SCA reveals new logo and brand sound as it prepares for the future of audio
Southern Cross Austereo has revealed a revamped corporate logo and new brand sound in a bid to prepare for the future of the audio industry and demonstrate the dynamic and bold nature of the brand.
The change comes eight years after the 2011 merge between Southern Cross Media and Austereo, which resulted in the Austereo-focused logo of a rainbow star and capital A.
SCA CEO and MD Grant Blackley told Mumbrella the change was to best reflect the SCA brand in the marketplace.
The new Southern Cross Austereo logo
“It’s a whole new brand representation, even though it’s as simple as it just being SCA. It’s bold and confident and fun and we think it’s very reflective of the attitude that we’ve adopted and hopefully the way people see us in the marketplace,” said Blackley.
The change in the logo does away with the rainbow star and capital A that was adopted after the merger for a simpler design. Alongside it, SCA is introducing a brand sound, in what it believes to be an industry first, which will be used across its properties.
“The brand sound is effectively a corporate brand sound, so you’ll hear it in a range of ways but none that overshadow or interfere with our Hit and Triple M brands, or our Podcast One brand. Effectively, you’ll hear it in places where we are aggregating people on a corporate level, so that could be announcements, at certain venues, it could be the ringtone of staff, it could be the sound you hear when you ring into SCA and you’re put on hold. There are multiple uses for it,” said Blackley.
The former SCA logo
The push for a unifying brand sound is reflective of the future of audio, which includes smart speakers, podcasting and other outlets. The new unique melody, which was created by The Studio at SCA and tested with exclusive audio benchmarking partner Veritonic, shows SCA is interested in unifying its brand across all platforms, not just visual, the company said. The partnership with Veritonic means SCA is now looking to help brands identify their audio branding, beyond the visual style guide.
“A lot of companies have brand guides for visual approaches and we often challenge clients when we see those style guides with ‘I wonder how it sounds’. But there’s an absolute explosion of new audio options and people can now listen to your brand. Having a clear brand identity across both visual and audio is critical because the largest gift-giving item last year was a smart speaker, which shows we’re moving more towards audio devices in whatever form they come,” said Blackley.
The new logo and brand sound will be rolled out across the business in a series of phases across the next few weeks, and Blackley is confident that the revamp will help SCA present a united front, no matter what medium the company is being accessed on.
wow. what a dynamic bold new logo. in-house job for sure.
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While their old logo was a dogs breakfast I hope they didn’t pay much for the new one. Did they get an intern to simply type SCA into Photoshop then remove the letter spacing?
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SCA – hmmm, nice logo ?
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Love that brandsound, reminds me of dateline news jingle or a current affair vibe
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“Alexa. Help me. I’m not fluent in corporate jargon.”
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How do you pronounce SCA?
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Glad you like it.
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Stop judging a rebrand on the logo.
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nice clean logo.
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Was waiting for the “Audio Jungle” watermark at the end of that brand sound
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LOL, very good.
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Deckchairs. Titanic.
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So in house
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Hmm type bold minus kerning…. I just know this would have been “brainstormed” for weeks through their glorified In-house hacks… There is nothing creative innovative or decent about this new logo. The c and a spacing level is also a few pixels out 😉
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