The Age of Audio: The Relevance of Sound in Branding and Marketing
The Age of Audio: The Relevance of Sound in Branding and Marketing
The Age of Audio: The Relevance of Sound in Branding and Marketing
سونكبران
24/07/2025
سونكبران
24/07/2025
سونكبران
24/07/2025
The Sound in Branding and Marketing
Age of Audio Now. We are living in the age of audio. Smart technology talks to us and assists us everyday. Our radio ad experiences are interactive and instead of just giving us information, they’re asking us for a response. Voice search is getting more accurate and becoming more of an ease of use case rather than a frustration. We can even hyper target our desired audience through sound analytics and sound value measurement.
The Sound in Branding and Marketing
Age of Audio Now. We are living in the age of audio. Smart technology talks to us and assists us everyday. Our radio ad experiences are interactive and instead of just giving us information, they’re asking us for a response. Voice search is getting more accurate and becoming more of an ease of use case rather than a frustration. We can even hyper target our desired audience through sound analytics and sound value measurement.
The Sound in Branding and Marketing
Age of Audio Now. We are living in the age of audio. Smart technology talks to us and assists us everyday. Our radio ad experiences are interactive and instead of just giving us information, they’re asking us for a response. Voice search is getting more accurate and becoming more of an ease of use case rather than a frustration. We can even hyper target our desired audience through sound analytics and sound value measurement.
Society has changed. People are busier and constantly on the move. Wireless and bluetooth devices have enabled “active listening” that seamlessly continues their sound experiences wherever they go. With the power of this smart technology, we can pause our listening in one location to continue it in another location with minimal interruption. We have wearables to tell us we’ve reached or not reached our steps for the day without having to keep track for ourselves. We can change or silence the sounds to our app notifications on our phone to stay as connected or disconnected as we want.
Branding our sound invests and engages us even further. We can create a more emotional connection between customer and brand by harnessing this sensorial perspective. This, in turn, creates that immersive customer experience everyone is seeking. Curated sound design, or sonic branding, has become synonymous with brand identity and brand equity. This deep dive into a brand’s sound identity is an investment in long term ROI.
Sound is effective, efficient, emotional, and accessible to brands both big and small to better represent themselves in an ever increasing screenless world.
Pain Point
The Age of Audio is already upon us and brands are actively participating; creating and experimenting with content, spending billions of advertising dollars, and educating themselves on the latest sonic trends and case studies.
Post pandemic has introduced the Low Touch Economy and sound plays a crucial role. Utilising sound alleviates worry and risk of spreading germs by eliminating the need for touch on common everyday practices like ATMs, elevators, and ordering food at restaurants. Sound provides options in a more sterile and touch less society. If your brand has yet to participate, how do you plan to engage in the new audio only and audio first platforms? If no one is looking, how does your brand plan to stand out?
“Sound is effective, efficient, emotional, and accessible to brands both big and small to better represent themselves in an ever increasing screenless world.”
The Solution
Although the term may only be a few decades old, sonic branding is not a new concept. We’ve always responded to and emotionally invested in sounds and what we hear, we just haven’t been fully aware of it until recently.
So how does one start exploring sound and sonic branding? Curated sound is more than just jingles and trending songs. It’s not just figuring out if your voice assistant is male or female or nonbinary. All of these are most definitely important to consider but they must be seen as an all encompassing focus on brand identity.
Finding the right sound is accomplished by finding sound that represents the brand as a persona, rather than an executive’s musical preference.
It is important to educate yourself by digging deeper than gimmicks and popular trends. To really understand sound and what it can mean for your brand you have to understand that sound is not just music. It’s vibrations, nature, the voice itself, etc. The options of utilising sound in branding are vast. Once you can step past preconceived notions of what sound is, you can start to experiment and answer the question “what does my brand sound like?”.
This article, ideally, will give you a brief overview of what’s out there and what’s to come.
Audio Advertising and Marketing
Audio advertising has been a powerful tool to sell goods and services even before the invention and distribution of the radio. Peddlers in Peking can be traced back to the Song Dynasty as they sang or had a “distinct call” for selling their wares. Town criers in places like England, America, Mexico, and Canada transmitted information orally since the medieval times to a generally illiterate audience. During the middle ages, and likely far before, word of mouth was the most prominent form of communication with the highest conversion rate.
