Reports show that music usage has increased by 10% in brand marketing content over the past year. The same study, AMP’s Best Audio Brands Report 2024, found that among leading brands, more than half — 139 out of 250 — now deploy sonic logos to strengthen recognition and emotional connection with customers. In a world that’s increasingly online, any opportunity for brands to engage people in a physical space counts.

Alongside architecture and visual branding, sound completes the triptych of good customer experience design. Yet, while cramped aisles or Comic Sans signage are almost objectively wrong, sound design can be less precise.

Speaking to Soundtrack, Jonathan Webb, a sound designer who has worked with Apple, Prada and Nike, describes his role as “becoming attuned to the ergonomic design of a space.” Only then, he says, does he consider “the level of thought that’s gone into its sonic environment — the acoustics, design and musical choices. Are these elements integrated, or does the experience feel like sound was an afterthought?”

Deciphering cultural codes

Sound is one of our most powerful senses, and brands are investing heavily in sonic identities to make their presence instantly recognizable. For music designers and supervisors like Webb, this means turning abstract brand language into something tangible.

One brand that has succeeded in translating its values through sonic design is Volvo. The Swedish car manufacturer worked with Sonic Minds to create alert and warning sounds that reflected “Volvo’s commitment to safety, innovation and Scandinavian design principles.” Even the most skeptical mind would concede there’s something undeniably lagom, or perfectly balanced, and pleasingly on-brand about the results: a series of subtle and, yes, elegant synths that sink comfortably into a psychic ocean marked Volvo.

The sounds of science

As anyone who has danced with friends at a festival, lost themselves in a sweaty club night or watched their favorite band command a stage can confirm, music has transcendent qualities. But there’s also a science behind that feeling.

Two key regions of the brain — the amygdala (emotion) and hippocampus (memory) — shape how sound affects us. Brands that use music well know how to strike both chords at once. The hippocampus might sound like a George Clinton side project, but trigger it and you’ve found the sweet spot of sonic identity: emotion anchored in memory.

— Matziorinis et al., The Promise of Music Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2022)

That’s why certain sounds stay with us long after the product they’re affiliated with fades from view. Intel’s five-note mnemonic is a perfect example. Even before searching for the jingle on YouTube, I recall the sound, although I haven't used Intel products for at least two decades. And that recognition in under two seconds is invaluable to a brand.

The results

It’s not only big-ticket tech companies and car brands using sound for better customer experience design. Lush, the British cosmetics chain famous for its “the fresher the better” mantra, applies the same thinking to music.

Lush uses Soundtrack to create and play playlists that favor “happy” music, according to operations manager Manon Feenstra. It might sound vague, but for Lush, what matters is the alignment between sound and values:

Using a combination of analytics, music curation and artificial intelligence, Soundtrack helps match brands with music their customers can relate to.

Sonic branding works not because it’s clever, but because sound is coded into the very neural pathways that shape what we feel, remember and choose. In a business climate increasingly dominated by digital sales, in-person experiences — from storefronts to showrooms — matter more than ever.

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