When brands sound yellow
In 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.
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?
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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!
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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…
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“…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.
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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.
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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.
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@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]
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I thought the article was so good I wrote a song about it, @PeterJ.
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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.
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Wow, an apology in the comments section of a marketing blog.
Fair play, PeterJ.
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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.
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Can you please explain why chimes/bells sound ‘pink’, men music is ‘”blue”, and widespread appeal is “yellow”. This sounds completely subjective.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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