Why Sonic Branding Risks Becoming Audio Wallpaper in the GCC
Sonic branding in the GCC is at a tipping point…
Sameness.
It’s a problem in sonic branding that needs to be sorted out quickly if this marketing tool doesn’t want to be relegated to the status of audio wallpaper.
This may seem contrary to any number of posts you’ve seen recently (including from us) about the increased deployment of sonic branding in the GCC as part of user experience and not just an audio signature. But research exists which suggests an alarming percentage of brands which are using original music and sound across all customer touchpoints are all sounding like each other. That’s a polite way of saying that your sonic branding is, at worst, either delivering the user experience of your competitor and market category, or at best, providing a pleasant but meaningless diversion at a customer touchpoint.
Is the problem AI? Yes, if it’s being used to generate. Because, as we all know by now, AI can only propose something that it’s been trained to propose. So rather pull the plug after it’s completed its research. Then AI is not the problem. Is the problem the client? Well, I’ve attended meetings with brand teams who have talked excitedly about sonic branding and the value it can add across customer touchpoints. They’re enthused about the musical instruments that are unique to the country or region, and the tunes beloved to those communities. You can’t really ask for more from clients when they react with this much enthusiasm.
So that leaves one last entity left to blame. The sonic branding company itself,
for either leaning too heavily on AI, or not doing their job by guiding a client’s enthusiasm back through the emotive pathway of the brand, rather than joyfully skipping through the alluring pastures of cultural pride. Because as melodic and resonant as each individual piece of sonic branding may be, it’s doing nothing for your brand because it sounds like a lot of other brands that have undergone the same procedure as yours. It follows that the only connection the listener has to the music is going to be with another price of culturally appropriate music.
So to the brand caretakers in the GCC who are primed for sonic branding, a cautionary reminder.
If a member of your target audience hears your brand and says “I love this, it’s so us”, you’ve failed. Because that person is only talking about the music.
But if they say “I love this, they’re so us”, they’re talking about you. Not the music.
Cultural relevance is the price of entry, not the show itself. So be careful of investing in something just because you feel it fits this category. That’s just adding another ingredient to a bowl of soup. Refresh the category. Or better yet, break it.
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