Sonic health check - Michael Spencer contemplates the possibility of 'organic' use of sound.
Pay attention at the back - and Andrew Peggie delves into the problem of low level processing.
Sound Strategies News - The Japan Matsuri in London and more web audio research announced.

Sonic health check

This month we take another look at the question of noise. A topic not often high on the agenda of marketing executives, agencies or composers. But perhaps it will become more so for those who read this issue.

The usual layman’s definition of noise is simple: unwanted sounds. One problem with this is that it does not distinguish between sounds which are not noticed (possibly unnecessary sounds) and sounds which are noticed and are disturbing. Because it is hard to shut off our ears at will (we can easily turn away our eyes, but we cannot close our ears), we are subject frequently to sounds which are basically un-needed, uninformative and unattractive. Although our ears continue to react to the sound pressure waves, our brain will often switch off the attention/engagement process.

We hear but we do not listen. In some cases, however, the effect of prolonged background noise will have lasting physiological effects on the body, even if the attention element is missing. High blood pressure, increased heart rate and other stress indicators can all be triggered by background noise such as city traffic, aircraft or noisy working conditions. The sounds do not have to be loud, but constant enough to cause subconscious attention distraction making both concentration and relaxing more difficult.

On the other hand – as we outline below – certain background sounds may benefit our working or leisure environment even if we do not pay full attention to them. Researchers have labelled this ‘low level processing’, and it has become a useful concept in the field of television advertising, in gauging the effectiveness of music backing tracks on commercials.

Two questions arise: (1) does constant low level processing of sound and music (in an environment where radio, television and personal stereo are ubiquitous) encourage the brain to adopt this as its default way of perceiving sound – in the same way that it learns to switch off unwanted background noise? And (2) at what point does low level processing switch from positive to negative physiological effects?

Are we becoming progressively de-sensitized to all sound and music? Is the sonic environment subtly infecting our mental health in the same way that pesticides and food additives can undermine our physical wellbeing?

We cannot yet offer answers, or indeed solutions. Though quality, imagination, care and integrity may well be some of the ingredients in the creation of low level processed backing tracks, in the same way that organic produce and natural products are likely to be more beneficially to our long-term health.

How about a switch to ‘organic’ television commercial production?

Michael Spencer

Pay attention at the back

The interesting thing about noise is that we all need some of it in order to complete certain tasks or enjoy certain activities. More accurately, what we need is background sound, often containing just enough stimulation to keep our brain functioning at optimum levels while coasting through an unrelated task. The science of psycho-acoustics calls this form of half paying attention to sound, low level processing, a form of listening usually sneered at by serious music listeners (in both senses of the phrase) who find it hard to accept listening with anything less than 100% concentration on the music.

However, low level processing could turn out to be of critical importance when trying to gauge the interaction between music and image – in a television commercial for example.

What we do know is that 100% aural concentration on a piece of music for 100% of the time is almost humanly impossible. Although the hearing continues, the audio processing part of the brain which interprets the sounds and makes real-time connections with memory, emotions and images works by dipping into and out of the sound-stream as it progresses. Even in concert hall conditions, one’s initial focus on the opening phrases of music is almost certain to falter before the first two minutes of music have elapsed. We might notice something or someone in the hall, we might switch attention to the movement of a musician, or perhaps wonder if we remembered to lock the car or switch off the mobile. Some people will try to glance at the programme notes to gain some idea of what is happening in the music.

This is common to everyone, even in high level processing situations when the we are supposed to be paying attention. It is because hearing alone is rarely the whole story. Ideally, cognitive (intellectual), affective (emotional), memory (associative), visual and physical apperception of the music all work in tandem, leading to an intense ‘flow’ experience. The greater the number of faculties engaged, the better the chances of a memorable good time.

Such outcomes are part and parcel of the arguments for music’s effectiveness in marketing and brand recognition. However, music in these contexts rarely achieves anything beyond than a marginal, low level processing status. The product is centre stage, followed by the images, visual logos and perhaps text and voice-over. Library music used for backing commercials and corporate videos is deliberately designed to lack key aural stimuli – it should not draw attention to itself.

Composers and creative directors know this. So however seductive it is to advance arguments about music’s efficacy in promoting brand recognition, when it comes to practicalities, it is those very memorable attributes in the music which are lacking in the context in which it is employed. It is certainly not intended to provoke intense or unexpected emotional reactions. And therefore it cannot realistically do the job of cementing a new affective link with the brand, product or company.

We need a better theory of low level processing.

We do know that background music in work environments involving repetitive tasks (assembly lines for example) is effective at maintaining on-task concentration. The rule of thumb states that the more intellectual processing the brain has to cope with during a task, the more distracting background noise or music becomes. Anyone plotting a four-dimensional planning schedule should really take to a darkened, sound-proofed room…

A high proportion of television commercials and online corporate videos employ background music as a low level processing agent, although the video producers might rarely admit to that. In reality, the music functions purely as an intermittent distracter for video and voice-overs – which often struggle to deliver compelling content. It becomes simply a means of preventing the viewer from falling asleep, or switching off, providing a form of rhythmic pace-maker otherwise lacking in the editing or presentation. Nostalgia and other associative factors also play a large part.

However, what is uncertain about low level processing is how much, if any, affective or emotional residue remains after a hearing (or several). Since low level processing is at its most effective when the music genre is already familiar aural territory (hence the preference for mass-appeal undifferentiated pop/techno tracks), it is likely that the effect simply re-enforces existing affective connections.

Music intended for low level processing is nothing new. Doubtless this was also the case for the hundreds of hours of nondescript ‘functional’ music produced in the 17th and 18th centuries for ceremonials and daily entertainment.

What is new, however, is today’s high incidence of background music (not asked for and difficult to opt out of) compared to foreground, ‘performance’ music, where the listener chooses to pay attention. It is virtually impossible to escape the former, short of emigrating to the remote countryside.

Thus, chaining together a series of unrelated broadcast commercials, most with music tracks intended only for low level processing, can result in a constant aural ‘carpet’ of sound which may indeed trigger a negative response by the brain. The sound becomes noise. Attention levels to even foreground sound, such as voice-overs, drops and instead negative physiological factors come into play: increased stress levels. The music becomes an anaesthetic (sensory depressing) element rather than an aesthetic (sensory awakening) one.

Advertisers have limited choice and little control over the context in which a commercial is broadcast and received. But if the cumulative effect of a sea of commercials is to negate the very point of them, then alternative approaches will have to be tried.

Andrew Peggie

Sound Strategies News

• Sound Strategies is about to embark on anther WAR programme – that’s as in ‘web audio research’. A year ago a survey of 500 corporate websites conclude that the corporate world still viewed the internet as a kind of digital repository and filing system, with little use made of media such as video, podcasts, flash animation – and sound. Suspecting that things may have moved on a little, the intention to look again at how the corporate world – in particular its online customer-facing portals – is utilising sound and video, and whether there is any strategic relevance of the content to the company’s overall image and brand values. Watch the space above…

• On September 19 last, in one of London’s most original retail areas, Spitalfields Market, Sound Strategies MD, Michael Spencer, was responsible for a huge consumer attraction featuring the music, sounds and images of Japan. The Matsuri, a traditional Japanese form of festival-cum-street-market, attracted over 30,000 people and featured dozens of Japanese product outlets as well as a full programme of entertainment, competitions, and exhibitions. Spencer commented: ‘retail spaces can no longer just be a collection of shops. They need to be enlivened and given a sense of theatre and eventfulness. That’s what we wanted to achieve with the Matsuri. A total sensory experience, themed around Japan.’

Happy Holidays - Andrew Peggie is tempted (or not) by UK holiday resort videos.
Sound Strategies News - Sound Strategies' work written up in the Tourism and Hospitality Research academic journal.

Happy holidays

Holiday and leisure companies rarely skimp when it comes to selling their vacation packages with glossy images. Now that online brochures are the norm, they have, naturally, morphed into videos. The imagery is equally seductive, enhanced by moving, talking characters, breath-taking pan shots, mouth watering close-ups – and usually a music backing track of excruciating banality.

So Sound Strategies decided to conduct a small experiment. We chose a promotional video typically found on the websites of four well-known UK holiday promoters and estimated the attractiveness of their proposition based solely on listening to the video soundtrack (music + speech + ambient sound effects), without reference to either images or text.

