Branded @ Birth™

Regardless of one's cultural background, primary language or education, some people believe babies call their mother ‘MA’ (or some version thereof) not because they’re taught do so, but because they’re programmed to do so.

This theory stipulates that just as humans are born with certain physical body parts, we're also born with a bit of a pre-birth cognitive fodder called ‘Archetypes’.

In Jungian psychology an archetype is described as “a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches.” (Dictionary.com)

There are many fascinating aspects about this, if it is true, not the least of which is the implication that we are all Branded @ Birth, and then start from the very beginning of our lives branding every single thing around us (as products of our reality, our culture, even our imagination).

If this is indeed the case, then archetypes presuppose culture and are neurobiological in origin. We might then say that archetypes exist within the black box of consciousness as pre-programmed urges to express certain behaviors. These primal urges first take form as intuitive actions that are then instagrammed as  symbols intended to represent the action or capture the meaning of these urges.  That is, rendering symbols is the manner by which one documents an impression, applies a cognitive filter to it, and then shares it with others.

If every urge represents a fundamental need or desire, then every symbol is essentially a command. And these commands once produced and distributed/transmitted/communicated –put into action as it were– exhibit memetic potential.

Perhaps this potential is even the result of archetypal recognition by those receiving the transmission. But the additional result of this eternal loop is a complicated matrix of understandings and conventions we call culture. And one might also say that the reverse engineering of all this resulting symbolic data is what we now call semiotics. This could all be academic, or it could be navel gazing, but I still find it all very fascinating to consider; the mind reels.

What is the zeitgeist anyway?

We might think of zeitgeist as a series of trends, but by my calculus it's semiotics in motion; an archetypal tsunami; symbolic data moving culture the same way a strong current moves a floating object. –But equally influenced by an undercurrent of ideas and prior actions that collectively effect the NOW as they move beneath the visible surface of society, and in this way capably move highly ingrained and even resistant convictions great distances over many years, even decades, centuries and millennia.

Of course, if we define archetypes simply as pre-birth patterning, then animals are also endowed with them, and we can suppose that any instinctual activity has at its source archetypal data. It may not be enough to ask if the dog's bark is worse than his bite, but also inquire what does either bark or bite mean?

In any event, the notion of archetype supposes we arrive into the world if with not a song, then with an elemental sound already formed in our heads (or the urge to produce a sound), and that is the sound of our mother’s name –at least the name by which we will call her. Again we are branded at birth, imprinted by a distinguishing mark that identifies us as no less than a product of our Mother.

By the way, some people also believe we do actually arrive into the world with a song in our heads. It's called 'The Ur-song' and you can hear what it sounds like by playing the following video (the melody here is played straight; it is also often heard with a swing):



Incidentally, because the vocalized ‘ma’ signification precedes graphic representation, I like to think of it less as an archetype than as an ‘Archetone’.

I also think it might be true that ‘ma’ doesn't bear any archetypal or pre-natal psychological origin, but that it ehibits universal usage simply because nursing mothers interpret ‘SMA’ –the sound of lips un-puckering from a kiss or breast– as an attempt to communicate. (And by extension, ‘DA’, the sound of one opening one’s mouth when one’s tongue has been stuck to the roof of it).

Once believing their baby has begun speaking, parents might then reward a child with further affection. And by this action they thereby reinforce a lip-smack as as an appropriate designation for a god like being by an utterly helpless moppet.

It’s not quite as romantic an etymology as being in possession of an ancient archetype, but who’s to say it’s wrong?

Whatever the mechanics, 'ma’ becomes a meme, and eventually ma becomes mama becomes mom becomes mother, and this is how mommy goes viral.

If you have any interest in memetics (the study of cultural transmission), one can’t help but ask if ‘Ma’ is the smallest unit of cultural transmission exhibited in early childhood development?

–Or is there something smaller than 'ma' to be found; something that lies between archetypal urge and symbolic utterance? I believe that there is, and that thing is the actual sound of the baby’s natural and not-quite-yet semantic cry.

Although, I’m not really sure that such a cry can't be designated as non memetic because I've heard one baby set off a dozen other babies, as if they were all part of a single coddled swarm.

The fact is, any human behavior can trigger an action which once repeated becomes a pattern, and then, at that point –at the point of Pattern Manifestation– it finally assumes the potential to be transmitted along a memetic distribution system.

Or rather, it exhibits the power to trigger replication from one host to another: you, me and mommy, too.

