No deep thinking on sonic branding and audio identity today, just a rundown of a few simple things worth sharing.

Music. The fROOTS magazine monthly music podcast is always an ear-opener, but the January 2009 is exceptionally good. Think Rene Lacaille, Luminescent Orchestrii and XTC. Then give it a listen.

Secrets. Sonic ID's own Martyn Ware recently cooked up a batch of for Fanta and Ogilvy London. That's right: teens only, no adults allowed for the Fanta Stealth Sound System. If you're in your 20s or older, you simply can't hear these higher-frequency ringtones. (For more on the hearing loss that begins in your 20s, take this test with your kids to see what you they can hear and you can't.)

Money. We've been using Xpenser the last few weeks and are tickled pink over this (primarily for us) voice-to-text expense-tracking app. Email, Text or call your expenses into Xpenser's system in a few simple seconds, and they're added to an editable online spreadsheet, available for download into Excel. For me, expenses are now as easy as making a call, and saying "Dining. $25.34. Dinner with Bill Gates." Done.

And that is all.

-- Noel Franus

Image by onkel_wart

New year, new traction. Budgets may have tanked in the last year, but that doesn't mean we should be standing still, ignoring the fine-tuning and maintenance that's required to maintain strong brands.

I've talked with a number of companies that feel stuck—stuck to do anything other than maintain status quo in all aspects of the business. And that's simply not necessary. It doesn't cost much to spot a problem and understand how to fix it.

At Sonic ID we focus exclusively on the intersection of brands and sound. So I've compiled a quick list of five simple, decidedly easy options for improving the performance of your brand by exploring your costs and returns on music and sound, and how to boost the value of those investments in your brand. Comments/additional ideas welcome.

1. Embrace the bottom line. Times are tight, and budgets are, too. Every last dollar in your CMO’s control is under the microscope: brand positioning, brand programs, traditional advertising, online media, guerilla marketing and so on. With most companies, however, there’s an elephant in the room regarding the dollars spent on music and sound across those touchpoints. People are hearing your brand on television, on the phone, on the web and at events, and what they’re hearing directly affects their perceptions about your company. What’s the cost of reaching those ears? If you don’t know, you should. Ask your peers, internal departments and agency partners. The sooner you can define that bottom line, the sooner you can make informed decisions about future spending.

2. Assess performance. Once you’ve quantified your budgets, you can measure effectiveness. As with all brand-level funds, these should be performing as investments—not throwaway costs. Think NBC, Intel or Nokia; does the sound of your company articulate your core values and attributes, or are you just making a lot of dispensable noise? Music and sound affects what we think, say, feel, do...and buy. It should benefit your brand. Now’s a good time to listen to the brand across your mediascape to see what it says about your company.

3. Take a snapshot. Assessing brand perceptions through the lens of music and sound can take time, especially if it’s a competitive review. But for powerful easy-bake results, a ‘sonic snapshot’ of your company can be conducted from your desktop. Using the web it’s relatively easy to find commercials, events, webcasts, podcasts, demos and other sonic evidence of your brand in the wild. What to look for: does your brand sound consistent, or chaotic? Unique or generic? Flexible or staid? Collect, compile and assess.

4. Harness the power of quick wins. A revision to your company’s visual identity can affect hundreds of touchpoints and cost millions. Sonic identities are no different—the process of seeding, growing and strengthening perceptions takes work. There are, however, some simple fixes you can put to work right away: the music and sound deployed in your call center, online media and networked technology (computers, iPhones, mobiles, ringtones) are relatively inexpensive and easy to update, versus the extensive effort required to spread the sound of your brand across your next few tv campaigns. Identify your low-hanging fruit opportunities and move on them.

5. Don’t wait to plan for the future. Now’s the time to think long term; what does your brand sound like, where should this live, and how should it evolve for maximum brand value? Yes, the economy sucks, but nothing lasts forever. Someday those budgets will free up, and when they do, you’ll be the one who approached the Powers That Be in your organization and said: “I’ve spotted a problem—we’ve been spending $x per year across the enterprise on this with dubious results. I can solve the problem and improve the performance of our investments. Here’s how.” When budgets open up, it’s better to be prepared than not.

-- Noel Franus

Keeping it light this week as we tackle the big to-do list that precedes most holiday breaks. Our friend and Chicago-based sound designer Joseph Fosco pointed me recently to Auditorium, a Flash-based sound discovery game that's worthy of your attention for at least an hour of your time (preferably sometime later this week, post-Turkey and cranberries, when you're not billable or accountable to others). Auditorium is created by Philadelphia's Cipher Prime. Happy exploring. -- Noel Franus

For those of us in the US, the race is finally almost over, and the polls close tomorrow. Gasp. Exhale. Let's assume 'your guy' wins. You're having an election party to celebrate and can hire any musician or band to play. Who do you hire, and what's the first song they play?

Razorfish's new site is getting some attention -- not for its flashy interface or killer content....but because of its use of sound.

I rarely write about "sound on the web" because most of the conversation on this topic is relegated to "should we or shouldn't we?" Frankly, I think that's a pedestrian concern -- you design the experience with all appropriate tools, whatever they are, to drive engagement. (If your only tool is a hammer then everything looks like a nail.)

The website isn't a movie on the web (which is where we find most music and sound online). Nor is it a traditional text+graphics website with audio slapped on as an afterthought. (See my earlier note on American Express.)