Here are the results:

Butlins – Discover Butlins video guides

The ‘Lots to do’ video is narrated by what are clearly meant to be authentic Butlins redcoats. However, their vernacular speech (faux-shouted over a background of what is presumed to sound like frenetic activity but is actually rather sparse) is marred by diction quality verging on the level of speech defect. The short clip begins with a pleasant enough light keyboard or guitar (hard to tell which) riff, promising a sense of carefree relaxation. However, after a few seconds there is a brutal cut into a perpetually looping orchestral-disco chorus – no lyrics, just ‘oohs’. The music is automatically limited against the intermittent voice-overs, a technique often used in brash FMCG commercials where the entry of the voice-over brutally cuts the level of a pounding music track, which returns to its previous volume immediately the voice stops. There is no obvious attempt at music synchronisation or nuanced balance of the audio elements. Sound (and presumably video) stop abruptly, mid phrase.

The effect is like something from a low budget, over-jolly children’s television programme. The narration is short and to the point, and it is not difficult to recall some of the activity suggestions: golf, fencing, archery – and cheer-leading! (Cheering leading what, one must ask.)

A rough and ready, rather shouty commercial, with the appearance of being thrown together at the last minute. Perhaps not inappropriate for the clientele and the kind of spontaneous, anyone-can-join-in atmosphere Butlins is aiming to create. It was difficult to forget the noisy, messy, excitable overall impression of what could be an amateur holiday video shot on a mobile. A boisterous young family would probably deliver a thumbs up verdict.

Center Parcs – Whinfell Forest video

A standard 2’30” video (which seems longer) with a professional narration delivered by a clear female voice, never over-modulated or over-stated. The backing track is continuous, the opening bars suggesting a folk-rock festival in the USA ca.1979. Thereafter it lapses into continuous lite-rock instrumental riffs with bongos and electric piano. There is a third Foley soundtrack containing occasional sound effects presumably related to the on-screen action helpfully being described by the narrator. The video ends with an abrupt fast fade.

Relatively high production values here. Although the soundtrack is clearly off-the-shelf, some thought appears to have gone into choosing it. However, without a visual context, the music suggests not a pleasant English forest scenario, but rural mid-West USA, and it appears to bear no relation to the on-screen action or the nature of the activities being described. The narrator voice is distinctly ‘received pronunciation’, but clarity does not necessarily mean memorability and it was hard to recall the several well-described activities (paint-balling, archery?), possibly because one could not imagine the character portrayed by the voice ever actually engaging in these pursuits. The hackneyed phrase ‘fun for all the family’ made an incongruous appearance.

The narration content remained always on the same level, as did the music, thus making full recall of the content or atmosphere rather difficult. Overall impression: safe, civilised, conservative, middle-class, rather dated.

Pontin’s – Leisure video

Two (presumably) on-screen narrators, male and female, with strong regional accents; several other voices introducing different activities – again clearly on-screen and rather stilted in delivery, presumably meant to signify ‘real life’ staff rather than actors. Overall however, narration is kept to a minimum and memorable impressions must depend largely on vision shots. Technically, sound quality is excellent and there is clearly some sensitivity around the soundtrack/narration cross-fades and mixes, which suggests they did not use an auto-limiter. An attempt at some kind of emotional/narrative arc starts well, but quickly peters out. The video begins with Foley sound effects (jungle birds) then narration. The music track kicks in after a few seconds, introducing a new list of activities. It remains constant thereafter: a typical techno drum-bass track with instrumental riffs dipping in and out around the narration.

The stylistic ubiquity of the music backing track unfortunately gives it a strong ‘switch-off’ character, in spite of the attention given to balance and mixing. The constant 120 beats per minute pulse does not fit easily with a range of different visual scenarios or the different rates of narrative delivery. So all in all, a rather self-defeating musical contribution.

There is evidence of some kind of strategic editorial vision with this video. Someone has made a list of all the important activities to mention, including the need to puff the out-sourced leisure activities company. The audio and verbal content, however, comes across as worthy but downmarket, the subtext of which could be: ‘you will enjoy yourselves… but we’re friendly people and we’re here to help you with that’.

Haven holidays – promotional video

A professional, scripted voice-over (male) transports us rapidly into the television commercial genre, although the video is the standard web length of 2’30”. Continuous narration, but cleverly scripted so that key messages come across clearly and are easily remembered: something for everyone, plan your own day, shopping, eating, drinking, entertainment… In fact the script could be describing not a holiday camp but a particularly lively provincial town.

Memorability is also enhanced by the clear three-part structure, each with a different focus and a different music track. The first section contains a synthesised rock track, ostensibly suggesting energy and excitement, but its synthetic nature also gives undertones of a tacky amusement park. No question of editing to music, the second part plunges us abruptly into the sort of 120 beats per minute dance track heard in most high street pubs. The third section offers more of the same with the music perhaps a little more intimate or ‘late night’ in character. The voice/music balance stays constant throughout.

The audio elements manage to deliver more factual information and a clearer impression than other videos, much of which is down to simple structural elements such as changes in subject and mood. However, the musical content and style of language put one in mind of Saturday shopping followed by evening binge-drinking in provincial high streets up and down the country. Why leave home for this offer?

Andrew Peggie


Michael Spencer is away

Sound Strategies News

An account of a key Sound Strategies’ project in the hotel and leisure industry now appears as an article in the latest issue of Tourism and Hospitality Research (vol. 9, pp271-276). Written by Peter Jones, ITCA Chair of Production and Operations Management in the School of Management at the University of Surrey, "A ‘sound strategy’ for Intercontinental Hotels" outlines the process, analysis and outcomes of a two-year consultation by Sound Strategies with the international hotel chain.

Sites and Sound - Andrew Peggie revisits the corporate web environment.
Does music matter? - Michael Spencer argues the case.
Sound Strategies News - Feature in new publication 'International Communications Strategy' \ New developments in analysis of commercials

Sites and sound

A year and a half ago, Sound Strategies carried out some unique research into the use of sound on corporate websites. Eighteen months is a veritable epoch in internet time, so we when we revisited a small sample of sites recently, we expected some radical developments.

We were a little disappointed.

Our sample focused on corporate landing pages – certainly not the sector one would expect to find cutting edge functionality. We visited the top ten corporate sites ranked by the Bowen Craggs 2009 Financial Times Index of website effectiveness, plus a number of others on the same list of 75.

This is an audio-free zone. However, what we did find was a significantly increased use of video and flash animation. The former requiring an opt-in click direct from the landing page and the latter often triggered by rolling over a menu, but offering silent image changes only.

Corporate sites have to provide certain common information features and they tend to be organised in similar ways, so the potential for creative development beyond the landing page can be restricted. However, what became quickly evident was how many landing pages themselves had been transformed into a more customer-friendly environment, their focus subtly shifting from the assumed traditional visitor profile (investor, job-seeker, media, client) to a broader, more divergent demographic. The top ten corporates are all evidently maximising the PR benefits of their landing pages.

While raw audio (music, voice or functionality sounds) is still taboo as a spontaneous element in a web-page, exploitation of other web functions is proliferating. All the sites made extensive use of social networking links (Digg, Delicious, Twitter, etc.). And many also exploited remote platforms such as YouTube and iTunes. Flash animation, in the form of scrolling images is now a feature of many landing pages, often incorporating up-to-the-minute topicality. (General Electric’s site had images of the recent solar eclipse from across the Far East, on the day it occurred.)

But audio inevitably depended on an opt-in click, usually in the form of a video or podcast. And it still ends up very much as the poor relation of in the media menagerie. Podcasts, however, are developing an increasingly professional approach, with specialist presenters and reasonable audio quality. Moreover, both podcasts and webcasts of corporate events such financial reports and AGMs are increasingly being offered as an alternative to pdf documentation. In some cases, one can sign up to access a future meeting, conference or company statement via a web-streaming facility.

In-house videos are becoming a staple element of the corporate site. These short documentary style films usually feature new research or product development case studies, or they focus on the day to day work of various employees. They all employ off-the-shelf, non-synchronised generic backing music to provide merely an undifferentiated audio ‘carpet’ for the voice-overs or interviews.