It’s as if the archetype once given voice as an archetone, the entire process resembles nothing so much as a musical Ouroboros –the mythical image of a serpent eating its own tale, and thus forming an eternal circle.

The Changing Role of Sound in Branding

From Musical Score to Critical Noise: 
The Changing Role of Sound in Branding

[First published by SEMIONAUT†, September 20, 2011.]


Composers and sound designers have long treated commercial projects as they would film scores, but in miniature. It’s obvious to see why. Traditional scoring techniques do many things for film and other media. Scoring adds flavour; provides a sense of time and place; magnifies emotion; enhances activity and establishes mood. A mere hint of melody can even frame the present, foreshadow the future, or recall the past.

Scoring also serves the functional purpose of smoothing problematic transitions. It’s as if music possesses a sensory gravity that draws together disparate images, scenes, people and places. A deftly scored experience feels less a sequence of individual events and more like a cohesive, unified work.

Obviously, music is pretty magical stuff, and there is no question that for the modern storyteller, it remains a powerful tool.

Nevertheless, the proliferation of multiple, small portable screens, in tandem with the device-ification of all remaining objects, has changed (and will continue to change) how audiences navigate media. If our smart phones cause a distraction now, what happens when our homes and everything in them also become ‘smart’?

The primary effect is that marketers are increasingly forced to abbreviate narrative, and add brand-to-fan touch points that didn’t exist before (or if they existed, were ignored). Consequently, the notion of story has been stretched to its semantic limits.

Yet one noticeably interesting result of this tectonic paradigm shift has been the curious emergence of a new breed of sonic artisan.

The practice is called audio, music or sonic branding, and many have indeed recast themselves using this nomenclature. Others have adopted related verbal identifiers, but haven't updated their processes, because they think such phrases are simply new ways to give the same old thing a modern twist.

Personally, I believe branding with sound does require a different aural intelligence than is typically accumulated from a film or broadcast media composer’s education or experience. I frame the actual process as the development and combination of micro musical sounds into ‘critical noise’ assets.

Unlike most commercial composition, the aim is not to support narrative, but to convey a message.

Rather, we employ sound to reframe an otherwise interruptive transition as an informational transaction. A navigation tone, such as a click of the mouse, for one example, confirms ‘command executed’.  A custom ringtone signals someone you know requests your attention. And a deceptively simple melodic logo has unzipped itself inside your brain. You can't really sing it, but its construction suggests it's bursting with symbolic data.

Indeed, in the same way the purpose and design of a traffic signal is different from painting landscapes, so too is the craft of sonic signification different from composing music to enhance dramatic action. Ironically, branded sound is designed to influence behavior and drive action from a potentially distracted audience, while an action score is composed to delight a passive, receptive audience.

This is why new musical solutions providers require not only musical talent but also the ability to research and analyse extra musical, culturally relevant data. Lacking these skills, we risk conceptual dissonance when our goal is immediate comprehension.

Additionally, these sonic assets are ‘critical’ because in an automated world, they are the first point of contact between a brand and consumer, and therefore increasingly synonymous with another more common signifier: ‘hello’.

Unlike thematic material, when we use sound as a signifier, we intend to deliver a self-contained and instant communication. Sometimes, in the case of a consumer touch point, we only have seconds to do this. While that is just as hard to do as it sounds, it isn’t without precedent. But first, we have to think like a sonic semiotician.

I was fortunate to produce a 1.25 sec connect tone for AT&T. The communications company wanted to leverage the pause between dial and pick-up to identify itself using a non-verbal connection tone. Impossible? As it turns out, you can actually say a lot in 1.25 seconds. You can say: ‘Provided to you by AT&T, a friendly and technologically savvy company.’

To understand how this might actually work, consider the possibility of guessing the title of a song from a snippet. Now, even more amazing, recall how a mere sliver of sound can evoke an emotional response. Anger, Love, Sadness, Joy. It quickly becomes evident that even a button-sized musical solution has the power to fulfill a marketing objective. And because branded sonic assets are often wordless, they become especially advantageous assets across a multinational customer base.

Of course, traditional film scoring techniques will continue to contribute to our enjoyment of stories. However, marketers will increasingly rely less on scoring and more on critical noise solutions that can guarantee immediate brand signification as a means to fulfilling a communications strategy or marketing objective.

In other words, the intelligent application of sound is more important than ever.

