The IC3 Blue Train - A little journal about design, marketing, sales and other matters

Why don’t most companies add a new dimension to their brand: original and unique sound / music?    

A recent survey by Millward Brown’s BrandZ shows Intel as the 23^rd world brand in terms of brand value, ahead of Amazon, Mercedes, Pepsi, Ikea and many other well-known names. In Interbrand’s 2009 ranking, Intel is 7^th. Isn’t that extraordinary since the corporation manufactures mainly semiconductors, i.e. products that consumers can’t see, touch and buy?

I think that this remarkable position is due in a large part to the famous five-note jingle – the “Bong” - the company has been consistently using for years in advertising. It seems that, lately, Intel have even realised the hidden values of  this asset and started to revitalise it by having “the Bong sung by a chorus of Intel humans on-screen”, as noticed by Ken Segall in an August blog entry.

In a 2006 entry in my own blog, I was already wondering why so few companies use original sound and music as an integral part of their brand expression. And when they do, many chose only well know jazz, pop or classical pieces that can’t be copyrighted in association with their brand. Why don’t they create their own sound/music? Why do they annoy us with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons when our call is put on hold?

Sound adds a third dimension to the visual and verbal attributes of ‘flat branding’ and transforms a surface into a high-level volume. A brand without musical dimension is like a silent movie. Music is the best way to associate emotions with your brand and, thus, to increase customer loyalty. In a July entry to his blog, Marco van Hout, founder of LinkedIN’s Design & Emotion Society, draws our attention to a recent Scientific American article titled Why Music Moves Us. This may convince the last sceptics.

So, honestly, why don’t you add your own sound/music to your brand, turn up the volume and break the sound barrier?