And what of the much-touted sonic branding? In the top ten listed sites, not a single company is using music in a strategic way, either as part of the site content or as a brand identifier.

Sites consulted (+ BC FT overall rating):

1. Roche
2. Nokia
3. BP
4. Siemens
5. Schlumberger
6. Unilever
7. Eni
8. General Electric
9. IBM
10. Royal Dutch Shell
25. ArcelorMittal
55. EDF
74. China Shenhua Energy
75. China Mobile

Andrew Peggie

Does music matter?

Apparently not, if our brief look at top-rated corporate websites is anything to go by. Although corporate sites in general seem to have finally embraced the website possibilities beyond those of a digital paper depository, aesthetic impact still takes a back seat compared to basic functionality and the filing system mentality still dictates great swathes of the corporate website campus.

In spite of the multi-national profile of most of the top-listed companies, there does appear to be a cultural dimension to this. Chinese company sites are almost entirely text-based, with few images, let alone other elements. USA sites often tend towards visual overload. French companies will take a playfully ironic approach to the whole business (check out the EDF site for a clever approach to energy and the environment). And no prizes for guessing the nationality of the company which has a penchant for computer-generated speech (Siemens).

We have to ask ourselves if lack of exploitation of all the media available on the internet is a failing, an oversight, or a deliberate choice. There is certainly no reason why the web environment should be uniform throughout and it would be reasonable to accept that, apart from speech, audio would not normally be a feature in corporate website territories.

It is also the case that more and more companies are commissioning ‘home videos’ for use on their websites (and presumably internal communications). A cross between PR puffs, motivational spiels and recruitment enticements, they are a quite different breed from TV/cinema directed commercials, often with a (deliberate?) amateurish approach, using ad lib interviews with staff and holiday video style editing. Alternatively, they feature often rather stiffly formal interviews with executives in static corporate office settings.

There is no doubt that, by and large, these ‘run-of-the-mill’ type videos perform their intended functions well enough and as a way of capturing the everyday life of a diverse and widespread organisation their low-ish production values reflect the blog-type nature of the material. It is not always appropriate to apply feature film production values to diary-style content.

Indeed, over-producing an in-house PR video can sometimes count against the intended impact, as in a previous Shell video which dramatised one of its development projects.

But getting the tone, mood and style of any video just right is an art in itself. Run-of-the-mill material will usually have an ephemeral and localised impact only (like the two minutes one spends looking through recent holiday snaps before they are consigned to the back of the drawer). Over-produced ‘epics’ risk opening up the organisation to ridicule and lack of self-awareness – the opposite of the usual intention.

The few times when content, execution and purpose achieve a synergy, often the result is much greater than the sum of the parts and the benefits accrue well beyond the original intention. ArcelorMittal achieves this with its corporate video; EDF’s clever vox-pop flash animations also resonate.

So, yes, not only music, but all the artistic elements of a video matter, if the aim is to achieve something other than a newspaper-type throwaway. We cannot expect this kind of expertise to be naturally accessible within a corporate, but one equally important aspect they should be able to address is the strategic function of video.

It seems, trawling through the websites, that many companies have simply said: ‘We need a few videos for the website...’ Only rarely did we detect a strategic approach where someone appeared to have asked: ‘What do we need to achieve in terms of comms, PR, brand awareness and information providing? Is video the best medium for this? If so, what kind of video, which approach?’ The answer might still be: ‘We need a magazine-type throwaway to show to employees at a conference.’ But having made such a strategic choice, then the chances of getting a product which is both fit for purpose, and differentiated and memorable are much higher.

Michael Spencer

Sound Strategies News

• Sound Strategies Managing Director, Michael Spencer, is featured in a new publication for the corporate communications sector, International Communications Strategy (Kogan Page). The authors, Silvia Cambié and Yang-May Ooi, are already receiving plaudits for their contribution to the debate about cross-cultural communications and the book has been nominated for an FT Goldman Sachs award.
• In association with the market research company BrainJuicer, we are trialling a of a new method of analysis to gauge the emotional connections between commercials and consumers. Initial results look extremely promising.

How was it for you? - Michael Spencer on the assumptions that can plague music in advertising.
How sonic logos can beat the effects of the recession - and Andrew Peggie tries to work out how a sonic logo works.
Sound Strategies News - Sound Strategies working with The Deliverers in Prague ... Andrew Peggie wroking with sirens in Amsterdam.

How was it for you?

One of the starting points in Sound Strategies’ Breaking the Sound Barrier training is a short look at the different ways people think and talk about music. It could be assumed that music is music is music (to paraphrase Dorothy Parker). But it would be wrong to do so. There are at least four different conceptual frameworks in which to construct descriptions of music and how it works. And there are two ways of considering the relation between music and human emotion, depending on whether you think the music depicts emotions or induces them in the listener. (To discover more, you will need to sign up for a Breaking the Sound Barrier session.)

Fertile territory for the philosophy of aesthetics or the science of cognitive perception perhaps, but in fact also critical to the emerging dialogue between music and marketing, branding and advertising. Not knowing which conceptual framework is being applied is as potentially confusing (not to say counter-productive) as mis-reading the cultural signals inherent in contract negotiations between parties from different countries. Terry O’Gara relates a salutary tale of mistaken assumptions on his blog Critical Noise.

Nowadays, an awareness of the various functional and perceptual elements of music can be critical to good client-agency-composer dialogue. The composer might strive to create a soundtrack which perfectly amplifies the commercial narrative, whereas the client might be looking for something which fits the target demographic.

The sonic logo might have strong symbolic content, where the sounds themselves evoke elemental feelings or moods; but a low iconic content could mean that the synergy with other brand advertising elements is weak. Think of Mercedes-Benz’s ethereal voice, whose connection with the preceding television commercial content (both audio and video) could only be described as enigmatic.

On the other hand, a logo with strong iconic content (such as the Yahoo yodel) can be based on cultural assumptions which risk misinterpretation outside the culture of origin.

And when a sonic logo is aired in context – for example, at the end of a television commercial and framed by other, unrelated, commercials – the listener’s ability to comprehend the musical message might have been compromised by the surrounding ‘noise’ of other competing soundtracks.

Finally, it is almost impossible to factor in the individual contextualising which takes place with every sound we hear. Almost instantaneously our brain creates memory references to other musical experiences or indeed life experiences related to the music in question, which create neural pathways unique to the individual concerned: the south sea island beach music intended by the composer might become, in the mind of the listener, a shopping trip to a suburban supermarket.

We can think of these factors either as horrendously complex and impossible to unravel, or we can trust the infinite suggestibility of music and hope that some aspects will impact positively on the brand-consumer relationship in some cases.

Or we can manage the process more effectively by agreeing in advance how the music should function within the context of the overall branding strategy.

Some simple questions to address:

• Should the music evoke or depict brand qualities or ‘personality’ or should it instead make cultural connections with a target demographic?
• Will it be associated with a graphic logo or tied more closely to the narrative of a video?
• Will it have a long life (stripped onto many different media outlets) or will it exist only for the duration of a specific campaign?

Michael Spencer

How sonic logos can beat the effects of the recession

Articles and blogs in praise of the sonic logo or audio ident proliferate across the web so there is no need to rehearse here the usual arguments in favour of sonic branding. Much less studied to date have been the cognitive and perceptual aspects of short audio sound ‘gestures’. Do they have any inherent semantic or semiotic value? How easy is it to forge a Pavlovian link between a sound and a brand image or graphic logo? And how long does it take? How to create emotional capital in such a relationship?

But first, an assertion: the recognisability of the sonic logo is generally accepted to depend on repeated exposure over time. The longer the usage, the stronger becomes the recognition factor. If this is indeed so, then it follows that consumers will associate well-known audio and graphic logos with stability and dependability – elements unaffected by the uncertainties of the market in general. Thus, logos promote confidence and security around a brand.

It is the case that Pavlovian responses (you hear a bell, you start to salivate, once a bell-eating link has been established) operate at autonomic level in humans and animals. That is, the neural pathways take a short-cut from the stimulus to the physiological response, avoiding routes which involve reflection, decision-making, value judgements or other cognitive assessments. In which case, well-established links between brand, image and audio logo which operate at a Pavlovian level should in theory work no matter what the sound is. Any old noise would do, so long as the association is reinforced sufficiently frequently.

