It's a new year in a nascent industry -- no better time to address the opportunities and challenges we face as an industry in the coming year. That's what I'm exploring in this piece. Note that these are, naturally, my opinions only. I speak for no one else. These ramblings may, in fact, be simple projections of what I want rather than what I expect. If you think so, call me on it. And by all means join the party by adding your own predictions to the forecast. Put the needle on the record: Ask around: what exactly is audio branding? Audio identity? Sonic branding? Sonic identity? Visit the websites for ten different firms and get ten different answers. This gumbo of offerings slows industry growth and dampens the market; prospective clients don’t buy products or services they can’t understand, and a fuzzy value proposition equates to longer lead times. Nobody wants that. Brand consultancies, sound-design production houses and equipment resellers offer very different services, and shouldn’t be mistaken for one another. Online, however, it’s difficult to tell the difference between these three -- or any huckster with a copy of Garage Band and a website, for that matter. Future clients who are researching this field shouldn’t have to sort it out. That’s up to us. What’ll it take to grow a shared understanding of our practice? A common language. Best practices. Case studies. Measurement. ROI. It'll be messy, but it all starts with conversation and community. This year we will see a lot more of that -- both in face-to-face forums and online. No doubt about it, this is a highly creative field. But to ignore or downplay the business case for sonic branding is to miss the full equation. Brand-based audio assets are financial assets that grow in value -- especially when deployed as part of a sonic identity system that allows multiple touchpoints to reinforce one another. They create economies of scale. And they build recognition, awareness and preference of and for a brand, which translates to monetary value. That’s just the short list. It’s up to us to continuously position the benefits of audio identity and sonic branding on financial terms. Service providers who speak the language of business will move this industry forward. Doesn’t it seem that today most common issue regarding audio and interactive media is limited to the question of “shouldn’t your have audio on your website?” Ack. There is no didactic, prescriptive answer, is there? And more importantly, doesn’t this miss the bigger questions of: 1) would/could/should/how can audio augment the user experience?; and 2) how can it link to or reinforce other brand initiatives -- how can it work harder for the brand? The digital marketplace is huge -- and still growing. There’s a lot more to digital media strategy than just asking just a few pedestrian questions. Those who understand the right questions are more likely to become a client's strategic partner rather than a mere provider of content. Have you noticed an uptick in the conversation -- at least online in the last six months -- about the role of sound at the product level? Methinks this is bound to continue gathering steam, and my expectation is that the buzz will expand beyond traditional “sound UI” and sound design for products. Retail environments, public places and physical spaces are becoming increasingly more important in the relationship between people and brands. The high-value opportunity for audio/sonic branding firms isn’t in providing just bleeps, blips and soundtracks for these experiences (late in the creative process) but in the broader consultative role of experience designer, director, producer, and curator for brand-based, audio-intensive experiences. We will see Design Thinking (yes, with a capital D and T) move to the forefront in 2008. What happened when the studio musician, the sonar expert and the ethnomusicologist walked into a bar? We have no idea. It's never happened, but you can bet the conversation would be an ear-opener. This lack of collaboration is unfortunate given that most other design disciplines have found a way to work across typical boundaries to create create compelling products and in fact address some of humanity's grander challenges. Take, for example, the Hippo Water Roller or Design for Democracy. These innovative efforts came about via collaborations among industrial designers, architects, design researchers, visual designers, and so on. This is very much the IDEO or Archeworks model: pick a problem, throw a variety of skills into the mix, and see what happens. Today, though, most sound-based specialties generally live in isolation of one another. And rarely do they work in meaningful, game-changing ways with other design disciplines to address social concerns. This, too, will change in 2008. I'm not sure if this will be a competition, an event, or some other forum. But I am sure that we have a lot to learn from one another, and that we'll all be much better off leveraging each others' strengths -- people in need benefit from the solutions derived from such work, and down the road, brands benefit from the innovation process that ensues.

There you have it for the future of audio identity in 2008. At least in one man's eyes and ears. Now let's see what's buzzing in your brain...comments, ideas, and constructive feedback encouraged. I'm all ears. -- Noel Franus