion, or McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” riff, designed to evoke fun and positivity.
“The challenges,” Boiarsky adds, “are that it’s already a noisy world, so brands don’t want to bombard their customers with yet more.” There is already talk of a “sound-off economy”, in which more people keep their devices silent. “And audiences are already stretched thin for attention, so brands may have less than a couple of seconds to cut through.”
When sonic branding succeeds, however, studies suggest it can be remarkably effective. Hearing is among the fastest senses our brain processes, while sound is closely connected to emotion and memory. As Wood points out, sounds can stay with us long after imagery has been forgotten – allowing a brand associated with them to resonate too.
Repetition helps embed that association, but fewer iterations may be required than imagined: if a sound is well designed, as few as five exposures can be enough. And if the idea of a brand having a sound as much as a look still seems somewhat woolly, research is putting the effectiveness of this approach on a more scientific footing.
“Brands are excited to hear that there is science behind this, that it’s not just witchcraft,” says Boiarsky with a laugh.
Stephen Arnold Music works with UK-based SoundOut, a platform specialising in music testing and sonic brand analysis, to establish how closely a sonic logo or track matches a brand’s personality, its emotional impact and how distinctive it is.
The company’s annual benchmark study tracks recognition and recall of sonic brands, while the company is now working with AI models to map particular kinds of sounds to certain feelings.
“I don’t see that [insight] being used aggressively or to manipulate,” Boiarsky says – not, at least, in the way background “muzak” has been said to influence consumer choices or worker behaviour in shops and factories. Instead, he sees artificial intelligence as a starting point for a composer’s creativity, much as it can now generate a potential hit song that may lack the human element required for longevity.
That is why, although sonic branding can be developed using synthesisers, Stephen Arnold Music often records with orchestras in pursuit of a more authentic sound. The human touch matters personally, too: both Wood and Boiarsky are recording artists in their own right.
It is an approach shared by Unmute, a Copenhagen-based “creative sound agency”, which devised the sound logo for Imax cinemas globally. The team have spent the past year developing a new sonic identity for Danske Bank, which is now being rolled out. To create something that felt suitably Nordic for Denmark’s largest retail bank without sounding generic, Unmute even commissioned a bespoke piano using inherently intuitive audio cues. Built with two strings for every note, rather than the standard range of one to three, it produces what the agency describes as a “cleaner” sound. The instrument now stands in the lobby of the bank’s headquarters.
“The work here is to translate a brand into meaningful sound, which will become part of that brand for years to come, so actually it’s a very big decision, rather like changing a logo,” explains Unmute co-founder and sonic director Simon Kringel.
Sound may only have come to be regarded as a fundamental part of a brand’s ecosystem in the past five years or so, but Kringel believes its importance will continue to grow as our lives become increasingly digital. It is no coincidence that some of the most recognisable examples of sonic branding belong to technology companies such as Google and Nintendo, which have had a head start.
“The move from print to digital platforms, and the fact that the way we interact with so many brands now is through websites and increasingly ‘gamified’ apps, means that the opportunity for sound is there, as well as the need for a sonic identity and user-friendliness,” says Kringel.
“The questions for any brand to understand are: ‘How do we sound as a company?’, ‘How do we sound different from our competitors?’ and ‘How can people make a connection to us when they’re only listening?’”