However, this is to ignore an essential element of the Pavlov process: the association is cemented by a strong physiological trigger or reaction, either pleasure (as in eating) or pain (an electric shock for example). So for the Pavlovian response to work between a brand and its logos there needs to be some pre-existing pleasure or satisfaction factor between the consumer and the brand. A sonic logo will clearly work best for consumers who already use, eat, drive, wear or otherwise experience the product or service and have had positive experiences doing so. The important pleasure/pain effect will thus transfer from the brand experience to become associated with the audio and graphic logos, investing in them a similar Pavlovian response, no matter what their inherent qualities might be.

For people with no prior connection to the brand, it is perhaps likely that brand-logo recognition will take much longer to establish. Moreover, one could posit that in the case of consumer neutrality (no feelings about the brand itself), any inherent expressive qualities of the logos will have some effect on the perception of the brand.

The question is, how large might that effect be? Sufficient to generate more sales, or just enough to create a positive attitude to the product’s presence? While it is true that people often make purchase decisions (even for expensive items) on the basis of the packaging appearance, no-one has yet (to our knowledge) established whether sonic logos promote impulse buying. And as yet, sonic logos tend to exist in relative isolation. Either they promote a product or service which is a virtual monopoly (e.g. Intel, Skype) or there are few competing sonic logos in the same category. So it could be argued that even if it improves brand recognition, this is a factor of the relative scarcity of competing sonic logos rather than some quality inherent in the sound itself.

Sonic logos clearly have to be created using different criteria to more extended sound tracks, for television commercials for example. Their compactness and the need to find a unique, soundworld, ostensibly reflecting the brand qualities, could well evolve into a completely new musical lexicon, freed from all associations with melody, harmony and other traditional elements. But when these recognisable musical features, complete with the strong associative ties, disappear in favour of culture-free and reference-free sound-bites, then the resulting musical gesture has to work hard at a symbolic level in order to evoke possible emotional reactions.

As yet, we have no reliable mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of sonic logos, and despite the huge amounts of expertise which are often deployed to create such insubstantial musical phrases, it is doubtful whether anyone has evolved a credible methodology for approaching the task. Composers themselves admit to working almost completely by instinct.

So we look forward to contributing to an emerging new science: the semiotics of audiograms.

Andrew Peggie

Sound Strategies News

• Sound Strategies will be supporting the communications company Deliverers in early May, providing a music based leadership workshop for all 250 participants in the Schering-Plough Global Conference in Prague.
• Andrew Peggie has been directing music for an extraordinary event in Amsterdam to mark the finale of the city’s tenure as World Book Capital. His 30 minute piece for trombones, percussionists, fireworks and 4 music sirens has previously been seen at the Oerol Festival (Holland) and Rotterdam.

Oiling the wheels - Andrew Peggie on music as an essential lubricant.
Jingles in the TV jungle - the traditional format still has much to offer, argues Michael Spencer.

Oiling the wheels

The music business is never slow off the mark when it comes to making claims for the marketing benefits of sound and music. However, there is little disagreement about the fact that music matters in marketing.

All very well, but few managers or creatives seem to know how to make music matter better.

Think of it like an essential lubricant, oiling the mechanism of the marketing machine. Any old lubricant would probably do the job well enough, but if you believe your marketing machine deserves to be in the Formula 1 class then getting the mechanic to buy a can of cheap engine oil off the shelf in a supermarket is unlikely to increase your winning chances. Yet that is often how otherwise high production value commercial productions treat the music elements.

Why should this be? One reason could be that brand team members and their creative counterparts are lacking in knowledge of lubricant technology (to extend the metaphor) and therefore unaware of the possibilities – or perhaps just too embarrassed to admit to ignorance.

Yet when they do finally ask themselves ‘how can we make sound work better for us?’ the route to enlightenment is neither long nor complex. Just as we do not need to have a PhD in chemistry to make choices about engine oil, we do not need conservatoire music training to be aware of the many ways sound and music can enhance a marketing campaign.

Sound Strategies’ Breaking the Sound Barrier sessions bring brand managers and creatives up to speed on the essential functions of music and sound within an advertising context in just a few days. Here’s what the Galaxy UK Segment Leader said about a recent Sound Strategies course:

Andrew Peggie

Jingles in the TV jungle

Education theorists have long known that melody and lyrics make for a powerful memorising tool. The activity employs both right and left brain hemispheres simultaneously, promoting large amounts of trans-hemisphere activity in the corpus callosum – the part of the brain which joins the two sections. Melody and other musical elements are processed in the right hemisphere along with intuitive reasoning and other synthesising processes, while certain language functions (including writing), logic and analysis are the concern of the left brain. Both hemispheres working in tandem ensure deeply embedded memory and enhanced understanding.

Natalie Angier, writing recently in The New York Times, expands on the mechanism:

'Welcome to the human brain, your three-pound throne of wisdom with the whoopee cushion on the seat.
In understanding human memory and its tics, Scott A. Small, a neurologist and memory researcher at Columbia, suggests the familiar analogy with computer memory.

We have our version of a buffer, he said, a short-term working memory of limited scope and fast turnover rate. We have our equivalent of a save button: the hippocampus, deep in the forebrain is essential for translating short-term memories into a more permanent form.

Our frontal lobes perform the find function, retrieving saved files to embellish as needed. And though scientists used to believe that short- and long-term memories were stored in different parts of the brain, they have discovered that what really distinguishes the lasting from the transient is how strongly the memory is engraved in the brain, and the thickness and complexity of the connections linking large populations of brain cells. The deeper the memory, the more readily and robustly an ensemble of like-minded neurons will fire.

This process, of memory formation by neuronal entrainment, helps explain why some of life’s offerings weasel in easily and then refuse to be spiked. Music, for example. “The brain has a strong propensity to organize information and perception in patterns, and music plays into that inclination,” said Michael Thaut, a professor of music and neuroscience at Colorado State University. “From an acoustical perspective, music is an over-structured language, which the brain invented and which the brain loves to hear.”

A simple melody with a simple rhythm and repetition can be a tremendous mnemonic device. “It would be a virtually impossible task for young children to memorize a sequence of 26 separate letters if you just gave it to them as a string of information,” Dr. Thaut said. But when the alphabet is set to the tune of the ABC song with its four melodic phrases, preschoolers can learn it with ease.

And what are the most insidious jingles or sitcom themes but cunning variations on twinkle twinkle ABC?'

It is not hard to recall jingles of ten, twenty or even thirty years ago and if the product name is included in the lyrics then you can expect almost 100% recognition. Jingles cleverly internalise the product name along with it advertised qualities with a potent combination of rhythm, melody, lyrics and images. And once internalised, the jingle pops back into the short-term memory whenever a reference to the product is required or encountered.

Think of a UK newsagent’s and the shelves stacked with confectionary. Which of the myriad brands come to mind most readily? Think perhaps of Mars or Opal Fruits… (especially if you are over forty).

Why has the jingle all but died out, particularly in UK and USA TV advertising? In fact, it has not completely disappeared. It is still relatively common within its traditional product constituency, but the total range of products being advertised has increased considerably.

One of the problems with a jingle is also its benefit: a propensity to simple catch-phrases and perky melodies, reminiscent of infant school songs. So perhaps it is not surprising if agencies tend to avoid advertising content which might appear to infantilise the brand. This factor, coupled with agencies’ increasing fondness for allusion, metaphor, cultural/demographic references and cinematic effects in commercial creation, leaves the humble jingle often out in the cold.

But it is worth remembering why it can be so effective. One quality is that it tends to attract a wide demographic due to its inclusive nature and product-focused content. Everyone feels drawn to a brand promoted by accessible and non-threatening musicalised copy. Jingles can effectively cross age, social, cultural and gender divides because they do not attempt to reflect or reinforce certain stereotypes while (very often) humanising the brand itself.

Another is that the combination of lyrics and music allows for the dissemination of factual knowledge about a product which, if delivered by a voice-over or on-screen character, would require the viewer to exercise enhanced levels of cognitive attention, preferably without the distraction of a soundtrack or complex visuals. Such commercials can have high success rates with consumers already predisposed to buying a version of the product concerned, but will have little impact on those for whom the product is irrelevant at the time of viewing.