Audio and oral communication has been firmly set in our history and will continue to be a cornerstone of fast and efficient marketing.
Audio advertising
In the more modern sense, audio advertising through radio and other digital formats have also been proven highly effective and lucrative. For that reason, companies and brands invest incrementally more year over year.
Ad spends in digital audio advertising are expected to reach almost $6 billion worldwide in 2021; $3 billion of which will come from the U.S. Ad spends in digital radio from the U.S. are expected to be just shy of $1 billion. Retail related companies alone spent $485 million on radio ads in 2019.
“Audio and oral communication has been firmly set in our history and will continue to be a cornerstone of fast and efficient marketing.”
It’s not just the marketers and advertisers that are invested. Online audio has an extremely active audience. In 2020, 68% of the U.S. listened to online audio on a monthly basis and 62% weekly. That’s an average of 16 hours and 14 minutes per week. For radio consumption, 63% of US adults admitted to listening daily.
Voice responsive ads vs. voice ads
Voice ads and voice responsive ads are the newest forms of digital audio advertising. These two formats, although their names are similar, hold two very different methods of communication.
Voice ads are ads with voice over messaging in between programming. The listener is then prompted with a call to action or with an informative brand announcement. Ultimately it is the listener’s responsibility to follow through.
Voice responsive ads are when the ad prompts you to engage with it by encouraging the listener to respond back in real time.
Although responsive ads may be more work initially, they can potentially save a lot of time and money for a brand in the long run. They are designed to hyper-target new and existing customers by carefully designing ads for a smaller yet more specific audience. This is a different approach than traditional native advertising which is accustomed to blanketing the airwaves.
With 4.2 billion smart devices being used as of 2020 and an expected 8.4 billion by 2024, the numbers and the spends are clear. Voice Ads, in general, are a smart bet.
Society has changed. People are busier and constantly on the move. Wireless and bluetooth devices have enabled “active listening” that seamlessly continues their sound experiences wherever they go. With the power of this smart technology, we can pause our listening in one location to continue it in another location with minimal interruption. We have wearables to tell us we’ve reached or not reached our steps for the day without having to keep track for ourselves. We can change or silence the sounds to our app notifications on our phone to stay as connected or disconnected as we want.
Branding our sound invests and engages us even further. We can create a more emotional connection between customer and brand by harnessing this sensorial perspective. This, in turn, creates that immersive customer experience everyone is seeking. Curated sound design, or sonic branding, has become synonymous with brand identity and brand equity. This deep dive into a brand’s sound identity is an investment in long term ROI.
Sound is effective, efficient, emotional, and accessible to brands both big and small to better represent themselves in an ever increasing screenless world.
Pain Point
The Age of Audio is already upon us and brands are actively participating; creating and experimenting with content, spending billions of advertising dollars, and educating themselves on the latest sonic trends and case studies.
Post pandemic has introduced the Low Touch Economy and sound plays a crucial role. Utilising sound alleviates worry and risk of spreading germs by eliminating the need for touch on common everyday practices like ATMs, elevators, and ordering food at restaurants. Sound provides options in a more sterile and touch less society. If your brand has yet to participate, how do you plan to engage in the new audio only and audio first platforms? If no one is looking, how does your brand plan to stand out?
“Sound is effective, efficient, emotional, and accessible to brands both big and small to better represent themselves in an ever increasing screenless world.”
The Solution
Although the term may only be a few decades old, sonic branding is not a new concept. We’ve always responded to and emotionally invested in sounds and what we hear, we just haven’t been fully aware of it until recently.
So how does one start exploring sound and sonic branding? Curated sound is more than just jingles and trending songs. It’s not just figuring out if your voice assistant is male or female or nonbinary. All of these are most definitely important to consider but they must be seen as an all encompassing focus on brand identity.
Finding the right sound is accomplished by finding sound that represents the brand as a persona, rather than an executive’s musical preference.
It is important to educate yourself by digging deeper than gimmicks and popular trends. To really understand sound and what it can mean for your brand you have to understand that sound is not just music. It’s vibrations, nature, the voice itself, etc. The options of utilising sound in branding are vast. Once you can step past preconceived notions of what sound is, you can start to experiment and answer the question “what does my brand sound like?”.
