When I watched this film, I thought the notion of music as ‘the quickening art’ is worth talking about. Music brings people and things to life. It’s about giving things soul. It’s what makes this old dude so animated and feel like he has an identity once again.
We take it for granted, but music is essential to life. Understanding emotion through sound is deeply important when dealing with audience and interactions. If you play audio frequencies to a human, the brain will actually produce resonating matched electrical pulses back. It’s engrained in us.
So how does this work with branding? Sonic branding looks at sound as feedback and can be in the form of signifiers, like the roar of an engine and how it feels the harder you push on the accelerator, mnemonics to help you remember something, like Intel’s famous jingle, or audio iconography, like those little bleeps and clicks you hear when you get a text message or you press a button to name a few applications.
Sonic branding is not about audio engineering as much as it’s about the connotations and experiences that you can subconsciously conjure up through tiny nuances of noise, melody and tone. Just like sight, touch and smell, sound and music can unlock deep emotional engagement. I think today when we’re bombarded by so much stimulus in sound and visuals, it’s important not to overlook the deep functionality of audio in branding and memory.
In a collaboration with Wolff Olins and AOL’s music website, Spinner, AOL hosted four free pop-up shows during the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. Broken Bells kicked off the series on March 17, followed by Rogue Wave on March 18, VV Brown on March 19, and Rival Schools on March 20. It was surely an exciting weekend for art and music lovers. Times and locations were revealed the day before each performance on Spinner, AOL music’s SXSW hub, the Spinner Facebook Fan Page, and to Spinner / SXSW Twitter followers.
The posters were designed by WO and were beautifully screen printed by D&L Screen Printing of Seattle, a legend in the grunge music scene.
The spirit of this collaboration truly lies in the heart of AOL. Connecting with the latest in art and culture is an important aspect of their brand and one they aim to bring to their readers.
So Cadbury’s have now decided to go one step further with their Dairy Milk ads and have released their first ever single, along with a full-length music video (see above).
I’m surprised more brands haven’t released more music. I can only think of Levis with Flat Eric … there must be some others. Always strikes me that brands with great stories can do more to spread the word and celebrate what’s special about them.
Anyways, back to this one. The video and track are as random and wonderful as ‘Gorilla’ and ‘Eyebrows’. Full of optimism, joy and cheekiness… music is a big part of the Dairy Milk expression but this time it’s not classics from Phil Collins or Queen.
‘Glass and a Half Full’ Productions have teamed up with Ghanian superstar Tinny to create ‘Zingolo’. A track that very much captures the heart and soul of Ghanian music and culture. The idea is about celebrating Dairy Milk’s Fairtrade status… didn’t even know it was Fairtrade…. as well as Ghana, the heart of their Fairtrade cocoa.
All profits from the single will go to CARE International, a charity that will fund education programmes in cocoa communities in Ghana.