Does this matter? A current example from French television suggests it does. The commercial functions as an interactive ‘yellow pages’, alerting the viewer to a car window replacement/repair service which offers an insurance subscription with free emergency replacement. The lyrics run: ‘Carglass répare, Carglass remplace’. [Carglass repairs, Carglass replaces.] Embedded in the Carglass jingle (as well as the brand name) is an information message which is unlikely to be of immediate use to anyone watching. However, the moment a cracked windscreen appears we can be certain that the jingle will pop into the mind. And doubtless the emergency call-out for that malfunction will lead to a subscription to cover future problems. All thanks to a simple jingle.

It is also worth remembering that television jingles are relatively widespread amongst other cultures, where can be heard advertising a much wider variety of products such as insurance (France), telecoms and pressure cookers (India) and instant noodles (Japan). The child-like repetitiveness seems not to be an issue elsewhere, or it is often employed with a tongue-in-cheek sense of irony. And perhaps it would be fair to suggest that the jingle imparts a sense of down-to-earth reality to the whole advertising business by deflating any pretensions to profundity or artistic pretension. The jingle says simply and effectively: ‘I’m here: buy me’.

Michael Spencer

Our Hidden Side - What we do elsewhere. Michael Spencer
Bleeps and Burps - The art of noise and what it tells us. Andrew Peggie
Sound Strategies News - 'We're legitimate', B2B Marketing and TBWA

Our Hidden Side

Looking through back editions of Soundings (we are now almost half-way through our second year!), it’s interesting to see some of the topics we have covered; from brands to banks, from shouting to silence, from experiences in-store to those on the internet. Nonetheless there has been one slight omission. We seem somehow to have missed out on the fact that although Sound Strategies is still a communications consultancy, its ‘music’ arm still operates very much at the delivery end, and in some unusual guises

Michael Spencer has been in Spain working with one its symphony orchestras, looking at how it can be better positioned within its community, particularly through its education and outreach work, while Andrew Peggie has been in Rotterdam managing the creative content of some unlikely sound masses: a gamelan from Suriname, a group of female drummers from the Cape Verde Islands and an Antilles-style marching band – plus 150 trombones

Both of these projects have at their core an intention to re-sensitise people to the infinite variety of sound by bringing music styles into conjunction with new listeners and participants. Re-sensitisation is also at the core of our corporate work, enabling executives and creatives to develop a more fruitful and articulate relationship with audio media.

In our ‘Breaking the Sound Barrier’ sessions (see January '09 Soundings) we introduce delegates to a variety of creative and interpretive tasks using sound, often in conjunction with other media, demonstrating how the emotional, symbolic and referential connections we make with sounds often merge together in complex ways. We then provide linguistic and analytical tools to enable them to perceive and discuss the effects of different soundtracks both in multi-media and in real life.

One might imagine that this might be second nature to musicians, but this is not always the case. In Rotterdam, an international trombone festival, Slide Factory, realised that its international remit should perhaps move outside the rather limited world of trombone playing and connect with other musical styles. Hence Andrew Peggie’s World Tone Journey, which blends the music of trombones (both classical and jazz) with that of Africa, Latin America and Asia. Just as important as the music itself will be the encounters between musicians from diverse backgrounds.

In Spain, the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès (Catalonia) came up with remarkably similar thoughts: how to reach out to a 21st century multi-ethnic community? Michael Spencer will be helping them over the next three years to reach out into the musical roots of Catalonian traditions, tying them into the core work of the orchestra and the cultural, corporate and commercial life of the region.

We pride ourselves on maintaining this sort of hands-on experience and knowledge and we find it gives us a unique perspective on the diverse ways in which people interact with sound

Michael Spencer

Bleeps and Burps

One of the big problems with electronic sounds is that there is no extrinsic musical lexicon or lingua franca associated with them. Acoustic instruments create complex emotional associations by virtue of the instrument itself: the sounds of a piano, electric guitar, trumpet or steel pan are indivisible from their images. The character of the music being played is affected by an individual’s prior associations with the instrument and its players.

Ever since the early days of the theremin and the sine wave generator, composers working with purely electronic sounds have struggled to create equally rich associations in the absence of characterful instruments. Pre-digital instruments have at least had a few successes – the Mini-moog synthesizer and Hammond B3 organ among them. But in these days of virtual digital instruments, when the music tends to emerge from computer speakers, almost no associative qualities are possible. Which is why DJ-based clubs need light shows to help fill in the referential background.

However, there does exist an instinctive language of electronic sounds, albeit rather basic and lacking almost all emotional nuance. We can hear its emerging syntax most strongly in computer games and amusement arcades; but there are signs of emerging meaning also in video media, computer functionality, websites and of course techno dance clubs. The sounds themselves struggle for syntactical meaning and tend to depict crude ‘yes/no’ situations, perhaps denoting pace (usually ‘excitement’ or ‘chill-out’), menace or humour.

However, integral electronic sounds are an increasingly important part of any interactive digital device, be it a fruit machine, wii device or computer. Why? Because of the interactivity itself. Humans are hard-wired to speak to one another. If the relationship is with a machine, then part of that relationship self evidently has to be via sound. We pick up and process audio signals in parallel with visual cues in ways which make the experience more immediate, meaningful and realistic. Sound signals give pace and (ideally) emotional context to the process. This is also the case with audio signals on a computer screen or web page

But electronic devices on the whole function silently. Usually we have no idea what is happening or how long it might take. Speak to mechanical engineers or experienced drivers and they will tell you how important it is to listen to the noises a machine (or car) makes. Indeed, it is often by this means they can detect a potential problem. Their relationship with the machine is as much through sound as through any physical interaction.

Personal computers have available audio signal menus which attempt to replicate in sound some of the processing activities of the computer. But the trouble is there is often a very tenuous link between the sound emitted and the task being performed (or being aborted, more often than not). And because we have to learn to associate a series of bleeps and burps, emitted often apparently at random, with different processes, the psychological effect is more negative than positive. They take us by surprise but are all over before we can answer back.

Viewers of American TV series such as CSI might be amazed and envious at the high level of ‘conversational’ skills the make-believe lab computers have. They seem to carry out audio running commentaries on their processing in ways which far exceed the abilities of any computer I’ve ever used. It is interesting because the sounds are effectively continuous. So in theory the users would learn to understand what is happening by detecting changes in the tones. Computer games and slot machines operate on similar principles.

However, the random tones often used on websites (such as rollover sounds or click-sounds) create negative effects partly because of their sudden and unexpected appearances. They exist without a context. By the time the user has worked out where the sound has come from it is too late to attribute any meaning to it.

With the exception of computer games no-one (to our knowledge) has yet created a website in which the sonic environment is both continuous and interactive – in the same way that the act of driving a car modulates the sound of the engine itself.

When this eventually happens – and doubtless it will – then perhaps a more extended lexicon of electronic sounds will begin to emerge. In the meantime, Sound Strategies will continue to examine the bleeps and burps for emerging meanings – and pass on the results here.

Andrew Peggie

Sound Strategies News

• A small, but significant milestone for Sound Strategies. We recently received notification from the Trademark Authority that 'Sound Strategies' has achieved status as a registered trademark
• We were featured in the February edition of B2B Marketing both online and in hard copy
• February has also seen us extend our work with the agency TBWA and in particular with one of their clients

Talking about music - Michael Spencer on Sound Strategies’ plan to ensure you’re never lost for words.
How music in Japan assists in travel, tourism and bodily functions - Sound Strategies researcher Yukiyo Sugiyama discovers how the Japanese re-sensitise themselves with music.
Sound Strategies News - At EMI Abbey Road studios, we start a new season of  'Breaking the Sound Barrier' workshops.

Talking about music

Most of us have had occasion to discuss, defend or disseminate our personal musical tastes among friends or virtual social networks, but almost without exception we stumble over inadequate vocabulary and fall back on meaningless clichés in striving to translate into words some sense of our emotional attachment to certain sounds. Even the senses of taste and smell appear to have evolved a richer linguistic palette than the world of sound has.