This article, ideally, will give you a brief overview of what’s out there and what’s to come.
Audio Advertising and Marketing
Audio advertising has been a powerful tool to sell goods and services even before the invention and distribution of the radio. Peddlers in Peking can be traced back to the Song Dynasty as they sang or had a “distinct call” for selling their wares. Town criers in places like England, America, Mexico, and Canada transmitted information orally since the medieval times to a generally illiterate audience. During the middle ages, and likely far before, word of mouth was the most prominent form of communication with the highest conversion rate.
Audio and oral communication has been firmly set in our history and will continue to be a cornerstone of fast and efficient marketing.
Audio advertising
In the more modern sense, audio advertising through radio and other digital formats have also been proven highly effective and lucrative. For that reason, companies and brands invest incrementally more year over year.
Ad spends in digital audio advertising are expected to reach almost $6 billion worldwide in 2021; $3 billion of which will come from the U.S. Ad spends in digital radio from the U.S. are expected to be just shy of $1 billion. Retail related companies alone spent $485 million on radio ads in 2019.
“Audio and oral communication has been firmly set in our history and will continue to be a cornerstone of fast and efficient marketing.”
It’s not just the marketers and advertisers that are invested. Online audio has an extremely active audience. In 2020, 68% of the U.S. listened to online audio on a monthly basis and 62% weekly. That’s an average of 16 hours and 14 minutes per week. For radio consumption, 63% of US adults admitted to listening daily.
Voice responsive ads vs. voice ads
Voice ads and voice responsive ads are the newest forms of digital audio advertising. These two formats, although their names are similar, hold two very different methods of communication.
Voice ads are ads with voice over messaging in between programming. The listener is then prompted with a call to action or with an informative brand announcement. Ultimately it is the listener’s responsibility to follow through.
Voice responsive ads are when the ad prompts you to engage with it by encouraging the listener to respond back in real time.
Although responsive ads may be more work initially, they can potentially save a lot of time and money for a brand in the long run. They are designed to hyper-target new and existing customers by carefully designing ads for a smaller yet more specific audience. This is a different approach than traditional native advertising which is accustomed to blanketing the airwaves.
With 4.2 billion smart devices being used as of 2020 and an expected 8.4 billion by 2024, the numbers and the spends are clear. Voice Ads, in general, are a smart bet.
Society has changed. People are busier and constantly on the move. Wireless and bluetooth devices have enabled “active listening” that seamlessly continues their sound experiences wherever they go. With the power of this smart technology, we can pause our listening in one location to continue it in another location with minimal interruption. We have wearables to tell us we’ve reached or not reached our steps for the day without having to keep track for ourselves. We can change or silence the sounds to our app notifications on our phone to stay as connected or disconnected as we want.
Branding our sound invests and engages us even further. We can create a more emotional connection between customer and brand by harnessing this sensorial perspective. This, in turn, creates that immersive customer experience everyone is seeking. Curated sound design, or sonic branding, has become synonymous with brand identity and brand equity. This deep dive into a brand’s sound identity is an investment in long term ROI.
Sound is effective, efficient, emotional, and accessible to brands both big and small to better represent themselves in an ever increasing screenless world.
Pain Point
The Age of Audio is already upon us and brands are actively participating; creating and experimenting with content, spending billions of advertising dollars, and educating themselves on the latest sonic trends and case studies.
Post pandemic has introduced the Low Touch Economy and sound plays a crucial role. Utilising sound alleviates worry and risk of spreading germs by eliminating the need for touch on common everyday practices like ATMs, elevators, and ordering food at restaurants. Sound provides options in a more sterile and touch less society. If your brand has yet to participate, how do you plan to engage in the new audio only and audio first platforms? If no one is looking, how does your brand plan to stand out?
“Sound is effective, efficient, emotional, and accessible to brands both big and small to better represent themselves in an ever increasing screenless world.”
The Solution
Although the term may only be a few decades old, sonic branding is not a new concept. We’ve always responded to and emotionally invested in sounds and what we hear, we just haven’t been fully aware of it until recently.
