Opinion

When brands sound yellow

anthea varigosIn a guest post for Mumbrella, composer and music branding specialist Anthea Varigos analyses the musical content of Australia’s TV commercials from throughout 2014.

It’s obvious once you notice. Ads have their own musical colour palette.

As I begin this project, the screen is soon awash with beauty products, insurance and cars. Before long I start to hear similarities in the instrumental pallets and genre choices for various product segments.

There is “pink” sounding music to capture your attention if you are a girl. This frequently has an upbeat dance vibe and a rather stereo-typical chimes/bells sound because girls love pretty things. Olay Regenerist is a perfect example.

There is “blue” music for men; the expected cock-rock, sometimes with industrial four-to-the-floor beats. Like this promotion for Hog’s Breath Cafe’s V8 sponsorship.

(Oh, yes)

Interestingly, the other “blue” music is epic cinematic orchestration often used in the automotive category, such as the final third of this Hyundai ad.

If you are a family, or the product is attempting to appeal to a wide spread of the population there is “yellow” music. A hipster-happy palette of marimba, whistling and ‘doot doot doot’s that insinuate the joy associated with purchasing products. You can hear these toe-tapping tunes can’t you?

For the baby-boomers, the songs they used to party to when they were hits have now been converted into what only can be described as “Magnolia” muzak. That’s because of how important those songs were in connecting with them.

They spend the majority of their music budget on licensing the song. Times are tough though, and to pay for the recording license is another separate expense. Perhaps this is why they opt for a cheaper midi-version rather than your hero’s original.

Products want to be positive and “yellow”  music is perfect for it. Our ears are prone to saturation however, in a similar way you can only really focus on three scents at once – any more and they mould into miasma.

When there are too many tracks of a certain type, the music becomes homogenous. As much as it’s happy to listen to, I wonder whether brand recognition could improve if there were a little more diversity. Brands are all unique, with their compelling reasons to be best – it’s all too easy to lose sonic identity in the crowd.

Music is a wonderful tool for assisting with targeting and connecting with gender and ages. This is why so many commercials use the sound palettes described above. Music however, can delve deeper than just the fact that I may be female and you may be male, or whether we are old or young.

My favourite example of understanding music and expanding beyond sonic stereo-types is, rather ironically, AAMI’s “Don’t share the bath water”.

As audience members, we rarely notice when ads have no music at all. This can be an incredibly effective technique when used correctly.  The choice not to include music in the AAMI ad is wonderful. It assists the awkwardness of the situation, makes the scenario feel ‘budget’ and connects with the messaging.

Dyson’s latest commercial has no music either, rather it’s just the sound of the vacuum which is clever too. It is difficult to remember the brand after ads with no music – the AAMI ad ends with a sound sting; the Dyson ad does not.

These are rare cases though, and for the majority music is fundamental to campaign success. Hair loss brand Ashley and Martin Institute could do with some musical assistance and yet they’ve opted for silence.

There is a voice over and couple of validating ‘science’-sounding effects.

A reason that music first started being used in films was to connect the audience because it pulls us into narrative and stops us feeling like a removed observer. One would think making customers feel comfortable would be a priority in this conversation and not having music here is alienating. Would it be more engaging with science-sounding-light-electro or, if sounding clever is important, some Bach on the cheap?

There is no denying that pink, blue and yellow music all have their place in ads. In the design world CMYK is used for print and RGB is used for the screen. It is the spectrum of colour however, which delights our eyes when we watch TV and our ears are just the same.

In a world where standing out in the crowd is vital, the choice of music and at what level this engages audience members is still important. Finding that golden sound which is exactly your brand, not just the demographic stereotype, will create a stronger and more memorable connection to your consumer.

Anthea Varigos is creative director of sonic branding agency BrandSound.

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