There are plenty who relish the mystique – they inhabit the anorak-ish worlds of concert-goers, blues fans, world music aficionados, jazz buffs and pop groupies – and who employ their semi-technical cryptic phraseology as much for exclusion purposes as for enlightenment. But when it comes to discussing the ordinary, everyday, universal impact of music on people from whichever background, we seem to lack a lexicon capable of doing it justice.

Which is why part of Sound Strategies’ mission is to develop clear, non-technical ways of reflecting on how music works. It is important because only by using universally understood and commonly accepted terminology is it possible to take some distance from the super-personal self-indulgent ramblings we all fall into when trying to answer a question like: ‘why do you like this music?’

Total objectivity would be impossible of course. However, total subjectivity is all-too-common, even in contexts where it should really be prohibited, such as discussions about the function of music in a marketing campaign.

We know this because brand managers and agencies tell us they have difficulty in articulating what they expect from music. So discussion of any kind – let alone objective discussion – rarely features on creative feedback agendas.

Some commentators have called sound the Cinderella of the advertising media. If so, then perhaps Sound Strategies will turn out to be the Fairy Godmother…

Michael Spencer

How music in Japan assists in travel, tourism and bodily functions

In Japan there is a belief that sound can have a great impact on business because of its psychological effect on people. A speculative but plausible explanation might be because the Japanese language contains many imitative and onomatopoeic sounds, often drawn from nature, so they preserve an in-built sensitivity to both the sounds themselves and their symbolic meanings. Left and right brains working in tandem.

Here are four case studies illustrating Japanese sensitivity to the urban sonic environment (certain links are in Japanese). Some were featured on TV Tokyo’s World Business Satellite programme which broadcast a series on the psychological elements affecting business: the psychological economy. For example, how colours and sound can affect the consumer behaviour directly and indirectly.

1) The ‘departure melody’

People the world over recognize the sound of a train whistle just before its departure. In Japan, departing commuter trains use bells to alert people to mind the doors. But some Japanese train companies have noticed that warning bells create additional problems. Instead, they have adopted ‘departure melodies’.

The traditional bells tend to create a sense of panic as people rush to squeeze into the carriage at the last second, just before the doors close, creating knock-on delays for the following trains. (London Underground travellers will recognise the problem.)

The new ‘doors closing’ tunes are true melodies with musical phrasing and development. As such, they operate less on a Pavlovian level and more on a cognitive and affective level. The idea is to regulate the pace of movement in order to eliminate log-jams of people rushing for the doors. Here is an example.

Junichi Sugiyama of Business Media Makoto comments that the departure melodies can also be seen as a result of the railway companies’ increasing corporate awareness. Although the priority as alert/warning signals remains, at the same time, they should employ entertaining content to promote a more pleasant travelling experience. Minoru Mukaiya, CEO of Ongakukan Co. Ltd., a train-related music production company, believes that an effective combination of departure melodies, ambient sounds and p.a. announcements can combine to create an almost theatrical experience for travellers – and one which also creates a strong sense of brand awareness. Mukaiya is also the keyboard player in the fusion band Cassiopeia.

Keihan Dentestu, a private railway company in the Kyoto area, West Japan, carefully chose suitable music for each train line with regard to how busy it can be. For the busier lines, they use a piece of music in triple time with a faster pace to encourage movement. Elsewhere, they use medium-paced four-beat melodies which can make people feel more settled.

2) The Kyoto Tower

When the observatory of the Kyoto Tower was renovated in 2006/7, sonic environment specialist, Masafumi Komatsu, was asked to advise on optimizing the aural experience of a visit to the tower. Komatsu states that landscape is a thing to enjoy with not only the eyes but also all other senses.

The first issue that Komatsu addressed was to assure a sense of quietness. He suggested reducing electrical equipment noise by removing unnecessary gaming machines and photo booths. Secondly Komatsu aimed to ameliorate the echo effects caused by people moving around inside the observatory. The floors were covered with fabric that absorbs reverberation and muffles footsteps. Finally Komatsu suggested different types of background music for morning, daytime, and evening – and even for different weather conditions. This is intended to enhance the visitor experience in tune with the changing scenery as viewed from the tower. The locations of playback speakers were also carefully chosen to ensure even sound diffusion.

TV Tokyo reports that Komatsu’s ‘psychological soundscape design’ project was so successful that admission numbers increased by 15%. Hear the before and after mp3s for yourself.

3) Siren Beeps

Japan experiences approximately 1000–1500 noticeable earthquakes every year. Earthquake damage limitation and warning systems are taken very seriously. An important factor in decreasing the scale of possible damage is how promptly warnings and information can be disseminated.

The Real-time Earthquake Information Consortium reports that ‘three continuous beeps is the best combination [of sounds] as an emergency warning’. Since 2004,it has conducted questionnaire surveys on the issue of siren warning and has published two official research reports in collaboration with a number of academics, engineers and corporate executives.

Its latest report, published in 2005, claims that a ’signature sound’ itself does not have to have a specific meaning but it is more effective in alerting people immediately than a spoken announcement which might be missed or difficult to make. According to the REIC, a ‘sweep tone’ in which the frequency changes rapidly tends to be recognised as the ’emergency sound’. Moreover it is unlikely to be lost amongst other ambient noise because of its varying frequency range. Listen to the sound voted ‘best signature sound in an emergency’ here: http://www.real-time.jp/about/SET3.WAV (You may have to cut/paste the link into your browser.)

4) ‘Oto-hime’

In Japan, public toilet convention dictates a certain modesty around bodily functions. There is an unspoken agreement that women should flush the toilet or make other effective sounds in order to diminish the sounds of the business in hand.

Oto Hime was launched in 1988 by Toto Toilets, one of the biggest toilet retailers in Japan. Following a severe drought in 1978 Toto executives realized that toilet modesty actions among women were using 10-15 litres of water each time.

So they invented their audio ‘flushing-camouflage’ sound effect which automatically plays back water flushing sounds as soon as someone sits down on the toilet. According to one of their assessments, Oto-Hime saved 64 million yen in a year on water consumption across a sample of 43 office buildings.

Researcher: Yukiyo Sugiyama
Editor: Andrew Peggie

Yukiyo Sugiyama trained as a classical pianist in Tokyo. She recently completed a MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths College, London, with a specialisation in 'the relationship between corporate social responsibility and the arts'. She is currently a researcher for Sound Strategies.

Sound Strategies News

January saw the start of Sound Strategies’ 2009 Breaking the Sound Barrier training days. This first one took place at EMI Abbey Road studios in London, with clients of TBWA. The comprehensive (and scarily enjoyable) introduction to the world of music and sound, and how they function, in the historical centre of the sound recording universe, is designed specially for brand managers and creative agencies who would like to know everything there is to know about sound but are too afraid to ask.

• Shotgun weddings - Michael Spencer asks who calls the shots in brand-music deals.
• The elephant in the room - Andrew Peggie on the creativity gap between brand development and advertising.
• What does Christmas sound like on the web? - Retail giants get their virtual decorations out.

• Sound Strategies News - Michael Spencer in Kingston and Amsterdam … Unilever brand sonic profiling.

Shotgun weddings

Are the increasing number of alliances between musical artists and brands unholy or made in heaven? It is unlikely that anyone knows for sure. Marriage is an appropriate analogy and no-one yet, in the history of civilisation, has ever come up with a fool-proof formula for guaranteeing marital success (or indeed for predicting failure). The music-to-brand business has its fair share of match-makers also, but aspiring partners on both sides should approach with a healthy degree of scepticism.

For one thing, there are almost no statistics linking increased sales directly to a music-brand relationship, though a recent issue of Billboard.biz reports that Nivea sales in the USA were set to increase by over 10%, apparently as a result of the brand’s link-up with Island Def Jam artists. The report does not analyse to what extent the increase might be due to the specific music links or due to the overall effect of the marketing campaign. Perhaps any old music would have done the job just as well.

Most discussions of the precise advantages of music-brand linking tend to lapse into touchy-feely language and vague talk about important qualitative factors. Commentators on both sides of the divide seem unable or unwilling admit to a serious logical distortion: it does not follow from the rather obvious fact of music as a ‘good thing’ which engages people emotionally, that this feel-good effect will inevitably transfer to anything else associated with the music; nor does it predict any kind of direct correspondence between a music-brand tie-in and increased sales.

