On brands and ‘the world’s most powerful sounds.’
I love Martin Lindstrom’s work. He’s done a great job bringing attention to the role of sensory design in generating desire and creating influence with respect to what we buy and how we perceive the world around us.
He’s now studied ‘the world’s most addictive sounds.’ Here’s the summary.
I’m excited about the notion of anything sonic-branding related appearing in a consumer mag like Time. But I’m stumped. The study, or what I’ve read about it, feels too trite to be taken seriously.
Lindstrom breaks the world of sound into ‘branded’ and ‘non-branded’ sounds. But that’s an artificial bifurcation—smart brands can very much influence our thoughts, feelings and behaviors in the real world around us without having to rely on ‘branded sound.’
Brands live in these spaces—but it doesn’t mean they have to rely on ‘branded sound’ to effect change. Maybe a sense of ‘brand-oriented choreography,’ but there’s a huge difference between the two. You wouldn’t guess that from this study if you took it at face value.
More nits: Lindstrom says in this Time interview that many generic sounds, such as a baby’s laugh or a burger sizzling on the grill, are not ‘owned’ by brands today but will be so in the near future. We can assume that consistent, repetitive television advertising is will drive this because the conversation is exclusively about ‘advertising.’
Ick. Though it’s hard to argue with the notion that repetition breeds familiarity, it’s dependent on the assumption that tv is king. Today it is for a mass audience. But the future is much more thin-sliced.
Our media and our lives are far more fragmented than they were 50, 20, even 5 years ago. We live online, with our smartphones, consuming time-shifted media on a variety of devices and in a zillion private and public places.
If brands can’t find a way to be relevant in each of these spaces—through messaging or, God forbid, utility—they die.
We’re trying to change behaviors. Brands that succeed are those that evoke meaning with intent, precision and a keen sense of context. Not those who have the best bag of tricks for crashing the amygdala in just a 30-second spot.
Finally: babies? Most powerful sound on earth? I’ve got a stick of dynamite over here that says otherwise.
– Noel Franus
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