Off-brand sound costs Ford customers
…or so says Ford’s global chief for product development Derrick M. Kuzak in BusinessWeek:
“Customers are incredibly attuned to the sounds of quality, but we weren’t, and I think it was costing us.” Read on.
Moral of the story: the art and science of engineering brand perceptions is a highly nuanced business. Sound is certainly one of those nuances, and when it affects perceptions of quality, each person in the organization must articulate the values of the brand in their area of focus.
And that, good friends, is why BMW hires over 200 acoustic engineers to calibrate the sounds of their car doors, engine sounds and so on.
[Photo credit: Otterman56.]
BusinessWeek media bonus: The Sound of a Brand, as evidenced in mostly product-function sounds. Interesting — this is moment-of-truth material; no matter how much advertising or marketing you pour into promoting your product, true brand perceptions succeed or fail depending on how well the products themselves actually perform. Here’s what some brands sound like amidst the hands-on experience.
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Thanks for this Noel. You spurred on my reminiscences of just how ‘nuanced’ engineering brand perceptions can be … See my post at: http://sound-strategies.typepad.com/have_your_say_about_sound/2007/08/thousands-of-so.html
[...] piece on the strategic use of sound in…wait for it…products. Which is certainly something we agree [...]
I just found the article mentionned above - and then your blog. Nice to see you blogging about it - I did as well.
Unfortunately my blog is in Swedish, but if you want to take a look, you are most welcome!
http://www.smoothear.com/blog