Audio Branding Guide: Converting Words to Sound

How do you get audio branding right? Sound designer Frederik Max has written this guide to help with that:

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The most essential part of audio branding is the ability to convert personalities and words into sound.  This means capturing the essence of a brand’s mission, attributes, characteristics, and target audience and expressing them through carefully chosen audio elements. These elements can include audio logos, soundscapes, UI sounds, voiceovers and much more.

When converting words into sound, you analyze the brand’s attributes and values in order to determine the emotional qualities it should evoke. For example, if a brand wants to be experienced as sophisticated and elegant, the audio might include smooth, melodic compositions or classical instrumentation. On the other hand, a brand aiming for a more energetic and dynamic image may incorporate upbeat rhythms and modern, vibrant sounds.

Descriptions of a brand’s identity, target audience, and positioning (the unique value it brings to its customers) also play a crucial role in shaping its audio branding strategy. By understanding the brand’s intended message and target demographic, we can select sounds and music that align with the brand’s desired perception.

A brand functions just like any other person out there, with a specific set of characteristics, traits and behaviors. All these elements combined make up the personality of a person and in the same way it makes up the personality of a given brand. Take, for instance, a brand like IKEA, who portrays itself as the ‘everyman’ or regular, who is supportive and faithful, but most importantly relatable. The personality of the brand is, in a way, what makes the brand stand out and appeal to its customers. Another example is Harley Davidson, who portrays itself as a rugged ‘rebel’ of sorts, expressing freedom and masculinity in their communication.

The process of creating an audio identity can look wildly different, but the first step is always similar – figuring out the key attributes that make up the personality of the brand. A key attribute is basically a describing word that highlights a specific personality trait of the brand.

Here are some examples of key attributes that a brand could possess;

• Innovative
• Human
• Empowering
• Bold
• Trustworthy
• Luxurious
• And many many more….

These key attributes combined would make up the overall personality of a brand, or at least the different sides of it that they want expressed to their audience.

Let’s say that a brand wants to be expressed as Clear, Innovative, Human, Fast and Bold. How would we express this in sound?

Converting words to sound is a creative process with no real right or wrong answer. It is an abstract process that requires a lot of discussion, deep understanding of the reasons behind why the attributes were chosen and a creative mindset.

The first and easiest step is to look for directly translatable words, meaning words that already exist within the realm of sound. The attribute “Fast” would fit into this category as it is already a word that we use to describe sound and we already have an understanding of how we could use this. In this case, we would deduce that the sound needed to have a fast tempo or at least elements that were experienced as being fast. This could be elements such as arpeggios, whooshes, swells, fast subdivisions for the melodic content and much more.

The rest of the words are somewhat up to our own interpretation and the abstract thinking we apply to them, so let me walk you through each word, the thought process behind them and how they could potentially be translated into sound.

Clear:
This word could be understood in a lot of ways, but the first thing that comes to mind is an ease of understanding. Usually the primary goal of doing sound for brands is to increase recall and recognizability through the sound, therefore the word “Clear” could be seen as a representation of an effective way of doing this. An example of how this could be translated, would be to use a melody that is easy to sing or hum and also relatively simple to memorize, which in turn would increase recall since most people who hear the sound would be able to sing it back after a couple of listens. “Clear” could also be thought of in more abstract ways. It could for example mean that the mix of the music is non-muddy, bright and feels focused on specific elements. It could also be a sparse instrumentation that only highlights specific sounds and feelings. It can also be seen as a direct counterpart to attributes such as “gritty” which would usually include distortion, with clear being a lack of any saturation or distortion. Again, it all depends on how the client talks about the word and what goals they want to achieve through that specific attribute, but as you can see it’s worth mapping out all the options of what a certain word could mean and discuss this with the client, as there is a big difference between gaining recall through a simple melody or just having a good mix.

Human:
Human is a word that comes up a lot in branding as most brands struggle with making that human connection with their customers. That’s where audio branding is an effective tool, as it is pure emotional communication that hopefully speaks to the hearts of the audience. Just like a movie score, sound is emotion in its purest form, and speaks to us on a subconscious level. The attribute “Human” usually relates to anything that might increase that emotional connection. The first thing that comes to mind is instrumentation. Using acoustic instruments (having it played by real musicians is probably preferred here) instead of electronic instruments is a good first step, as our ears are instinctively very good at picking up the difference in sounds in these two categories and associate one with humans and the other with computers and technology. 