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Semionaut is an online magazine & knowledge resource offering insight into culture, media, creative industries, and brand strategy. Its publishers, editors, and contributors are professionally involved in the application of semiotic and cultural analysis to brand communication and design issues.

Audio Imaging and Radio's Multimedia Future

Sonic Branding is by no means a new idea, although the phrase only seems to have come into common parlance with the new millennium. In the early nineties I contextualized the concept as 'Branding with Audio'. My old bosses, Scott & Jonathan Elias, preferred the phrase 'Sonic Identity' or 'Sonic ID' for short.

But radio stations have long distinguished themselves from one another using a technique the trade alternately calls Audio Imaging or Music Imaging.

Imaging is all the patter, Voice Over, music, interludes, along with every other branded sound asset, etc., that is inter-dispersed between programming. The composite effect serves to differentiate one station from others and provide a unique radio presence or identity.

In most important respects, Audio Imaging is a precursor of, and synonym for, Sonic Branding. I say "In most important respects" because the result of Audio Imaging is not a single brand asset, but a portfolio of assets whose resulting implementation is closer to what I define as 'packaging' than branding. In my brand mythology, a brand represents a singular asset; while packaging indicates a portfolio of assets that includes branded assets, but is not limited to them. That said, many professionals use the terms interchangeably, and for the sake of this article, I will, too.

What I find personally interesting is that unlike common Sonic Branding, which is usually implemented in order to distinguish similarly tangible goods and services from one another, Audio Imaging uses one palette of sounds (the packaging) in order to provide context to another group of sounds (the transmission).

A music supervisor (and his or her client) commissioned to create programming acts on the premise that the net result of a curated playlist will 'brand' a given (retail) environment. It may or may not: results vary. Muzak has developed a long, successful business model based on this premise. But other Sonic Brand professionals believe otherwise. Radio professionals, it seems, have found the practice lacking.

The reason being: radio playlists are in constant flux. Algorithm based programming will certainly distinguish one genre based station from another –tune in and you know immediately if you're listening to Country, Pop, Urban or Rock. But although they play an important role as an indicator of content/programming philosophy, playlists by themselves (in saturated markets) do not provide listeners with enough information to distinguish one station from another (that delivers similar/overlapping programming).

You may already know that the radio industry is in crisis. Many stations, which in the last decade or so adopted a music only platform, now find themselves facing obsolescence in the wake of Apple's iPod launch.

iPods and other hard disc players have almost single handedly eliminated the necessity for radio.

If radio is going to survive, it will need something that iPods and other hard drive players lack. The industry is still grappling for the secret recipe that will pull audiences back to their programming. One ingredient can be found in a re-tooled Audio Imaging approach. Digital music players provide the capacity to create user-generated playlists, but such playlists as programming lack general accessibility. Unlike radio programming, they do not represent communication from one human to another, but rather serve the utilitarian function of providing a frame for a single person's individual experience (excepting playlists created in real time by a dance DJ for a live audience).

If a relayed signal requires at least one source and one receiver (which often alternate roles), can our own thoughts be defined as communication? Maybe. Personally, I think of thoughts as akin to cognitive reflections, which seems to be the antithesis of what we think of as broadcasting (or even narrow casting).

So although the hardware and technology that makes portable hard drive music players possible seems like magic, the experience a single playlist delivers can also prove less than magical once shared with others beyond the creator's own ear buds.

What we require is context, and the kind of disruptive surprise that only human logic choices in real time can provide, and that pre-programmed random play by algorithm simply has yet to demonstrate a capacity to deliver.

In the past, radio did not simply deliver experience; it was quite often central to the experience. Arguably, it was the experience. Before the invention of television friends and family members listened together, and while listening, they often stared at the apparatus. In effect, radio became the hearth, the fire we all sat around. And then enter TV. Now audiences actually had something to look at. Radio responded by scaling smaller and becoming portable, allowing users to multi task.

But in some cases chatter is perceived as an interruption. Naturally, competing stations eliminated chatter in favor of music-only programming.

Either way, portable digital music players have rendered both strategies ineffective.

So how can radio compete?

I would like to say that Audio Imaging can do it all, but neither branding nor packaging alone can prevent obsolescence. The task is how to prove necessity of being in the face of competing information and entertainment sources. Ultimately, unique and engaging 'Destination Content' will be key. But there are other things we can do, too.

