What Is an Audio Watermark?
An audio watermark is a signal or identifying data embedded within a piece of audio, usually inaudible to listeners, that allows the audio to be recognised, tracked or authenticated by machines. Unlike a sonic logo, which is designed to be heard, an audio watermark is designed to be detected.
Audio Watermark in Practice
The most famous application is Nielsen’s broadcast watermarking. Nielsen encodes inaudible identification data into radio and television audio, and its Portable People Meter devices detect those codes to measure what audiences are actually hearing, the backbone of broadcast ratings. Watermarks also support rights management, tracing leaked pre-release music, and verifying that adverts actually aired. The term causes confusion in sonic branding because ‘audio watermark’ is sometimes used loosely to mean a short branded sound at the end of a track. Strictly, that audible signature is a sonic logo or sting; a watermark is the hidden, machine-readable layer. Audio fingerprinting differs again: fingerprinting recognises the sound itself, while watermarking reads data deliberately hidden inside it.
Famous Example
Nielsen’s inaudible broadcast watermarks, detected by its Portable People Meters for audience ratings.
A
S
- Shepard Tone
- Skeuomorphic Sound
- Sonic
- Sonic Audit
- Sonic Brand Guidelines
- Sonic Branding
- Sonic DNA
- Sonic Identity
- Sonic Logo
- Sonic Palette
- Sonification
- Sound Branding
- Sound Design
- Sound Effect (SFX)
- Sound Symbolism
- Sound Trademark
- Sound-alike
- Soundscape
- Spatial Audio
- Startup Sound
- Stem
- Sting
- Sung Slogan
- Sync Licensing
- Synthetic Voice
A memorable jingle is one tool within a brand’s wider sonic branding.
