Step 1: Design
We start by defining a brand’s core attributes and personality traits, which gives us a set of words and feelings that its sonic logo should evoke in the end consumer or user. For example, should it feel smiley and uplifting? Or like a warm hug.
Then we define its musical anatomy – the structure of the sonic logo. Do we want it to sing or say the brand name? Or not mention it at all. Should it feature a melody and if so, what type? And what sounds do we want it to use e.g., electronic, percussion, orchestral, etc? Fun fact: sonic logos featuring a melody have a 20% higher memorability and brand association than those that do not.
Step 2: Compose
Next, armed with our creative brief and a clear sense of what we want to hear come out the other end, we brief up to 20 different musicians and composers from all musical backgrounds and genres to pitch us their sonic logos, drawing up a shortlist of our preferred favourites to be tested with consumers.
Step 3: Test
Music is highly subjective. One person’s ACDC is another person’s A$AP Rocky. And so, testing it with the actual people we want it to appeal to helps remove any musical biases the client, or agency, may have.
When testing, we look to understand 2 key criteria:
Emotional Appeal – what kind of emotional responses does the sonic logo trigger?
Brand Match – how does the sonic logo rate against our core brand attributes and personality traits?
We run a mix of qual and quant to give us our answers and from there we choose the sonic logo that we hope will ultimately connect the brand with its target consumers, triggering their emotions, driving memorability, and cut through.
And the result…
Here’s the sonic logo we created for Hearing Australia.