Certainly greater brains than mine are already trying to figure this out, but why wait when I want to save radio right now:

One must ask ones self, what makes radio distinct from other forms of media? What is radio anyway? Is it the box or is it what is in the box? Up until the advent of PC distributed digital audio we have considered radio to be the composite of media and platform. In the face of current technologies, radio –like newspapers– must redefine itself as platform neutral.

What is important is not the box, but 'The Feed', or 'The Stream'.

So, it may be that one possible strategy is to dispense with any reliance on these devices we call 'radios', and instead concentrate on programming. But who and what's going to broadcast the programming if not a radio?

How about an iPod?

Saving Radio scenario #1: The primary agenda should be to influence audiences to tune in via PCs and hand held PC devices, and abandon sole-use dedicated devices, such as, ahem, radios. Listeners may then listen in real-time at their PCs, or download to their digital devices any programming as a Podcast. What's a Podcast anyway, but TIVO for sound? –At least that's the way the radio industry should sell it:

Listen to what you want when you want, wherever you want.

Simultaneously–

Saving Radio scenario #2: Embrace Interactivity. Traditional Radio, like TV, represents one-way communication. In the past, at least listeners could call in and make requests, which would be fulfilled in a reasonable time frame. Today, such communication is all but squelched. Though many, if not all, commercial radio stations have a web presence, their sites merely serve as a virtual wall scrawled over with a station's tag. With some notable exceptions, few radio web sites today boast the tool kit (or interest) to move beyond the monologue experience in order to more fully engage in a conversation with their listeners. In short, in the traditional radio paradigm, the goal is to gain and maintain listeners, which is a limited ambition, at most.

Moreover, expecting loyalty from someone, and hoping the other party will be content to only listen and not wish to contribute in any other way may have worked in centuries past, but that model is disintegrating by the moment.

Talk Radio itself is not immune to this sort of erosion, but over sized personalities may be one reason Talk seems to fare so well, when it does. Because Talk, unlike most iPod playlists, promotes a point of view. Love or hate the man or woman behind the mic, they have the capacity to make brains reel and emotions surge.

As it happens, digital playback devices are increasingly becoming multimedia players, so portability is not exclusive to sound programming. Users can travel with video as well, but viewers can't multi task the way listeners can. It's a simple fact of life: Consumers of sound-only content can multi task in a way that Television and Print audiences cannot.

Thus:

Unique Selling Position #A: Radio provides content that doesn't require you to stop your life in order to consume it. We turn to Print when our lives are on hold. We turn on the Television when we want to relax. But Radio provides Content (Information and Music) to Go.

Radio is where the action is, and one marketing strategy might be to impress upon media consumers that 'RADIO' and 'ACTION' are SYNONYMS, and where there is Life there is Radio. Indeed:

Radio=Life.

In contrast:

Saving Radio scenario #3: Given the choice to choose either listen-only content, or viewable content with sound, what will audiences do? If the answer is the latter, then radio may want to create viewable content to accompany heretofore listen-only conceived content. For instance, a slide show, if nothing else, or other visual content that enhances an otherwise heretofore listen-only experience. Representatives of the radio industry may scoff, but as audio books evolve into multimedia experiences, I believe radio itself may well embrace the idea of enhancing audio content audio content with images, the way television uses audio content to enhance video.

After all, who doesn't look at the back of the box while they eat their morning cereal? Even eating is enhanced by imagery, –any imagery.

But if radio starts providing images, what will make it any different from a TV company?

If the New York Times and CNN are both streaming video from their websites (and they are), why is one company considered a newspaper and the other a cable television company? In effect, they space each once inhabited is converging with the others.

Forward thinking radio professionals already intuit this. But what many may not realize is that the media universe, unlike our own, can be thought of as collapsing. By collapsing, I don't mean that it's disappearing. Rather, all media is evolving into multimedia.

Today, we are witnessing the emergence of Multimedia Singularity.

We are moving past the day when there are TV companies and there are Radio companies –or Print companies, for that matter. What was once a constellation of individual communications companies, each inhabiting their own space –Print, Television, Radio– is now better perceived as a single moving object: The Feed or The Stream. Where once we saw a smattering of stars, now we see an interconnected galaxy (of providers). Distribution platforms themselves are increasingly incidental (as primary indicators of experience); whatever the next technological advancement is, it had better be transparent.

Likewise, when we look through a telescope we don't care if we're looking through a Celestron Telescope zoom eyepiece or a Meade Series 4000 Eyepiece & Filter Set. We just want it to work, and if it works, then all we see are the heavens.

