This article was written by Yash Mall, an accomplished creative director in the sonic branding world and Supercharged’s resident sonic design consultant.

What is Sonic Branding and Sonic UX?

Sonic branding involves creating a unique and consistent auditory experience associated with your brand. This could be in the form of a hummable melody, a sonic logo or even a voice, which creates a lasting impression on your target audience. When done effectively, a sonic brand enhances brand recall. Think of the iconic Intel audio logo or the Macintosh startup sound – these auditory cues have played a pivotal role in creating distinctive brands. 

Why is Sonic Design important?

Brand Differentiation and Memorability

In a crowded market like Tech, how does your brand stand out against competition? One of the ways is by creating a unique sonic identity. A well-crafted sonic identity enhances brand recall, which in turn makes it easier for your customers to distinguish your brand from your competition.

Emotional Connection

Sound has the power to evoke emotions and create a deeper connection with your customer. Using the science of sound through a sonic identity is one of the most effective ways to convey your brand’s personality and values.

For example, a grocery store with a checkout notification sound that triggers satisfaction and a feeling of achievement at the end of a purchase will create an emotional bond with the customer. It’s a subconscious reminder of completing a task; something that will give the grocery store an edge over competition.

Sonic identity can also be translated to a brand’s online portal, helping create an ecosystem in which the customer, whenever they interact with the grocery store’s brand, whether physically or digitally, has the same emotional connection.

Consistency Across Platforms

Whether it’s your app, website, social media marketing or even physical products, sonic branding ensures a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints, enhancing brand recall and user experience. 

Multi-Sensorial Branding

In a world where attention spans are getting shorter and your customer is not consuming your content in a binary way, tapping into multi-sensorial branding is crucial. In the era when communication was visual, it was always good marketing to own a font, name, colour. However, in a multimedia world, sound becomes a sensorial continuum, an important asset to own.  Incorporating a consistent sound that evokes your brand values across all platforms will engage with your customer on a much deeper level.

How Can You implement sonic UX today?

The proprietary process we use for designing a sonic brand consists of three parts. Brand discovery, followed by sonic mapping and the sonic identity system stage. This process gives an effective overview of the brand identity and traits. This is then translated for the music team to enable them to create an accurately mapped sonic identity. 

Implementing a sonic strategy today will be a forward-thinking move for any brand in the years to come. The most concrete advantage of having a sonic identity is that it becomes your brand’s intellectual property, unlike the ad-hoc music which is most commonly used for communication. The financial benefit of the former far outweighs the expense of the latter. This shift in audio usage will create long term brand recognition, improve user experience, and help your brand stay relevant in today’s audio driven landscape.  

Conclusion 

Tech brands stand to benefit significantly from implementing sonic branding strategies in today’s digital landscape. As audio continues to play an increasingly important role in how people interact with technology, investing in sound will be one of the strongest ways for tech brands to gain an advantage over competition, strengthen brand presence, and drive business success.