When brands sound yellow

I don’t know what this “analises” is that you are doing here, but it doesn’t sound nice. Is “analyses” the word your spellchecker couldn’t find?

Great article Anthea.
Since first being introduced to the concept of a Brand Sound it has changed the way I interpret many campaigns and brands.

Thanks for bringing the rest of us into the modern age Anthea! 🙂
Well done – its fantastic the work you are doing for so many iconic brands!

An intelligent, insightful and well written article. The colour analogy is very effective.

Does research support the idea that these musical stereotypes are effectively penetrating their target markets? Or is it a a self perpetuating cycle…dress baby boys in blue and girls in pink and reinforce boring, narrow stereotypes without regard for the multicoloured hues that make life wonderful and unique?

The possibilities to do otherwise are limitless…

“…sometimes with industrial four-to-the-floor beats.”
Do you mean “four-on-the-floor” or “foot-to-the-floor”?
“Four-on-the-floor” is a reference to a manual (four + reverse) automobile gear-shift where the gear selector comes up through the floor, usually positioned within a console which runs from the dashboard between the two front seats. The term is used to describe a 4/4 (four beats to the bar) rock beat.
“Foot-to-the-floor” just means fast/not holding back.
I cannot imagine what an “industrial four-to-the-floor beat might sound like – perhaps the word “industrial” was added to improve the rhythm of the sentence.
I suggest a second set of eyes before publishing. It may have meant the difference between myself and others giving this article a chance or giving up, which I did.

Interesting article. Synaesthesia is an fascinating phenomenon, but my understanding is that the music/colour thing is subjective. Kandinsky was known to create multi-coloured abstract pieces based on symphonies.

@PeterJ. The ‘Four-to-the-Floor’ beat came from Disco and moved into Electronica. Before that it was James Brown’s ‘On-the-One’. Anthea’s use of the term was correct.

Thanks @me, JB’s ‘On-the-One’ I was aware of, but ‘Four-to-the-Floor’ I had never heard – I realise now a quick check with Wikipedia would have set me straight. Many thanks.
Having watched Hog’s Breath video the beat is definitely not disco nor electronica so I think my original comment still stands on that point.

@PeterJ Four-to-the-floor is a pretty standard term in contemporary music. It doesn’t necessarily refer to a genre of music either. And let’s just be clear, your comment doesn’t still stand at all. Next time you read an article with a term in it you don’t know, look it up before claiming it doesn’t exist. [Edited under Mumbrella’s content moderation guidelines]

I thought the article was so good I wrote a song about it, @PeterJ.

You’re right @Jpeterman and @me, it was a stupid comment. I apologise to Anthea and anyone else who was unlucky enough to have read my original uninformed comment and my attempt at justification.
I think I’ll just read (and hopefully learn) from now on.

Wow, an apology in the comments section of a marketing blog.

Fair play, PeterJ.

Thanks @kudos+amazement, to be honest I felt like a complete dick when I read back what I’d written. Now I’m going to leave this comments section in peace – although, sadly, not the way I found it.

Can you please explain why chimes/bells sound ‘pink’, men music is ‘”blue”, and widespread appeal is “yellow”. This sounds completely subjective.

Sigh, what self-serving rubbish, there are numerous musicians and studios around who have infinitely more experience in branding without resorting to desperate visual design analogies…There is a reason these senses are different, not everything requires a unified theory.

This is a shallow and childish interpretation of a complex and sophisticated area that you haven’t backed up with any research documentation or experience. By looking at your website link, there is absolutely nothing there that would qualify you to boldly put forth the pretense of actually having expertise in the area of branding sound. At least do some research if you don’t have the actual work to back it up. Then your opinion ‘might’ mean something. Parts of this piece sound very familiar to an article that was posted on Linkedin on original music.

I smile whenever I read or hear about the so called “modern age” which Craig thanks Anthea for bringing us into.

Music has been delivering themes and engendering dramatic or comedic moods for thousands of years. The opera has producing mood music and character music in ever increasing sophistication for hundreds of years, and even the relatively modern movie world has benefited from Wagner’s Leitmotif.
I think even the most musically challenged of us can recognise a nursery song or a lullaby.

Intricacies such as colour or individual intellectual statements, can only be, in my opinion, subjective; particularly in orchestrations where the brain can only hear and process random pieces of the instrumentation at any given time.

I must admit that the concepts suggested by Anthea are interesting and thought provoking,

Your presentation at Mumbrella 360 last year was an absolute stand-out for me…..The more I learn about BrandSound, the more intrigued I am to find out more…Thanks for sharing.