So how does one start exploring sound and sonic branding? Curated sound is more than just jingles and trending songs. It’s not just figuring out if your voice assistant is male or female or nonbinary. All of these are most definitely important to consider but they must be seen as an all encompassing focus on brand identity.
Finding the right sound is accomplished by finding sound that represents the brand as a persona, rather than an executive’s musical preference.
It is important to educate yourself by digging deeper than gimmicks and popular trends. To really understand sound and what it can mean for your brand you have to understand that sound is not just music. It’s vibrations, nature, the voice itself, etc. The options of utilising sound in branding are vast. Once you can step past preconceived notions of what sound is, you can start to experiment and answer the question “what does my brand sound like?”.
This article, ideally, will give you a brief overview of what’s out there and what’s to come.
Audio Advertising and Marketing
Audio advertising has been a powerful tool to sell goods and services even before the invention and distribution of the radio. Peddlers in Peking can be traced back to the Song Dynasty as they sang or had a “distinct call” for selling their wares. Town criers in places like England, America, Mexico, and Canada transmitted information orally since the medieval times to a generally illiterate audience. During the middle ages, and likely far before, word of mouth was the most prominent form of communication with the highest conversion rate.
Audio and oral communication has been firmly set in our history and will continue to be a cornerstone of fast and efficient marketing.
Audio advertising
In the more modern sense, audio advertising through radio and other digital formats have also been proven highly effective and lucrative. For that reason, companies and brands invest incrementally more year over year.
Ad spends in digital audio advertising are expected to reach almost $6 billion worldwide in 2021; $3 billion of which will come from the U.S. Ad spends in digital radio from the U.S. are expected to be just shy of $1 billion. Retail related companies alone spent $485 million on radio ads in 2019.
“Audio and oral communication has been firmly set in our history and will continue to be a cornerstone of fast and efficient marketing.”
It’s not just the marketers and advertisers that are invested. Online audio has an extremely active audience. In 2020, 68% of the U.S. listened to online audio on a monthly basis and 62% weekly. That’s an average of 16 hours and 14 minutes per week. For radio consumption, 63% of US adults admitted to listening daily.
Voice responsive ads vs. voice ads
Voice ads and voice responsive ads are the newest forms of digital audio advertising. These two formats, although their names are similar, hold two very different methods of communication.
Voice ads are ads with voice over messaging in between programming. The listener is then prompted with a call to action or with an informative brand announcement. Ultimately it is the listener’s responsibility to follow through.
Voice responsive ads are when the ad prompts you to engage with it by encouraging the listener to respond back in real time.
Although responsive ads may be more work initially, they can potentially save a lot of time and money for a brand in the long run. They are designed to hyper-target new and existing customers by carefully designing ads for a smaller yet more specific audience. This is a different approach than traditional native advertising which is accustomed to blanketing the airwaves.
With 4.2 billion smart devices being used as of 2020 and an expected 8.4 billion by 2024, the numbers and the spends are clear. Voice Ads, in general, are a smart bet.
Voice in Commerce
Voice usage is on the rise. In 2017, it was reported that 31% of smartphone users used voice search at least once a week. Not surprising that a year later, reports showed that 27% of US adults favoured the option of voice first because of their ability to shop online hands free.
People are on the move and busy. Having the ability to interact with technology in a more mobile capacity allows more options for both the consumer to go about their day and for a brand to be available to them at any given moment. Case in point, in 2020, smartphones were the consumer’s voice search top choice followed by within a car, smart home devices, wearables, and appliances. 39% of the US was also reported to have used voice assistants on their smartphones.
Although voice shopping is still in its infancy and voice assistant users are less than 50%, voice commerce sales still reached $2.1 billion in 2018. Brands and marketers are responding. In 2021, they spent $41 billion on conversational commerce channels. This is expected to increase to $290 billion by 2025.
“Having the ability to interact with technology in a more mobile capacity allows more options for both the consumer to go about their day and for a brand to be available to them at any given moment.”
Even with these numbers, as of July 2020, only 15% of brands provided voice search options or Siri shortcuts on their mobile apps. As we move forward through this age of audio, this discrepancy could be very detrimental. Voice search is happening everywhere and that’s only going to increase. 48% of the population is already using voice for general website search.
