So You Have a Sonic Strategy – Now What?

You’ve crafted the perfect sonic identity. Now, learn how to integrate it seamlessly across all aspects of your brand. Here are some key strategies for managing, scaling, and maximizing your music assets.

by Amy Crawford, Executive Creative Director and Head of Music Products for sonic branding agency Made Music Studio

So your brand has just spent multiple months and budget to develop a music strategy and bespoke sonic identity that perfectly captures the personality of your brand. You’re eager to implement it across the entire brand ecosystem: TV ads, social media, events and more. But you are finding that incorporating it is not as easy as just dropping an audio file into a TikTok. 

Sonic branding has emerged as much more than a sonic logo at the end of broadcast commercials. It’s evolved from merely the musical accompaniment to a visual logo to a rich ecosystem of music and sound that signifies a brand and everything it stands for. A complete sonic identity system now entails social media music & sound, retail overhead playlists, walk-on music, interactives, and activations. Brands need more than just one single audio asset; they need an entire catalog of music and sound to spark emotional connection & reach audiences at scale.

Through our partnerships with some of the biggest brands in the world that prioritize this sound-on approach to marketing, we know that challenges remain with even the most successful sonic brands. Sourcing high-quality, on-brand music remains difficult, as does ensuring employees have access to the most up-to-date audio assets for content. ROI can be impacted, whether due to challenges surrounding production and implementation, or feeling secure with music licensing in the ever-changing legal terrain of social and digital media while trying to tap into culture and trends. Many of these challenges can put a damper on the creativity and audience connections possible with sonic – there’s so much rich creative opportunity to play, and yet so much complexity remains in how to best manage a sonic identity across an organization.

We’ve identified some of the most common issues with potential solutions so that your brand can handle these challenges head on, be prepared and overall maximize your sonic strategy.

GOVERNANCE

It seems like every day, there is a new issue with social media regarding what music is approved for which platform. It’s tough to keep track of licensing terms and renewals, and the last thing a brand wants to deal with is the legal ramifications of using trending audio without a proper license. Time and again, marketing teams and their agencies run into difficulties sourcing brand-appropriate music legally, efficiently and effectively. Social media and brand managers tasked with connecting with users on social media have been aching for premium-quality, entertainment-level music pre-cleared for use for some time. Expect things to get more complex with copyright and IP as generative AI begins to come into play and brands get curious. Reducing brand risk while also unleashing creativity and exploring new ideas should be the goal. Best-in-class sonic governance should allow great ideas to thrive.

SCALE

A global brand like American Express doesn’t just need a sonic asset for television ads. To effectively deploy the sound of their brand, they need on-brand music and sound for their growing list of customer touchpoints, like their airport lounges, marquee sponsorships like the US Open or celebrity partnerships on social media. The sheer volume of sonic assets required can be overwhelming! To scale the modern brand ecosystem, brands need to establish a specially curated catalog of approved, on-brand music and sounds to meet their customers where they are. 

EFFECTIVENESS

A recent study showed that 75% of Gen Z say that music makes them feel more connected to a brand. That means if you’re not using your sonic branding strategy to reach them or to create audio-driven content that reaches the level of entertainment they expect, you’re not maximizing the power of music and sound. High-quality, on-brand music is the key to not only resonating authentically with hard-to-reach audiences, but it can help every brand message build recall and equity.

PRODUCTIVITY

Marketing and brand teams are working with hundreds of brand assets including images, videos and sounds along with brand and style guidelines for how to use each, and in what format. While SaaS solutions exist for visual assets, the sound side has been a different story in which it’s dizzying to keep track of what’s been approved, recall best practices and easily stream and download a brand’s audio assets. Simplifying audio workflows for internal and external teams will boost productivity and benefit ROI. A well-designed sonic digital asset management system will help ensure files aren’t lost in email chains or that you’re working with a sound that’s deemed unsafe to use. 

CREATIVITY

Ultimately, there’s great power in strategic music and sound for brands – and yet there are many hurdles that prevent brands from maximizing their creative potential with sound, and historically a lack of tools to best support sonic success and spark creativity. Brands that can tackle the challenges of governance, scale, effectiveness and productivity will be best set up for their sonic programs to build emotional connections with audiences through the most powerful lever of all – creativity. And as a creative myself, I know that the more freedom and inspiration a brand’s creators and producers can feel in accomplishing their work, absent the frictions outlined above, the more authentic and rewarding those emotional connections can become.