Commusication - From Pavlov’s Dog to Sound Branding

By John Groves

Music can say so much. It can make us laugh or cry - it can make us remember our first kiss as though it was just yesterday. Just one chord in a film score is enough to tell us that someone is hiding behind the curtain. We can even hear how a person is feeling just by the sound of their voice. By understanding how such processes work, we are able to create sounds that trigger the desired associations in a branding context. John Groves, a music consultant and composer with a long track record of creating memorable melodies for brands such as Olympus, Mentos, Bacardi, Mars and Visa, documents the birth of a new discipline - Sound Branding. He shares personal experiences and anecdotes of how music can be responsible for suicide, revolutions, and making people pay more for a glass of wine. He explains how sound and music can be used strategically to provide identification, differentiation and generally to steer perception. COMMUSICATION is a mix of cutting-edge scientific findings and one man's analytical - and sometimes humourous - views, ending in a walk-through of his structured system for developing and managing Brand Sound Identities. This book is a must-read for anyone involved in marketing, advertising, branding, music - in fact, for anyone who has ears!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Groves
• Release date: May 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781781190012

Book preview

COMMUSICATION

From Pavlov’s Dog to Sound Branding

Description: OakTreePRESS.jpg

JOHN GROVES

Originaly published by Oak Tree Press

19 Rutland Street, Cork, Ireland

www.oaktreepress.com

© Since 2019: John Groves

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78119 000 5 (Hardback)

ISBN 978 1 78119 001 2 (ePub)

ISBN 978 1 78119 002 9 (Kindle)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, without written permission of the publisher. Such written permission must also be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system of any nature.

Requests for permission should be directed to:

GROVES Sound Communications,

Isekai 20, 20249 Hamburg, Germany

or [e-mail]

0

CONTENTS

CHAPTERS

FIGURES

1

Introduction

It started with ice cream chimes

I don’t remember how Mister Whippy sounded, but I can still remember the Tonibell melody today!

In fact, I even wrote my own lyrics to it. I was seven years old at the time, and this was perhaps the start of my career: He’s on his way. It’s every day. It’s Tonibell time. This was my second work, the first one being I’m a dozy fireman, written to the melody of Elizabethan Serenade, which on reflection, could be an indication why I never grew up to be a lyricist.

But nevertheless, Tonibell was my favourite tune. These chimes not only told me that the ice cream truck was outside: they told me which one it was and also set off some sort of chemical process in my young brain that made me feel joy at the prospect of eating ice-cream, although I usually ended up wearing most of it (I was a messy eater – even then!). It would be a terrific opening to this book if I could say that I ate Tonibell ice cream because of the great chimes. Truth is, it was because I thought Mr. Whippy’s ice cream was really horrible!

For me, this was the beginning of my interest in music, and possibly also the start of my career as a Brand Sound specialist (at seven?). I became very aware of the world of sound around me and I began to analyse it — what one could call ‘learning by listening’. By going through life with my ears wide open, and possibly by being equipped by Mother Nature with the necessary sensibility for sound, I have been able to gain insights that have been essential for my chosen line of work.

I was fascinated even by the sound of the vacuum cleaner. I would follow behind it, trying to sing exactly the same note and was amazed at how it started oscillating and beating when I went slightly out of tune. I would jump to the third, and then to the fifth, turning our Hoover into some sort of domesticated bagpipes.

And then came my breakthrough with a real musical instrument. At eight years old, I remember being at a wedding, where my parents discovered me pecking away with one finger on an old, out-of-tune upright piano. I was playing along with a hit of the day, a piano piece by Russ Conway, called China Tea – which, as with most Chinese-sounding music, was all on the black notes.

I was instantly heralded as the next Mozart and my Uncle David scurried off to Portobello Road to buy me a piano accordion. (I was the world’s greatest fan of the guitarist Hank Marvin of The Shadows, and Uncle David bought me a piano accordion?) Soon after this, I started taking piano accordion lessons and playing at the local Sunday school. By the age of 12, I was playing Tamla Motown music in a band called The Sensation. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, but my passion for music is as strong as ever! I am happy to be one of the privileged few who have managed to make a living with music. The large part of the music I have made has been for brands – either for their advertising or for trade shows, events and the like. This has given me the opportunity to learn quite a lot along the way about how music works in a communications context and, in this book, I would like to share some of these thoughts, ideas and experiences with you.

What is this book about?

Although music by its nature is subjective, this book strives to provide objective criteria to apply to its design, assessment and judgement. It shows that, with a coherent and transparent methodology, it is possible to steer perception with a surprising degree of accuracy. You will read about music’s strength in providing associative recall and about emotional manipulation. You also will learn which properties are necessary for an ideal Sound Logo and discover a few basic rules that could mean the difference between success and obscurity.