Not only has no-one yet proved the case, but the metrics capable of divining any kind of proof have not yet been developed.

There are, however, plenty of theories, strategies and principles, most of which aim to maximise the advantage of the link to the brand in question: the need for a good emotional and lifestyle ‘fit’, for a long-term relationship, for reciprocal PR, etc.

A smaller number of voices are trumpeting the advantages to emerging artists. A recent MediaWeek report quotes Tag Records producer Jermaine Dupri lauding a promotional deal with his new associates, Procter & Gamble: "I've never seen someone wanting to devote this much money to breaking new artistes," he said. "Nobody in the music business has the marketing budget that I have". Though it’s possible he’s never heard of Ludwig II of Bavaria and his ‘sponsorship’ of Wagner’s operas.

Because of course there’s nothing new under the sun. The story of music history across the globe is a story of composers and performers latching onto rich and influential sponsors in order to achieve both security and fame. Four centuries ago it was the church, then the aristocracy, then the state, then publishers and record companies. What self-respecting musician would not be motivated by exactly the same circumstances to look to the obvious 21st century sources: high profile retail brands. It seems that the tail is wagging the dog…

Musicians have ten centuries’ experience of insinuating themselves into benefits of the most advantageous financial support. There is no reason to suppose the 21st century will be any different. And they will always find ways to subvert their patrons’ agendas, whether cultural, economic or political. So, caveat emptor, any agencies or brands seeking to manipulate the creative power of music. As a brand manager in Japan recently commented during a Sound Strategies presentation: ‘I have just realised we are not selling our brand, we are selling Jennifer Lopez’.

Michael Spencer

The elephant in the room

When creative people get together to make a new piece of music or theatre or video, the process usually follows one of two routes. Either meaning and message are refined out of a pre-existing subject or the meaning and message of the piece grow out of the artists’ manipulation of their materials. In both cases, it is frequently the case that no-one is really sure of the real intention of the piece until it is finished. Most creative artists (in whatever medium) would agree that an important part of their work is to look for meaning, and to give meaning to the materials they use.

The artistry involved in creating advertising for a brand or product can be considerable (and the budget will often be far in excess of what an independent artist could expect to receive as a commission). But there is an important, usually unspoken, difference: the meaning and the message are always predefined, often by people other than the artists who subsequently get to work on the project. The product exists, as does its target ‘audience’; its sensory DNA has already been mapped out.

The job of text, image and music is not to explore and synthesise new expressive content but to represent a predetermined agenda. Usually within a predetermined process which often requires the artists to work in series rather than in collaboration. Working in series is a sort of ‘pass the parcel process’ requiring minimal communication between links in the chain. The potential for misinterpretation is high. So the artists tend to play safe and opt for low-risk, unoriginal solutions which stay well within the restricted aesthetic boundaries necessary for mass appeal.

Imagine if these same artists were allowed to be part of the research and development stage of the product, when they could play with and evolve all the expressive factors which will eventually become the brand DNA. And imagine if, by embarking on such a process, an intended chocolate bar becomes a tube of toothpaste instead...

Andrew Peggie

What does Christmas sound like on the web?

UK high street stores are already in full Christmas mode. Be prepared for a rash of nervous breakdowns amongst sales staff after having been exposed to six weeks’ unrelenting playback of Jingle Bells and Winter Wonderland. (The US army employs similar methods as a torture technique.)

Avoiding seasonal marketing is well-nigh impossible on the high street, but do retailers subject their website visitors to the same onslaught? We paid fleeting visits to several of the UK’s best-known retail sites in search of a festive atmosphere, and have to report a disturbing – or gratifying, depending on your point of view – lack of sleigh bells, laughing Santas, snowmen and carol singers.

Large food-based retailers such as Tesco and Morrisons on the whole treat their web pages as an extension of the garish print publicity that gets pushed through letterboxes every other week. Silent pages with minimal animation or interactivity, crammed with cut and paste images of their current product bargains.

Most have set up a dedicated Christmas page, however. Asda, for example, uses glaring primary colours to frame a selection of gift ideas for ‘him’, ‘her’ and ‘kids’. Then it pushes you straight to Asda Direct to encourage a quick sale. No sound or animation, but the visuals shout loud enough.

Morrisons has a landing page invitation to view the current seasonal TV commercial featuring huskies pulling a shopping trolley across frozen wastes. The backing track succumbs to seasonal temptation only in the final few seconds when a burst of bells and sparkly percussion give the game away. There are also dedicated Christmas pages containing gems such as how to be a good host.

Waitrose is rather more ambitious, with a special Christmas home-page built around a tree with twinkling decorations. It also offers seasonal advice in the more ambitious format of ‘masterclass’ videos. How to prepare a Christmas turkey, for example. A good idea spoilt by the rather dated approach, with an anonymous voice reading from a recipe book and anonymous hands manipulating a dead bird. But Waitrose at least offers an attractive combination of information, gift suggestions, interactive games and multi-media clips. They obviously think of shopping in a much wider experiential context.

A dramatic contrast to their rival grocers, Sainsbury’s, whose special Christmas page features a rather desultory Jamie Oliver offering brief recipe tips (downloadable as pdfs) surrounded by links to online buying opportunities. Even Sainsbury’s abandons its distinctive brand colours for a predictable garish red-green Christmas backdrop.

The Tesco site offers a similar package of gift suggestions, recipes and family activities, but creates an unnecessary hurdle by requiring a sign-in or sign-up before access is allowed. They also provide a little count-down calendar which would be even better if it had the facility for individuals to add their own entries. No sound or animation, and the ubiquitous red-green Christmas tree décor becomes ever more tedious…

Only with the John Lewis Partnership do we experience something of a personal touch, after acres of faux-familiarity and forced-jollity. They offer an entire sub-site of well-organised and comprehensive Christmas planning and buying information not over-larded with seasonal colours. But the best bits are to be found in the JLP online magazine where you can find an endearing toy demonstration video (there’s a link from the landing page) and also everything you need to know about decorating a Christmas tree. Worth spending time with.

Andrew Peggie

Sound Strategies News

• Videos of Michael Spencer’s presentations at the Brainjuicer Oktoberfest Innovation Conferences in Amsterdam and Kingston-upon-Thames (UK) are now available:

• Sound Strategies recently delivered a theoretical underpinning document to Unilever to serve as a starting-point for the sonic profiling of one of their main brands.

• Innovation and taking part – Michael Spencer is struck by the power of participation.
• Fast food music – Andrew Peggie wonders whether creative directors are gorging on easy musical fixes.
• Listening to health & beauty – how can music be part of the healthy living sell online?
• Sound Strategies news – feature for B2B Marketing magazine; Music Tank seminars.

Innovation and taking part

Sound Strategies was on the conference circuit last week, appearing at two thought-provoking events promoted by the market research organisation BrainJuicer. Two impressions remain: strategically mediated sound is still a very new concept, and the learning process can be very powerful when people actively participate.

The conferences were hosted by Unilever (Kingston, UK) and Philips International (Amsterdam) and the topic was ‘Innovation’. In addition to our own contribution, speakers included Mark Earls, author of the latest marketing sensation  Herd: the hidden truth about who we are, Andrew Gaule from H-I Networks who talked about Open Innovation, and the CEO of Brainjuicer, John Kearon, who presented an overview of his ESOMAR paper about the paradoxical role failure plays in success. Fascinating contributions too from the respective hosts.  Unilever fielded B.V. Pradeep (VP Consumer & Market Insight) who introduced their method of insight building, and Jaroslav Cyr talked about the new opportunities presented by Google and Facebook for market research. For Philips, Emile Aarts (Head, New Media Systems & Applications, Philips Research) outlined an extraordinarily wide ranging list of research projects stretching from stress reduction technologies for hospital patients to electronic tattoos.

Emile also reminded us of the role Philips played in the creation of multi-media experiences, starting with the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. This radical piece of architecture with its mathematically calculated hyperbolic paraboloid shapes, and equally challenging images and soundscapes was designed by the architect Le Corbusier, his assistant (and composer) Iannis Xenakis and the composer Edgard Varèse. Varèse’s extraordinary Poème Electronique, devised for the Pavilion and one of the world’s first pieces of music created using purely electronic sound sources, still leaves audiences today mystified as to its intention – as was shown by the reaction of the conference delegates in Amsterdam.