Another obvious option would be the use of voice, either through singing, speech or body percussion (snapping, clapping etc.) – it really can’t get any more human than hearing the unique vocal sounds that only humans can make. Harmonic progression would also be a consideration here. Most brands do not want to be thought of negatively, so it’s important to choose a harmonic progression that serves the goals of the brand. For example, we could create a Major chord progression that has the human goals of being seen as relatable, heartwarming and warm. Alternatively, we could create a Minor chord progression that has the human goals of being seen as confident, trustworthy and bold. Again, it all depends on what the client wants to communicate with the word “Human”.

Bold:
The attribute “Bold” is in essence something that sticks out. It’s different from others, treads new territory and also has the potential to be hard-hitting or shocking. One of the more common translations of the word bold in audio, is a very aggressive and in your face sound that really grabs the attention of a listener. This could be through deep drums with a lot of low end, aggressive synth sounds or even melodies that are unconventional and use uncommon intervals. In reality, anything that breaks convention could fit into this category, so it’s all really about looking at what you’re creating, what your competitors are doing, and seeing  how the mold can be broken while still retaining integrity. A good example of bold is the Netflix audio logo, which upon initial release captivated audiences across the world with its bold and non-melodic sound.

Innovative:
This is one of the most common attributes out there, particularly in the tech industry in terms of audio branding. It seems like there isn’t a company out there who doesn’t want to be seen as innovative, but in reality it’s a highly vague word that doesn’t have a lot of meaning without very specific contexts. For example, innovation is completely different depending on which industry the company operates in, the technology that is being used and the cultural foundation. 

Now the above might seem a bit too abstract, so let’s break it down and separate the various parts of the process into clear and actionable steps.

1. Establish the Key Attributes of the brand:
   1. The first step is again to establish the key attributes of the brand. It’s usually good to have around 4-6 attributes to get a well-rounded personality but it all depends on the goals of the brand.
2. Digging deeper:
   1. When the key attributes have been established, we have to dig deeper into each one to make sure that we have a solid understanding of the word. A way to do this is to ask the client what they really mean by a specific word and try to attach more “sub-attributes” to that specific word. For example, for a word like “Human” you could establish sub-attributes such as “Embracing”, “Warm”, Friendly”, “Kind” and “Outgoing”. This makes it much more clear what is actually meant by that specific attribute.
3. Mapping out the auditory possibilities:
   1. From this point there will be a myriad of possibilities in terms of how to achieve this through sound. So a good idea is to map out the different techniques that we could tap into. If we stick with the above description of “Human” we could maybe choose these approaches:
      1. Acoustic Instruments (Preferably guitar or strings due to their warmth)
      2. Major Harmony for the friendly and kind aspect
      3. A good amount of low-end to convey both warmth and embrace
      4. Spatial elements surrounding the listener could also feel embracing
      5. Outgoing could be achieved through dynamics or by ensuring that the tempo isn’t too slow
      6. Kind could be represented by using simple melodies, with the thought that simple melodies is equivalent to holding the listeners hand and guiding them.
      7. Soft attacks would also be relevant for most of these.
   2. These are not all the possibilities available to you of course. In reality, the list would be much larger and have many more contradictions, highly specialized techniques and wild ideas. Perhaps the brand uses an animal in their visual communication, like an elephant. The sound of an elephant roar could be incorporated, directly through recordings or through more abstract interpretations.

      It’s important to remember that there is no right or wrong answer as to how to convey an attribute, as audio can be both highly subjective and opinions can vary depending on culture as well. There is no direct line between a certain technique, instrument or progression that leads to a universally understood feeling. However, there are certain auditory touches that will lead to a good understanding from the majority of people.

4. Gathering inspiration:
   1. Another important step once you have made your own list is to gather inspiration from other brands or similar projects. The idea here is not to steal but to find inspiration that might help you discover new and exciting ways of conveying the key attributes. For example, look at commercials that you feel like are communicating the attribute. What element is it exactly that conveys the message?
5. Try out different directions:
   1. The client will most likely not know exactly what they want at this stage, so it’s important to try out different directions and approaches, showcase them to the client and see what they resonate with the most. From this point you can quickly iterate and combine ideas to try and achieve what the client wants.
6. Record your findings:
   1. After a project has been finished, it’s a good idea to keep a list of your findings during the process. While two clients might think of “Human” in completely different ways, having a list that you can refer back to will help you quickly determine audio direction based on previous experience.

As you can see, there is no definite “how to” regarding converting words to sound. The only limit is your own ideas and conceptualization, however I hope that this helps you get started. It’s also worth mentioning that this doesn’t apply only to branding or music. It can be used with any form of sound for any form of media.

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