AI 01: Aural Intelligence

Scientists studying bird song believe that the process by which birds learn to sing may be relevant to understanding how people process speech.

I believe the reverse is also true in humans. That is, how and what we learn to speak has a direct casual effect on our relationship to music.


When I consider how music may have shaped my own ability to process sound, –whether as a human being, generally speaking, and as a unique individual– the first thing I consider is the music and sounds that I was exposed to in early childhood.

Before I continue let me offer a definition of the term: 'Ability to process sound'. I think of it as the summation of the following several actions:

A) Hearing
B) Listening (Focusing on specific incoming information)
C) Processing/Understanding
D) Executing an appropriate physical and often vocalized response

Early childhood naturally represents a critical period of human cognitive development. Researchers believe that by the time a child is five years old, they will have accumulated a 2,500 to 5,000 word sized vocabulary.

It has occurred to me that not only does this finding exemplify a fact of human language development, but it also indicates a more general and innate ability in all people to comprehend and communicate improvised, sophisticated patterns of sound (conversation), and from a very young age onward. As a skill, this does not strike me as too much unlike what I would describe as basic musicianship.

It follows then, congenital deafness notwithstanding, that as dependent on the ear as learning language is, language may in fact turn out to be a critical component in the development of musicianship.

I’m therefore also inclined to believe that the music I heard and learned as a child had a primary effect on my musical ear, whereas the music that captured my ear as a teenager –rock, for instance– had a secondary or even ternary, and primarily stylistic effect. –Not a negligible effect or influence, but neither a dominating one.

First there is the essential self, and all its birthright gifts, which some believe –I do– contains some fundamental musical information (See Ur-Song ). Then there is Knowledge: What we learn from the environment, and it follows what we hear in it. And then there is Stylistic Choice: How we chose to distribute to others the knowledge we've acquired. However, whether or not a role model presents itself, our brains will figure out their own way to distribute that knowledge, endowing you with a sort of innate style all your own.

And that's why classical musicians playing jazz and European musicians playing Asian melodies sounds wonky to even the least discerning ear. I suspect it may also be why an adult who learns a foreign language can rarely –if ever– completely hide their original accent.

You are what you are: An American in Paris, maybe? Everyone can tell, baby.

The clothes don't make the soul. Nor a new coat of paint change where the kitchen is. You can learn to dance but who taught you to walk like that? –now I'm on a riff, but anyone have a better metaphor?

If it still sounds convoluted, allow me to define yet another term.

I define ‘Influence’ as:

A compelling, but nevertheless indirect persuasion upon one’s behavioral patterns. A shot of vodka and a beautiful woman might influence my behavior, but neither precipitates my core personality.

Although, my father may reasonably disagree with that assessment.


To read the complete Aural Intelligence Article, follow the links:

AI 01: Aural Intelligence
AI 02: AI Quotient
AI 03: Aural Stimuli & Influences

aural, music, sound

Strategic Audio Partnerships

I'd like to use this entry to revisit several ideas I’ve mentioned in the past, in separate posts, and perhaps demonstrate their interconnectedness. For although each concept was considered exclusive of the other, they can certainly work in concert. Such a strategy assumed by a wide enough base would have the result of forming a different kind of music industry than the one we see today. Or it might simply form a parallel but different branch of the entertainment industry. I've been calling this new paradigm 'Strategic Audio Partnerships'. These are three components that form the conceptual basis of the business plan:

1. Rock Brands: Rock Brands are artists who forgo traditional celebrity endorsement deals in lieu of strategic partnerships between their own brand/marketing company and a corporate account. They don't just show up for a film shoot, a party or publicity photos. They are active participants in the 'concepting', creation and execution of a marketing strategy that leverages their brand value to yield a return on investment for their clients –at an appropriate price.

Rock Brands will otherwise function as entertainers and audio/music providers, so never confuse their contributions to popular culture and commerce with traditional work-for-hire oriented music and sound production companies.

2. Medici Model Sponsorships: Such sponsorships are akin to those given to Public Television, whereby corporate patrons underwrite artists, with no endorsement expected, except to provide an appropriate and public acknowledgment for the source of the funds (unless otherwise negotiated). One might also consider that in lieu of direct grants made to artists, advertisers who wish to underwrite arts programs might allocate funds to a new kind of (possibly non-profit) record label. In this scenario, the artist is protected from accusations of 'selling out', because they will be producing art funded by an arts organization, not at the bequest of the foundation's contributors.

3. Camelback Collateral & Distribution: Camelback Distribution is a Non-Traditional Digital Audio Distribution method of delivery. It's referred to as Camelback, because something else carries the load. In this case Music is delivered as collateral or added value enhancements for other non-entertainment commodities –meaning the delivery of a music experience or product with every type of goods and services you can think of; whether packaged as a gift or promoted as a combo purchase.