Most of the contents of this book have to do with the effect music has on us – how it influences our thoughts, our actions and our emotions. Sounds like the intro to a self-help book? Maybe, but my intention is to document everything I have learned in the last 30 years or so – sitting in studios, attending production meetings and composing zillions of short pieces of music with the express purpose of communicating – either an idea, an emotion or a slogan.

Some of what I have written here will seem self-evident; other parts may be taken purely as food for thought. And if I waffle on a bit ... well, it is my book after all. But, like most CDs, there may be a few tracks you’ll love and the rest … well, just press fast forward.

A book about music That’s cool, you might say and eagerly start flipping the pages to see if there is anything in it about the Black Eyed Peas or Ke$ha. Hello? The title COMMUSICATION should tell you that this book is mainly about applied music – about using it for a specific purpose and the effect that it has on us humans. It is about understanding this effect and putting it to work – about creating and managing Sound Identities via a process referred to as Sound Branding. But, although it’s pretty light on the rock, you also may be interested in hearing my slant on the basics of music and the effect it has on us.

Although music is acknowledged as being a prime factor in steering our emotions, its potential in advertising and corporate communications often is still sorely neglected. In these days of sharper competition, where every small improvement in perception of a brand or company could mean an increase in market share, it is strange that the concept of Sound Branding is still only being grasped by a select few. This means that a powerful tool is being neglected and left unused in the communications toolbox.

Figure 1.1: Customers not only have eyes, they also have ears

05_06.jpg

To begin to explore the potential music has to offer, we need to take a holistic approach to brand communications. The new breed of marketer has realised that his or her potential customers not only have eyes, they also have ears. (Marketers are slowly learning that customers have noses, mouths and hands too, but that’s another book.) Brand managers are starting to consider how their brand ‘sounds’ – and this is good.

Brands have always had their own distinct visual attributes, like logo, colours, fonts and so on. Marketers are used to taking action to differentiate and make their brands as recognisable as possible. The talk today is about the ‘brand experience’. I believe the opportunity of enhancing this brand experience and expressing brand values through sound and music is huge.

The Brand Sound, or ‘Brand Sound Identity’ as I call it, provides a further communication channel for brand attributes. Associations can be built up and perception steered on a totally new level, addressing an additional sense – the sense of hearing.

Brands have always used music to communicate, haven’t they? True, but largely as a campaign element – one that comes and goes. And even if there are Brand Sound Elements, the fit and relevance is often questionable, with rules to provide consistency sadly lacking.

The prime design elements that make us recognise brands historically have been mostly visual. It has almost been as though marketers have considered the consumer to be mono-sensual. But brands are promises, associations and stories, which should be communicated as an experience via all available senses. If a brand’s visual design is its face, then the Brand Sound Identity could be considered to be its voice.

There are ever-increasing opportunities to use this voice to transport the brand’s values. Not just in advertising, but in the company’s telephone on-hold music, Soundscapes for point-of-sale (POS), on websites and a plethora of other touchpoints. Sadly, brands rarely use sound with the same level of diligence that they pay to their visual design. Of course, there are exceptions and we will examine some of those here in this book.

A large part of this book is dedicated to the process of creating Sound Identities. A ‘Sound Identity’ is the audible equivalent of a visual identity and defines the world of sound to be used in a brand’s communications. It consists of specially-produced ‘Brand Sound Elements’ and, in some cases, defined ‘Sound Dimensions’. While a Sound Identity ideally conveys or portrays a brand’s values, it must never oppose them. This is referred to as ‘brand fit’ – one of the pre-requisites for good Sound Branding and one of a number of judgement criteria that we use. How did these criteria come to be? Where did they come from? These questions will be answered in due course.

No need to re-invent the wheel

Figure 1.2: Sound Branding as a system

02.jpg

If you study the system described in Chapter 6, you will notice I haven’t re-invented the wheel. What I’ve done is to take existing rules and methods of visual communication and adapt them and, in some cases, optimise them for sound. If you consider the visual elements used in branding – such as a logo, picture language and colour codes, it will be apparent that there are corresponding parallels in the world of sound.

When I first worked with branding companies such as Interbrand or Landor, I was amazed at how systematic their approach was compared to that of the music producer / composer. Musicians are considered to be the brake-lights at the end of the food-chain, and the offerings they make usually are judged purely subjectively – by gut-feeling. Not that I am knocking gut-feeling – Chapter 2 looks at intuition – but when there are tools available today to establish the relevance or ‘fit’ of music for a particular purpose, I get a nosebleed every-time I hear the super-creative generic use of U2, Coldplay or Moby on a commercial or promotional film.

Ask me why

So, let’s consider the ‘why’. Why does anyone sit down and write a book like COMMUSICATION?

In the beginning, I intended it as a communications tool to tell the world about Sound Branding and also as a sort of personal image-enhancer, which, to a certain extent, I hope it still might be.

But, if I were asked to sum up my reasons for writing this book in one short sentence, it would be ‘to promote the awareness and value of a systematic approach to developing sound communication strategies’.

This