What does your sound brand like?
Anybody out there read the blogs on AdAge.com? Just curious.
Anyway, I was poking around that site earlier this week, and noticed a blog called “Songs for Soap,” and this entry asking “Does Every Brand Have A Sound?”
We all know that there is no longer the slightest stigma involved in a band, indie or established, renting its music to a brand, but I was still a little surprised to read just how far from those forgotten notions we’ve come: The entry concludes with the marketers actually lecturing musicians about how to make sure they’re worthy of such collaborations!
“Artists need to think of themselves as brands; what they stand for, what their values are and what message they want to give,” if they are to succeed in partnering with consumer brands.
So to turn the item’s headline around, the question for musicians, I guess, is: Does your sound have a brand? Maybe there’s a future career here — consultants who help bands write their mission statements and so on.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, this September 4, 2006 Consumed addressed Umpqua Bank’s unusual music-branding work with Rumblefish, whose founder is the first person I can remember articulating the “what does your brand sound like” pitch.
On a related note, the same blog has an entry on Girl Talk cutting a long-form ad “I’m a PC” ad. Interesting ona number of levels, and I hadn’t heard about it. (And again for what it’s worth: My July 20, 2008 column on Girl Talk.)
Paul Anthony on 20 Nov 2008 at 3:06 pm #
Hey Rob,
The response we received since we started asking that exact question, “What Does Your Brand Sound Like®” (initially somewhere around 2000), was so overwhelming that yes…we registered it with the US PTO:
http://rumblefish.com/blog/?p=81 )
…. because people started associating the question with Rumblefish and our, at the time, very “weird” presentations in board rooms about sonic branding and how music and sound can grow a business in any industry/space finance, apparel, beverage, CPG, devices, appliances, architecture, etc.
It’s always been interesting to me how, as hard as you try to explain something, many times the best way to wrap someone’s head around a new idea is to simply ask them the RIGHT question.
Paul Anthony, CEO & Founder – Rumblefish
http://www.Rumblefish.com
What Does Your Brand Sound Like”®