Manage episode 513752929 series 2799301
“If you imagine a company has a ten million dollar marketing budget, right? And then you imagine they have a sonic logo on every single TikTok ad, Facebook ad, YouTube ad, all these new media where the majority of the traffic’s coming from now. If they can increase conversion rates marginally, they can have a huge difference to their bottom line. And it’s one of those things where, because sonic branding, once it’s done, once, and, well, yes, there might be a brand refresh where it’s changed in ten years, um, or it’s updated, or maybe it’s changed slightly to work with a different culture, right? There might be like a version which sounds slightly more Canadian, right? Or more Christmasy, or things like that. But the point being is this is an asset that they develop once, and then it can be used on these campaigns that can have huge advertising budgets, which makes it very cheap when you compare it to the actual campaign marketing spend.” – Dr. Thomas Dickson
My guest on this episode is a musicologist who specializes in how we perceive sound and how it shapes brand communication. With a PhD in Music Psychology, he helps brands create emotionally resonant and research-backed sonic identities. His work reduces subjectivity, improves creative decisions, and even addresses legal risks like plagiarism in audio branding.
His name is Dr. Thomas Dickson, and he’s advised national retailers, tech firms, and service brands throughout his career. And, as if the subject of musicology isn’t fascinating enough, we’ll also be discussing how businesses can make sure their sound stays original and protected.
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(0:00:00) - The Power of Sound in Advertising
Our discussion begins with a look back at Dr. Dickson’s early memories of sound, and he came prepared with a more recent, but still memorable, experience that demonstrated the power of sound. “By the grand finale,” he recalls as he describes an outdoor concert featuring the Melbourne Symphonic Orchestra, “it’s a bucketing down, raining and everyone’s still there. So we’ve got this huge event, it’s bucketing down, raining, [and] no one’s leaving because they want to hear the finale.” He tells us more about musicology, what it means, and how it can help build a stronger brand. “Musicology is like the academic and rigorous study of music,” he explains. “It comes down to a broad range of different styles, so this could be like music history, it could be music psychology, which is what I looked at, the psychology of music or sound, [or] it could be ethnomusicology.”
(0:09:05) - Musicology and Plagiarism in Sonic Branding
Dr. Dickson tells us about the different dimensions of musicology and how sound influences us, such as musical expectancy and episodic memory, and how much our impression of sound comes from the media we consume. “We have cultural norms associated with electronic music,” he explains, “digital sounds, hard hitting bass, all that kind of stuff that we associate with that through repeated exposure with these sounds, with those kinds of branding pillars.” He shares an example of a client who sought his help with finding the right branding voice, and he shares some of the unexpected legal risks that can arise when an audio brand campaign’s trying to sound familiar but not too familiar. “The last thing you want to do,” he tells us, “is compose something that doesn’t really suit the brief that you thought did, but you also don’t want to end up with something that’s derivative of another work.”
(0:19:02) - Implementing Sound Design in Sonic Branding
As we reach the first half of our conversation, Dr. Dickson talks about the strengths and limitations of a sonic brand, and how music can fill in the emotional gaps to build a stronger brand. “That’s not going to have much emotion conveyed in it,” he says of an audio logo, “whereas if you are to pitch, tune that, so make it turn into a melody... there’s opportunity to get both the distinctive asset and also an opportunity to convey, you know, music and emotion.” He shows an effective sonic brand can be one of the most cost-effective approaches to marketing, and we talk about the perils of trying to use stock music rather than a distinctive audio brand. “I have witnessed the phenomenon of different advertising using the same song,” Dr. Dickson tells us. “So anything from a car company to a gardening company, to, like, a food item and then a shoe, you know, and they’re all using that same sound.”
Episode Summary
- Dr. Dickson shares his passion for music and his academic journey in musicology.
- How musicology and audio branding intersect to build an emotional brand connection.
- The power of an effective sonic branding campaign vs traditional advertising.
Be sure to tune in for next week’s episode as Dr. Dickson and I discuss the balancing act of audio branding and changing management, how the growing competition between sonic brands might lead to legal challenges, and the role AI has already begun to play in uncovering musical plagiarism.
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300 episodes