Multimedia Singularity is being made manifest in a variety of ways:

The New York Times, like all newspapers and magazines, is reinventing itself as a content aggregator and distributor, using not a single media platform delivered on paper, but a multimedia one, traveling via light through fiber optic cables. The similarities between Print and Television increase by the day.

Radio must follow suit if it is to survive. When Media Singularity is achieved, radio's competitors will not just be other radio stations, but all media sources (providing parallel content choices in a given market). Though perhaps born as traditional twentieth century newspapers, magazines, television channels or radio stations, respectively, all heretofore separate platforms will continue to transform themselves until each has fully evolved into, quite simply, unique points of interest, destinations, hosted by purely electronic media.

Do you remember what a Venn diagram is from your high school mathematics class? A Venn diagram consists of two or more overlapping circles, or sets. The overlapping area indicates shared characteristics or commonalities between the set

Now imagine a 'Content Venn' composed of not two circles, but many, –and possibly in three dimensions. Each circle represents a traditional media platform; to name three: Radio, Television, and Print. Within each circle are numerous other Venn diagrams representing subsets composed of individual companies competing in a given space. It doesn't take a futurist or psychic to see that the circles as they are presently positioned are not static, but that they are in motion and will continue converging upon one another until we are left with not many spaces, but one space. The result is no Venn diagram, that's for sure, but a single globe representing The Feed.

And what of that overlapping common space where all companies in all spaces meet, regardless of distribution platform? That space is what we can now think of as Multimedia Singularity.

So how will we choose who and what to tune into?

Once platforms become universally transparent, content will have to speak for itself. Given that scenario, context will be more important than ever. And context will be achieved via the same tool kits and assets we rely right on now:

• Personality
• Positioning
• Branding
• Audio Imaging
• Sonic Branding

–All of which we increasingly recognize as aspects of Design.

The result being that after the technological deluge, humans will actually be more important that ever.

Ironically, there will be so much to look at, that sound will play an exponentially more significant role in hooking in audiences.

One should expect to soon see what might have once been conceived as asymmetrical partnerships now engage in strategic merges. We may have had an inkling of that when Time Warner merged with AOL. That partnership was universally judged to be a fiasco. But ultimately it wasn't because Time Warner didn't need to be a multimedia company with an Internet presence, but rather that Time Warner didn't need AOL to withstand the same digital pressures, and be subject to the same evolutionary processes, eventually sustained by all successful members of the corporate species.

But regardless what partnerships evolve, and what eye candy is produced, sonic assets and Radio's importance as a vehicle for content distribution will also increase at reasonable rate.

Here's why:

When people listen to radio they may request more or less talk, more or less music, more or less advertising; but they never request less sound.

As it happens, Television viewers, rich with color, dimension and ever increasingly denser pixel formations, also share with radio listeners an enjoyment for sound. Likewise, they never request less sound either. Lower volume, yes; less aural data, emphatically no. That's because TV isn't just a vision experience; it also relies on sound. In fact, Television only 'works' so well because it is a multi-sensory experience. You don't think so? Try muting the audio. Subtitles communicate information to a varying degree, but the experience is far from optimal. Except for video art installations, the television experience is compromised without an accompanying soundtrack.

In the nineties comic and radio talk show host Howard Stern famously declared his ambition to become a 'King of all Media'. It sounded funny to hear him say it back then. In retrospect, Stern was ahead of his time. For today, radio strives for Multimedia Singularity, inching closer to TV and Print, and at exactly the same time TV and Print edge closer to Radio. It's that or die. And by die, I mean, fade away into silence. Of course, there's not a single profit or not-for-profit information, or entertainment company, that wants to stop broadcasting. So, silence is not an option.

It may be that one day the word 'radio', generally speaking, will solely come to mean 'broadcast sound', and that no one will actually think of a device called 'radio' when the word is uttered. By radio, we won't mean hardware, what we will mean is simply:

Content (though it may be accompanied and supported by images), requires no visual enhancement in order to communicate information, entertain or deliver a message.

And because storytellers have sustained that model since the dawn of man, it's safe to bet that radio, whatever form it takes, will continue to be a powerful medium for years to come.

Branding With Audio

Branding With Audio
By Terry O'Gara
First published on March 30, 2001 by clickz.com

Advertisers too often limit branding potential to visuals alone. It's as though once a vision statement is drafted in the corporate boardroom, it frequently goes out the door voiceless.