Here was a team of true innovators at work, all of whom made unique contributions to their individual fields of expertise. Varèse’s, impact on the development of electronic music has a very long tail indeed, which can be traced right through to current popular music cultures. DJ-ing, beatboxing, mashing, sampling – all have their origins in the work of this pioneer. The thumbprint of Varèse is even more predominant in the sound adventures of contemporary artists such as Scanner. Despite its pedigree, however, the general perception of Poème Electronique is that this fifty year-old work is just too challenging, new and experimental.

In its defence one might suggest that personal listening habits are often less adventurous than they could be. Moreover, at the conference the sounds were not being heard in their intended architectural setting, integrated with images and diffused through specially designed spaces.

The issue is not unique to the Phillips Pavilion of course. Service-scape design also seeks to present an integrated visitor experience. Recent research has pointed to the importance of regarding the different elements of a  service-scape as an organic whole. In line with Gestalt theory, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We have written about this in previous issues of Soundings , in relation to the use of multimedia on the web, and it served also as the core of our presentation at the conferences.

We left the delegates with a question and two challenges.

The question: If they used audio in any form at all – podcast, streamed video, navigation, ambient – how did their process of selecting it compare with the processes they used for creating a visual presence?

Leading to the challenges:

And hence to the second point that stood out in our conference experience: the power of participative learning. There is something awe-inspiring about the way in which the light goes on in people’s minds when they are given the opportunity to engage, in a practical sense, with the concepts which have just been propounded. All the more so when dealing with matters of sound, an element with which we have such an intimate and yet social connection.

It brings to mind the old maxim about suffering from Eunuch Syndrome.  You can read about it, you can talk about it, but you can’t actually… well you understand where this is going. This is why we go all the way in our presentations.

When Woody Allen said ‘90% of success is showing up,’ the rest has to be about getting involved.

Contact Sound Strategies to find out more about how we get people involved.

Michael Spencer

Fast food music.

TV commercials are short and getting shorter. For there to be any chance of getting the message across via music, commercial directors and composers have to rely increasingly on what music psychologists refer to as iconic perception. This is where stimuli inherent in the structure and processes of the music itself may signify and even induce certain basic emotions. Iconic perception in music is interesting because it appears to connect deep musical structure with physiological states such increased heart rate. In other words, there are some aspects of music, unrelated to style, genre, culture or context, which have built-in affective and possibly even arousal qualities.

In fact most children already know this.

Give them the chance to play with sounds and they will instinctively manipulate these very properties: a speeding up rhythm followed by a crash-bang; meandering low sounds for monsters; high spectrum sounds to signify fear; a heart-beat… the classic ‘haunted house’ piece. And few people will have difficulty thinking of commercial examples used constantly to evoke fast cars, refreshing skin care, edgy fashion, playful animals, nervous anticipation, domestic bliss, etc.

Some of the scientific groundwork was laid in 1977 by Klaus R. Scherer and James S. Oshinsky in a paper entitled Cue Utilization in Emotion Attribution from Auditory Stimuli in which they correlated ten basic emotions with combinations of specific music elements. Their work relates also to speech where they found that, even with actors feigning certain emotions by reproducing the relevant speech inflections, listeners achieved a high degree of agreement on which emotion was being portrayed.

All this appears to be good news for audio in advertising and the media. Macho energy with an undertone of imminent danger (new face-care technology perhaps)? No problem – just consult the Scherer and Oshinsky table!

Except that there are many other factors – musical, cultural, personal and environmental – which affect our responses to music. And there are roles other than provoking iconic reactions that music can play in the audio-video mix. The former are hard to anticipate and impossible to manage, but the different ways music can work in multi-media are fully within the control of the creators and there is no reason why the specific function of music should not be a part of the creative planning process.

Music almost always works best when it has time to settle into a rhythm and pace. Often its chief asset is its absence – silence. Understandably, the broadcast media seem to fear silence the same way print editors fear blank space on a page of small ads. And the tiny timescales of commercials will always present a creative challenge in this respect. And because iconic arousal works it will continue to be a musical solution of last resort – rather like fast food on the move.

However, the current media environment is changing and we are beginning to see some of the negative effects of its over-use. With more ads per minute all vying for attention, the temptation to resort to instant, no-frills emotion-grabbing is high. But the more these stock musical gestures are used, the less attention people pay. We cannot close our ears to uninvited sounds, so instead we reduce our attention and learn to ignore them. The problem with this is that in doing so, we desensitize ourselves to the very iconic perception elements of music which are meant to be the bedrock of our emotional engagement.

Is it possible that the mechanistic use of iconic arousal is now having a negative effect on product or brand perception through the desensitization caused by associating them with musical clichés undifferentiated by originality, variety or subtlety? Is the drive towards emotional engagement backfiring, as the iconic vocabulary of music in the media becomes ever more emaciated?

Andrew Peggie

Listening to health and beauty

The world of health and beauty products has colonised the web with much enthusiasm. Opportunities for interactive engagement and ‘artistic’ presentations are rarely missed. And the offer of any kind of health or medical advice for free (no matter how superficial) will always appear to add both cognitive and affective value to a site and its brand.

In the real world, music and health have always had strong associations.  So perhaps the internet would be a fruitful environment in which to offer some music-related health benefits. However, evidence so far suggests that brand managers have a long way to go in terms of exploiting the potential combination of music with consumer health products.

Nivea UK has gone several steps further than most with a content-rich site divided into several conceptual areas, each with substantial multi-media options. Though not specifically health related, the Nivea history page out-does everyone else in terms of its information offer. In addition to the ubiquitous timeline, the site offers a choice of four guided tours: TV/cinema commercials, the tin as brand image, advertising posters and innovations. Click on the TV/cinema link and you have access to fifteen Nivea commercials covering every decade from the 1920s onwards. Dozens more print ads and posters are available, with accompanying commentary.

The interest from a web audio viewpoint is how the Nivea colour, font and logo have remained virtually unchanged since 1924 whereas not a single unifying musical element is present, even among the dozens of flash animations available throughout the site network.

A set of Body and Soul videos, for example, aim to induce various healthy habits such as toning, relaxing and keeping fresh with product-related tips, images and anodyne sound track loops. The approach to musical mood setting appears to be to strip out any element that might give the track a hint of originality. Lowest common denominator appeal. Music as anaesthetic.

Colgate Palmolive has a personal care landing page with similar dreamy/dreary synthesizer chords and a tinkly counterpoint typical for such products. Unfortunately the soundscape is more naïve/aimless than calming/relaxing, and quickly leads to a search for the ‘off’ button. A pity, since elsewhere the website shows evidence of an emerging audio awareness. Click on Rest & Reflect and the page loads to the sound of rainforest birds. There follow some short new-age-ish videos combining exotic imagery and sounds with patronising voice-overs enunciating therapeutic instructions rather too clearly – as if the viewer were mentally challenged. The music and images are available separately as downloads, however. And a neat little interactive feature allows the visitor to create a greetings card from a series of separate image, music and text templates.

Colgate Palmolive clearly aims to generate an on-site mood appropriate to its products. Radox, on the other hand, is content simply to offer text instructions on the best ways to relax and keep healthy. Though it runs to some images of typical medicinal herbs, the site is entirely silent. At least it won’t keep you from starting that relaxing bath routine it so meticulously describes.

Andrew Peggie

Sound Strategies News

A Sound Strategies article features in a November issue of B2B Marketing. Check the features columns for a piece on good practice web audio in marketing.

The August edition of Soundings carried an extensive article about music marketing/sharing on the web. The controversy rumbles on, but one organisation in the UK seems determined to find solutions untainted by blatant commercial self-interest and unfazed by de facto illegalities. Music Tank is hosting a series of discussions covering all the issues – technology, legality, marketing and economics – with presentations by music business professionals. The first session (We are here now, entertain us) has already been and gone , but there are three more:

• We have the technology. What’s the solution? (Nov 4, 18.30)
• Coalition of the Billing (Nov 18, 18.30)
• Squaring the circle (Dec 2, 18.30)

The sessions take place at the MCPS-PRS Alliance, Berners Street, London. Full session and booking details from the links, and here. Soundings will carry a short report in due course.