Intentional | Audio Identity Blog

Photo by :: Wendy ::

Nordstom to bench its pianists – from the Oregonian:

Come the new year, Nordstrom stores will pipe in popular tunes, instead of continuing to air the live piano notes that have lulled many shoppers for the past 20 years.

The Seattle-based chain said the company is carrying out its hyper-attentive approach to customers, who it said compliment canned music more often than live musicians.

Wow! It’s hard to believe that a store whose differentiator is personal service would take this step. It’s an interesting move that raises a few questions:

1. Has Nordstrom actually measured the financial effect of pianists vs. canned music? The article quotes anecdotal “compliments” favoring the piped-in music, but that’s a specious case. People speak or don’t speak out for various reasons, but the only numbers Nordstrom should be following are the receipt totals of days when pianists are playing vs. canned music. ‘Course we all know the effect of “sophisticated” music and purchase intentions in restaurants…by all means this is something Nordstrom should be exploring.

2. Nordstrom’s cites a cost savings in using a music service over the pianists. I’m surprised that a company with such a strong sense of “brand experience” would use this as a primary argument for nixing the live music — they’re a high-end retailer that understands the value of providing an exceptional experience, even if that experience costs more to provide. Again, run a study and see what turns up.

3. Numbers aside, you just can’t deny the iconic and emotional status of the piano in a Nordstrom’s. As Leonard Lauder, retired chairman and CEO of Estee Lauder said, “A Nordstrom piano doesn’t take up much room. It’s a small idea, but it’s a genius idea.” It’s part of the brand. In fact it’s the closest thing the company has to an associative “brand sound.” Losing this in favor of preprogrammed audio that sounds like, well, every other retailer in North America, makes for a risky move.

Let’s hope it works out for the best. Hey, I’m working on an large, environmental audio-identity effort for one of our clients right now…and if a few pianos are in this client’s future, we know where we can score some on the cheap.

– Noel Franus

Someone beat me to it…

Japan’s Melody Roads Play Music as You Drive

Motorists used to listening to the radio or their favourite tunes on CDs may have a new way to entertain themselves, after engineers in Japan developed a musical road surface.

A team from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a number of “melody roads”, which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel.

The concept works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the road surface. Just as travelling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes.

Sunday sharing: last night I came across a very enjoyable piece by Bill Mckibben in the Atlantic on the joys of internet radio and the problems with satellite radio. Snip:

It’s so nice to be able to easily listen to what real American radio remains. My tabletop pulls in nearly every public-radio station in America, meaning that the great talk shows on dozens of stations…are always in range…

Satellite radio…is a glorified airline entertainment system—hundreds of channels signifying next to nothing. Signifying next to nothing because satellite comes from nowhere. Just like the Clear Channel stations, it surrenders the thing that makes radio so magical: connection to a community. As a rough rule of thumb, the smaller the community at which a signal is aimed, the more interesting the radio—it scales down better than it scales up.

Personally, I can’t help but think of satellite vs. internet as Taco Bell vs. San Francisco Mission burritos, or Budweiser vs. any local craft/micro brew. I’m glad Mckibben included a collection of his favorite radio links as I’m always looking for more.

I’m a slave to WWOZ New Orleans, KEXP Seattle and KCRW Santa Monica, among others. But I have to admit that managing my listening via iTunes or bookmarks isn’t as simple as I’d like, so I’m also grateful to Mckibben for mentioning his Acoustic Energy internet/wi-fi radio.

Wait, did someone say wi-fi radio? Christmas is right around the corner, right? This gives me an idea…

Here are four late-night links for the always-curious sonic-branding nut in each of us. Some of these may seem to be from left field, but there’s always something to learn. How can you apply some of the innovations/ideas/thinking that’s referenced below to your (or your client’s) brand/product experience?

The remote you’ve been waiting for
Dolby offers a new TV-volume leveler that actually sounds kinda interesting. Wild prediction: customers will love it, advertisers not so much. How long before Microsoft buys them out?

The music tool you’ve been waiting for?
Yamaha’s Tenori-On…it’s been out for a while, and I’ve avoided it because of its high-gimmick factor. (It’s very hard to believe anyone who pitches their “digital music instrument for the 21st century.”) But most reviews of the Tenori-On have been positive…so what gives? If you’ve played with this (perhaps at the MusicLive Show in Birmingham?), please share your thoughts.

The chair you’ve got to hear to believe
From Networked Music Review: “the Sound Chair begins as a sound that is precisely crafted to form the physical shape of a chair when visualized as a 3-dimensional object using a volume, time, frequency line plot. The life-size chair is an exact replica of the soundwave graph. The result is a product with dual existence as both a ’sound’ & a ‘chair.’”

The noise you won’t forget
Making Noise in NYC features “work by visual artists who utilize the many different modes by which sound is produced and received. Exploring the possibilities that lie within the relationship between producer and receiver, these artists demonstrate how the manipulation of sound can become a tool for the organization of power and, in turn, the subversion of it.” November 28, 2007 – January 2, 2008 at the Melville Gallery at the South Street Seaport Museum.

– Noel Franus

Photo by Sean Dreilinger

Ad Age’s CMO Strategy section today has an excellent piece on the strategic use of sound in…wait for it…products. Which is certainly something we agree with.

Snip:

Historically, marketers have focused more on use of sound to define corporate identity, not product brand identity — and it is more difficult to create an emotional connection to the corporate brand than to the product that the consumer can actually use or interact with. That’s why the real opportunity lies in leveraging sonic branding at the product or brand level.

This is the first Ad Age piece I’ve seen that would sit just as comfortably in a brand management, visual design, industrial design or even digital design magazine. Kudos to Donna Sturgess at GlaxoSmithKline and to Ad Age for the article.