Certainly television commercials give products some sort of voice with original scores or licensed tracks. But many of these scores do not serve the company or product identity. Instead they serve to enhance the commercial itself. Licensed tracks pose another problem. The commercials are transformed in the minds of viewers to music videos, and whether viewers identify the music with the product takes a back seat to the artist and to the video itself.

Traditional Scoring Serves the Film, Not the Brand

Most conversations between agency creatives and the music-production team are usually limited to a few adjectives that describe the target demographic. There may also be some talk about how the music should work with the edit or how the score will enhance the emotional relationship between the actors or clarify the story. But these are all issues that apply to the commercial as entertainment. There is usually little strategic thought invested in how to actually create with sound a bond between the consumer and the product.

Though it's easy to think marketers and their vendors have formed a creative alliance to sell products, this is not always the case in today's economy. Rather we're acting as matchmakers for producers and consumers. We're using advertising then not to sell but to network. We're introducing one good friend to another, and one of them happens to make something that, by the way, appeals to the lifestyle the other leads or aspires to.

Sometimes we can't even offer usefulness. We might try to promise uniqueness, but there may be few discernible differences between your product and your competitors'. One soda conveys universality while the other appeals to individuality. But oats are oats, and cola is cola. So if you're not accentuating the brand, then you're left pushing flavored water. However, as marketers, we know a little stimulation goes a long way.

Branding Through Sound

My specialty is sound. And I submit that unless you are using sound as effectively as possible, you're shortchanging your client. So the question arises: How does one go about creating a voice every bit as identifiable with the company as the building in which it dwells?

First let's change our perspective. I suggest we move away from thinking of commercials strictly as anecdotal short films with strategically placed product shots. Story telling by itself is only one device at our disposal to garner the interest and attention of our desired audience.

But branding beyond advertising means we want to do more than simply tell a story. What we really want to do is make an introduction and deliver a message. Branding is the vision statement given life, and it represents an opportunity to ingrain one's identity into the public consciousness. One highly effective way to do just this is with the prudent and thoughtful use of sound.

Creating a Philosophy of Sound

Some years ago I was the music producer on a campaign for a large investment bank. One of the VIPs came to our initial music presentation when everything was still in an embryonic stage. He was a layman. I sensed the more musically astute people in the room resented his presence. But I found that because he knew his brand thoroughly, he also understood how it should be conveyed sonically.

He didn't play a musical instrument, nor did he know any of the proper musical terms. But he knew how music made him feel and that different instruments evoked different moods. Most important, he could articulate his perceptions quite clearly. To me he represented the ideal client.

It's valuable to know not just how an audience will react but also, more precisely, how they can be made to react. Our VIP didn't know if he was listening to violins or contrabasses, but he knew the high strings evoked one mood, and the low strings another. The sound of the low strings conveyed "a sense of authority and power," and that's what he wanted.

So despite all the preproduction meetings in which the agency creative staff, the director, and the editor all discussed how the music should work with the cut or enhance the story, one brief conversation with someone who knew nothing about music proved to be the most valuable. And we, in turn, were then able to create an audio style guide that would influence the sound campaign for this account for years to come.

Although the same film-scoring issues surfaced with future spots for the same client (i.e., the story, the edit, etc.), we now had a philosophy of sound, the corporate vision statement as it applied to audio. Every new piece of music, no matter what the melody, was designed using the same palette of sounds and was thus easily identifiable as this client's sonic identity. One needn't even see the visuals to appreciate that your "Friends at the Bank" brought you this piece of music.

The Power of Sound in Branding

I put forward that every sound asset used in a commercial, on an in-store kiosk, or on a Web site should be easily identifiable as the voice of your company. Do you know what your company is saying right now?

If music in a marketing context does its job, it will inform as well as entertain. And if consumers -- that is, your audience -- call the company switchboard and ask who wrote the music and where they can buy a CD of it, then maybe you and your client should actually produce a promotional CD that consumers can take home and listen to whenever they want.

Branding beyond advertising means creating an experience that is free of an overt pitch yet is compelling enough that consumers will nevertheless identify it with your brand. If you've produced a CD, for instance, folks will listen to it while they eat, work out, make love, and your company will be the underscore to their lives. Oats may be oats, but if I'm making babies to your music, then chances are my babies will be eating your oats.