Rather, sound is leveraged as an inherent part of the experience -- with ambient texture and tiered navigation cues -- and it brings a new sense of life to that box you're staring at right now.

It is, after all, just a website. But it's also a job well done in a medium that's left a mess of sonic detritus in its wake. Tip o' the headphones to Razorfish.

-- Noel Franus

Photo by Susan NYC.

A few weeks back I asked the LinkedIn community a simple question: "Which brands do you recognize by their sounds?"

Many people responded with TV jingles, others with product experiences, and some mentioned the sound of physical spaces. There are/were no “right” or “wrong” answers, but some resonated with me more than others. I'm writing about a few of those here.

One wasn’t really a brand association as much as it was a category association: the sound of popcorn being equated with the experience of being at the movies.

Oddly (?) “at the movies” isn’t really a place for me. It’s a memory and a feeling of a feeling, laced with drama and excitement, the splendor of film from years ago. This is escapist! This is special! This is huge! And it's all brought on by a few bites of popcorn.

Architects, industrial designers, digital designers and other flavors of experience designers should be more playful with associations like this. We’re rich with memories, of course, and when we draw from our massive palette of emotional triggers, we begin to chip away the cracks of meaning and emotion, those things which by and large make us human.

Saatchi and Saatchi popularized the phrase "facts lead to conclusions. Emotion leads to action." This sums up nicely why at the end of the day commodity brands just can't compete with experiential brands.

This brings to mind Jean-Louis's story in Marc Gobe’s book Brand Jam: “If I serve a roasted chicken to someone brought up in a farm and include the smell of hay at the same time (perhaps with a fragrant oil on the plate), it can bring that person back to his or her childhood experience or maybe mom’s cooking. This discovery will be able to enhance my clients’ experiences. There is so much more we can do to stimulate our senses.”

This segues nicely with a great feature series at Design Week on the topic of interaction design and the senses. One of the pieces features Sonic ID's very own "sonic futurologist" Martyn Ware. Prepare to be engaged!

-- Noel Franus

PS: More insights from the survey soon, I promise...

I'm jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. Follow my tweets here: @nfranus. It's interesting -- some folks tell me their company's working and communication styles have changed as a result of team Twittering. Others dip their toes in and say "eh, not for me." Me, I'm not sure where this goes, or what this means for me, Sonic ID, the buzz on sonic branding and audio identity or the price of eggs in Schuyler, Nebraska. But we'll find out soon enough. Ping me if you're tweeting, too. -- Noel Franus

Really looking forward to Inverge -- "the interactive convergence conference" -- next week. At first blush, this isn't a natural "sonic branding" fit. Yet convergent, cross-media design is the inevitable future. And we believe sound is a significant ingredient in designing the immersive and interactive experiences of that future. The lineup looks great. I'm especially looking forward to Joshua Green, Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT and William Swartout, Director of Technology for USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. Also looking forward to finding out what "cyborg anthropologist and social media consultant" Amber Case does for a living, as that's a most curious title of the bunch. On a related note, 5D is coming up soon, too -- Long Beach in October. Martyn is running a two-hour Future of Sound event there, which should provide yet more great options for shaking hands and devising beautiful things that may or may not be useful. Links: Inverge conference site; Inverge blog; 5D conference site. -- Noel Franus

I'm back after more than two weeks away. Here's five inspiring links to get things rolling again.

Does music sound better today than it did 30 years ago? Sonic ID's very own Martyn Ware leads a podcast conversation with experts Tom Dunmore (Stuff magazine), Rob Kelly (Strongroom studios), Stephen Budd (artist/producer manager) and Tim Lawrence (culture writer). Facilitated by B&W.

Bowers and Wilkins Senior Design Engineer John Dibb recently led a "sound tasting" at Abbey Road Studios: "On a personal level I felt the same satisfaction I felt as a teenage speaker designer, and still do as a professional, when someone really gets how important sound is and how getting the illusion closer to reality is such a magical thing." Here's the story.

Brandchannel.com has a good writeup on the use of sonic branding and identity in India -- with quotes from our pal Marcel de Bie and my former Elias frontman Martin Pazzani.

Mascara has gone electric. Unfortunately the sound of Estee Lauder's and Lancome's new electronic eyeliner is a "hum as annoying as a vibrating cellphone." I can only assume this is not an intentional attribute of either brand.

And finally...nice Frontline World story about a Mozambique singer who's saving lives by singing about...latrines.

-- Noel Franus

Let's skip the brandspeak and business chitchat for the morning and cut straight to the music. A few of this week's musical-radar tidbits:

BoingBoingTV has a good interview with Big Peter of New Orleans' Hot 8 Brass Band, one of a handful of smokin' second-line bands in the city today...including the beloved Rebirth, the Dirty Dozen and my personal fave the Treme Brass Band. Watch:

Meanwhile, the kids can't seem to get enough Man Man -- especially the Ballad of Butterbeans. This Philly-based band is like Tom Waits with an espresso and a trampoline. This is the music your sedatives warned you about.

And finally, Birds & Batteries' Ocarina has quickly become my earworm of the week. Beatrix and I drove around town running errands all day yesterday, but it wasn't a total waste because I had Ocarina on repeat-repeat-repeat. The song's a scintillating throwback to 70's-80's keyboard album rock -- which I'm not normally a huge fan of -- and the simple, transformative lyrics make this a left-brain+right-brain treat.

Happy listening.

-- Noel Franus