The most powerful brand asset that you almost certainly don't have

Professional marketers make use of a valuable toolkit of Distinctive Brand Assets (DBAs) to build brand salience over time.

Things that go into this toolkit include: logos, fonts, colours, mascots, taglines etc etc.

But one DBA that is almost universally neglected by marketers, also just so happens to be the most impactful and effective when it comes to building brand salience in the marketplace.

And that neglected DBA is...the sonic brand cue...or jingle if you will.

Sonic branding is the single most effective way for marketers to improve brand recognition and purchase. 

In a white paper published last year, it was stated that:

Although many video advertisements employ music today, far fewer employ sonic brand assets. Only six percent of the more than 2,000 ads in a recent meta-analysis by Ipsos had a distinctive sonic brand cue. Moreover, Ipsos found that sonic brand cues are especially powerful. When Ipsos ranked the ads by branded attention, it found that the creative with sonic brand cues was 8.5 times more likely to land in the top tercile than in the bottom tercile.

While most brands will undoubtedly have a comprehensive visual identity, complete with a set of colors, fonts and aesthetic guidelines, their sonic toolbox looks rather empty in comparison. If one believes sight and sound to be two of the main senses that advertising aims to stimulate, the underinvestment in sound is akin to showing up for battle with only half the required ammunition.

Does your brand have a distinctive sound?

What is your brand's distinctive sound?