Intentional | Audio Identity Blog

Quick plug: Sonic ID’s Martyn Ware keynoting Wednesday @ (re)Actor 3 / HCI 2008 in Liverpool. If you’re in the neighborhood, drop in and say hello.

Really looking forward to Inverge — “the interactive convergence conference” — next week.

At first blush, this isn’t a natural “sonic branding” fit. Yet convergent, cross-media design is the inevitable future. And we believe sound is a significant ingredient in designing the immersive and interactive experiences of that future.

The lineup looks great. I’m especially looking forward to Joshua Green, Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT and William Swartout, Director of Technology for USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. Also looking forward to finding out what “cyborg anthropologist and social media consultant” Amber Case does for a living, as that’s a most curious title of the bunch.

On a related note, 5D is coming up soon, too — Long Beach in October. Martyn is running a two-hour Future of Sound event there, which should provide yet more great options for shaking hands and devising beautiful things that may or may not be useful.

Links: Inverge conference site; Inverge blog; 5D conference site.

– Noel Franus

Hear ye, hear ye, fans of sensory branding: Sonic ID will be in Manchester for b.TWEEN this weekend to explore the cutting-edge, converging boundaries between sound, art and commerce. Innovative brands take notice…

Does art exclude commerce? Can what works in the gallery work in-store? Are public installations models for future commercial applications? At b.TWEEN Sonic ID founders Martyn Ware and Dan Kirby will explain how experience gained in the artistic side of sound is helping shape the future of sensory branding, and leading to innovation in the commercial world.

– Noel Franus

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

Good news: I’ll be tag-teaming with the illustrious Martyn Ware to present at the Experience Architecture Forum at Harvard on August 9th.

I had the good fortune of attending two years ago (here’s a quick recap I wrote shortly thereafter) and I found it a stimulating three days of experience-economy thinking as we explored the real-world potential for mixing brands, people, spaces and story in an intentional manner. Now that it’s 2007, let’s add sound to the mix.

New York architect Gregory Beck has been facilitating this conference for nearly ten years. I couldn’t be more excited as I’m sure it’ll be another idea-jam. Dates: August 8 through August 10. See you there.

I’ve written in the past about the role of sound in physical environments. Most of that’s been in the theoretical, with a few pointers to some idea-seeding examples. Well, let’s take it to the next step…coming soon to a venue near you: the Future of Sound, led by Martyn Ware (of Heaven 17, Human League and the Illustrious Company).

“The idea was a spin-off from work Ware was doing with a fellow alderman of electronic music, Erasure’s Vince Clarke. “We were developing a three-dimensional sound system that basically allows you to put people inside sounds: instead of stereo, which just moves sound from left to right, the computers move sound in height and depth so you feel like you’re on a roller-coaster.

“When I was demonstrating it, I was meeting all these people working on other really innovative projects and I wanted to find a way to bring them all together and take these ideas to a mass audience.” (More on those innovative projects in The Register…)

Perhaps not coincidentally, Martyn also codirects Sonic ID, one of earth’s leading audio-branding agencies, in conjunction with Daniel Kirby of DKPM. They’re doing great work and I see them as partners with a handful of other agencies in growing the practice of audio branding and sonic identity development around the globe.

BusinessWeek follows up the AIGA Gain Conference with a podcast featuring moderator Tom Kelley of Ideo. If you’ve ever been curious about the relationship between business and design, the podcast is a wonderfully grokkable 10-minute overview, with plenty of anecdotes pulled from the conference. Give it a listen.

On a related note, speaker notes (PDF) from yours truly are available for download over at the Gain conference website. Bonus (or curse): AIGA has promised podcast interviews from backstage, featuring all speakers from the conference. Stay tuned! — NF

Stephen wrapped up last week’s Portland coffee jam session far better than I could. Next up: Friday 12/1, Stumptown Coffee, 8:30 a.m. See you there. — NF

Reminder: I’ll be speaking on audio identity and branding strategy at a coast (relatively) near you soon. First, New York, at the AIGA Gain Design and Business Conference (October 26-28). Second, Portland, Oregon at the brand-spankin’ new Pop Art space (date TBD). Ping me if you need more info: noel at intentionalaudio dot com.

Great news: we’ll be heading over to New York in October to present to the AIGA Gain / Business + Design conference in late October.

I’m at the point where, after a number of Sun-only presentations on audio branding and the recent IDSA national conference, there’s more than enough material to work with. But it always evolves. F’instance, here’s something that may just seep into a future conversation — stay tuned:

One of the core concepts of “good” or intentional audio branding I’ve been thinking about lately is that those who “get it” benefit from a smart, brand-centric approach to music, sound and voice.

Two companies come to mind as specifically having come a long way in this matter: Apple and Starbucks. Oh great, you’re thinking, more brandspeak about Apple and Starbucks. But bear with me, this one’s new.

The very few companies that have built a strong audio brand — BMW, Coca Cola, Harley-Davidson, etc. — have done so by using sound to either: a) create a connection with customers via promotional/marketing/advertising (”Always Coca-Cola;” Intel chimes; N-B-C); or b) reinforce the brand by integrating brand values into the user experience (BMW’s 200+ acoustical engineers working on the controls and overall interior timbre of the driving experience; Harley’s acutely calibrated tone; Cheetos’ crunch etc…).

But very few have shot past all that with sound. Apple and Starbucks are two such companies — not only have they used sound for both those purposes, they’ve built it right into the heart of their business strategy.

In case you’re not getting it, I should mention a coupla products that have altered the course of modern culture: iPod and iTunes. Of course Apple’s always had the vision of being at the hub of a “digital lifestyle,” but had they really imagined their modern success 15 or so years ago, when they were a nifty little computer company? (Or better yet, 10 years ago, when they were a not-so-nifty little computer company?)

Meanwhile, Starbucks uses their Hear Music sub-brand quite well; these Starbucks coproduced CDs available at the register don’t merely extend the brand or provide extra cash for the man behind the curtain; they reinforce the brand — it’s not coffee, kids. It’s a lifestyle.

In both cases, it’s encouraging to see companies moving from simple commodity providers to major pruveyors of creative cache. And it’s due in no small part to them leveraging our emotional connection to sound.

Let’s talk more in NY. See you at Gain?