According to a 2019 survey, 17% of early voice adopters say that they had browsed or shopped using voice assistants. Although that seems very low, the report goes on to reveal that 46% of those surveyed hadn’t even used voice assistants at all. That’s a huge market of consumers that have yet to enter the voice first space.
So how does voice assistance turn into intent for non-users?
Voice in Commerce
Voice usage is on the rise. In 2017, it was reported that 31% of smartphone users used voice search at least once a week. Not surprising that a year later, reports showed that 27% of US adults favoured the option of voice first because of their ability to shop online hands free.
People are on the move and busy. Having the ability to interact with technology in a more mobile capacity allows more options for both the consumer to go about their day and for a brand to be available to them at any given moment. Case in point, in 2020, smartphones were the consumer’s voice search top choice followed by within a car, smart home devices, wearables, and appliances. 39% of the US was also reported to have used voice assistants on their smartphones.
Although voice shopping is still in its infancy and voice assistant users are less than 50%, voice commerce sales still reached $2.1 billion in 2018. Brands and marketers are responding. In 2021, they spent $41 billion on conversational commerce channels. This is expected to increase to $290 billion by 2025.
“Having the ability to interact with technology in a more mobile capacity allows more options for both the consumer to go about their day and for a brand to be available to them at any given moment.”
Even with these numbers, as of July 2020, only 15% of brands provided voice search options or Siri shortcuts on their mobile apps. As we move forward through this age of audio, this discrepancy could be very detrimental. Voice search is happening everywhere and that’s only going to increase. 48% of the population is already using voice for general website search.
According to a 2019 survey, 17% of early voice adopters say that they had browsed or shopped using voice assistants. Although that seems very low, the report goes on to reveal that 46% of those surveyed hadn’t even used voice assistants at all. That’s a huge market of consumers that have yet to enter the voice first space.
So how does voice assistance turn into intent for non-users?
Voice in Commerce
Voice usage is on the rise. In 2017, it was reported that 31% of smartphone users used voice search at least once a week. Not surprising that a year later, reports showed that 27% of US adults favoured the option of voice first because of their ability to shop online hands free.
People are on the move and busy. Having the ability to interact with technology in a more mobile capacity allows more options for both the consumer to go about their day and for a brand to be available to them at any given moment. Case in point, in 2020, smartphones were the consumer’s voice search top choice followed by within a car, smart home devices, wearables, and appliances. 39% of the US was also reported to have used voice assistants on their smartphones.
Although voice shopping is still in its infancy and voice assistant users are less than 50%, voice commerce sales still reached $2.1 billion in 2018. Brands and marketers are responding. In 2021, they spent $41 billion on conversational commerce channels. This is expected to increase to $290 billion by 2025.
“Having the ability to interact with technology in a more mobile capacity allows more options for both the consumer to go about their day and for a brand to be available to them at any given moment.”
Even with these numbers, as of July 2020, only 15% of brands provided voice search options or Siri shortcuts on their mobile apps. As we move forward through this age of audio, this discrepancy could be very detrimental. Voice search is happening everywhere and that’s only going to increase. 48% of the population is already using voice for general website search.
According to a 2019 survey, 17% of early voice adopters say that they had browsed or shopped using voice assistants. Although that seems very low, the report goes on to reveal that 46% of those surveyed hadn’t even used voice assistants at all. That’s a huge market of consumers that have yet to enter the voice first space.
So how does voice assistance turn into intent for non-users?
لندن
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
أمستردام
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
المملكة العربية السعودية
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع جريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
ت. +44(0)70 123 456
ب. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
لندن
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
أمستردام
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
المملكة العربية السعودية
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع جريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
ت. +44(0)70 123 456
ب. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
لندن
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
أمستردام
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
المملكة العربية السعودية
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع جريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
ت. +44(0)70 123 456
ب. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
لندن
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
أمستردام
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع غريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
T. +44(0)70 123 456
e. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات
المملكة العربية السعودية
الطابق الرابع، محكمة إلسلي
20-22 شارع جريت تيتشفيلد
لندن W1W 8BE
ت. +44(0)70 123 456
ب. info@sonicbrand.com
الاتجاهات