Links: Neuromarketing, Sound Art and Immersive Design
Roger Dooley has an interesting piece on music and neuromarketing over at FutureLab. He touches on non-music aspects of audio branding, which is somewhat divergent from and certainly more valuable than a traditional, cursory piece on audio branding. Dooley specifically calls out Nokia:
They have always offered a unique walkie-talkie feature which lets fellow Nextel users initiate a conversation instantly by pushing one button. While most cell features let the user choose from a range of sounds or ringtones, Nextel did something smart: every Nextel phone emits a distinctive chirp when in walkie-talkie mode. This chirp is unique and instantly recognizable by any other Nextel user. They have incorporated the chirp into their TV commercials, and one hears it often in public. This powerful auditory branding message cost Nextel nothing other than the courage to keep the sound consistent across phone styles and generations, and to not let users easily change it.
Russell Davies has a jaw-droppingly thorough play-by-play and heady commentary on the new Sound Art book by by Alan Licht. Here’s a snip from the book, called out on Davies’ site:
Morton Feldman, after a discussion with Brian O’Doherty concluded: “…Between categories is a defining characteristic of sound art, its creators historically coming to the form from different disciplines and often continuing to work in music and/or different media. But in the last decade sound art’s identity between categories has intensified, particularly as the term itself has spread. Eno’s ideal sound installation is ‘a place poised between a club, a gallery, a church, a square, and a park, and sharing aspects of all of these.’ “
Conference watch (revised): speaking of design “between categories,” one of the more intriguing new conferences on my horizon has to be 5D: The Future of Immersive Design, this October at Cal State, Long Beach. (Originally scheduled for April.)
From the agenda: “This international conference assembles the design world’s leading pioneers and academics in an open exchange of ideas and insights about new design processes and the delivery of the immersive experience.”
If the topics of “narrating space,” “gestural interfaces for cinema,” or “the future of sound” don’t pique your interest, then perhaps we should talk. Do we even know each other anymore?
Finally, since we’re on the topic of conferences, I’m planning some travel for 2008 and am curious: which single business, design or media conference is your must-attend event for 2008? Why?
Give your answer here (at LinkedIn) or in the comments field below. Thanks.
– Noel Franus
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It was Nextel, not Nokia, but thanks for the credit. Since I made the original post, I’ve seen a new TV commercial from Sprint, owner of Nextel, that uses the Nextel chirp in an interesting symphonic assemblage of men at work and a project leader conducting with a Nextel phone.
My original audio branding post is here: http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/audio-branding.htm
Roger
Thanks for the correction Roger. The Nextel chirp is emerging as one that serves a dual purpose in brand identification across two major touchpoints — advertising and product usage. Very good for them.
So how does Sprint Nextel improve on a good thing? Consider: Sprint’s pin-drop is being phased out after years of use. And despite Nextel’s chirp ubiquity, the sound doesn’t successfully cross over into other Sprint Nextel categories (such as commercials in for Sprint/Palm smartphones). Which leaves SN in a bit of a quagmire, soncially speaking.
I’d look to cross that branding bridge by adding more emotional depth to the chirp. As a standalone, atonal sound, it can’t communicate; it can merely identify the product. However, with the right amount of compositional rigor, it could serve as a platform for sonic/musical expansion…which, done properly, could work for all present and future Sprint Nextel advertising, and across product lines, startup sounds, etc., even as the brand evolves.
In any case, a job well done.