So, for instance, one doesn't give away a free CD with a car purchase. Rather the music is liquid and the car –in this instance– is literally the vehicle for the distribution of music. The car -or any other primary product– replaces the CD case, if you want to think of it like that. One might reasonably expect that in the future the exchange of capital for a car, or any other product, will include a coupon, code or some yet-to-be-implemented technology for redeeming the artist's music at the artist's website, or an online music store; or Branded Mixes at the online space belonging to the product manufacturers.

Independent artists distributing their own works without a formal sponsor's product to package their music in/with, can simply package their music in or with their own branded merchandise, such as T-shirts, for instance. The purchase of a physical product –in this case, a T-shirt– eliminates the need for CD packaging (as the music itself is accessed via the web/ phone/ air –what I call in its 'liquid' form). The result is consumers pay for music but feel as though they are getting it for free.

This says nothing towards the idea of 'renting' music, which is a topic that merits an analysis beyond the scope of this entry.


For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest

Broadband Video Buzz

Broadband Video Buzz & The Interactive DilemmaBy Terry O'Gara
Originally published on Adholes, Wednesday, June 7, 2006

BBDO gives birth to Atmosphere. Mezzina Brown renames itself Agent 16. The Barbarian Group is redefining the very meaning of ‘Production Company’.

It’s no secret that established agencies and migrating talent have spent the last several years re-branding themselves with new mastheads, or by creating distinct interactive divisions. However, many creative suppliers remain entrenched in the traditional broadcast economy and are –perhaps– just starting to dabble with online media. Sure, every broadcast design firm and music house has their own website, but how many have necessarily been commissioned to work on online media pieces? Here in New York, not as many as you might think. (If you can tell me which ad houses are partnering with which post houses to produce killer content, post some links and let’s get a list going. )

A decade after the initial Internet explosion, many post-production houses can be said to have only dabbled in the medium, if at all. –And not for not wanting nor for lack of adventure. Actually, more than a few high-end creative suppliers have confessed new media budgets just don’t pay the bills. One wonders if Interactive work, like banners of every shape and form, really doesn’t lend itself to an external collaborative process, and therefore it’s all produced in-house?

Will Broadband Video Commercials change this? With recent IAB recommendations, and new formats rolling out of companies like Unicast and Forbidden, all of a sudden the future of Internet Advertising looks a lot like, gulp, the :30 TV spot.

Which leads me to this basic question: If every designer today is required to be an HTML whiz, will a director’s job change when hired to shoot expressly for broadband? How will an editor’s? Hey, will anything actually get shot EXPRESSLY for broadband, or will we actually be looking at repurposed :30’s? Are there any new skill sets that post-production staffers will have to demonstrate before the e-crowd believes they ‘get it’? And if audience/consumers are equally happy with content, regardless of screen size, and agencies handle the integration, why would anyone in post have to upgrade their skill set?

Interactive Advertising/Interactive Process

In late spring of 2006, my company Position Management, was commissioned by a Los Angeles production company to produce a State-of-the-Industry market analysis on Interactive Advertising. The report would thereafter serve my client as a reference tool with which to identify clients, contacts and other points of entry suitable for investigation by their associates. It was a project I was quite excited to work on, especially as I had been chasing the broadband video tail since the previous decade.

Obviously the resulting report and its findings are confidential, therefore I won't be divulging its contents here. However, as I carried out my task, I endeavored to conduct parallel research for a story which might end up in one trade magazine or another. Of current interest to me was the fact that eight years after the founding of Blister Media, and fifteen years after my first Interactive job, it was readily apparent that most traditional production companies who worked on broadcast advertising projects still hadn't worked on an interactive project, save their own website. Not only that, but some of these shops, despite their relative inexperience, promised vertical branding solutions. Whoa. Hello, people, that means top to bottom.

Anyway, I was –and I continue to be– intrigued with process. That is, how does a particular medium affect the way creative people work? You know, of course I already have my own ideas about this, but it's important to find out what other people think. Some people will tell you the technology has no bearing on their process. Others will tell you that it changes everything. Despite the fact that everything can be distilled to electro-magnetic waves, I can tell you from personal experience, that I write different music at a piano than I do a synthesizer. The electronic keyboard's layout might be identical to that of the piano, and it might in fact only be triggering a piano sample; but something changes in my brain when I know the possibilities have suddenly become limitless. –Or narrowed, for that matter.

Music As Collateral: Using Audio to Add Value

The music industry complains of being broken. Digital Audio is easy to copy. So, now consumers apparently have no reason to purchase legitimate product. As a result there is much talk regarding how to add further value to physical product in order to sustain a consumer base.

Let me suggest that instead of adding value to the music, let’s consider how to use music to add value to other consumer products. In this way:

A) the producers of a recording can profit;
B) the artists gain a vehicle for distribution; and
C) the consumer can feel like they’ve either earned a reward, or gotten something for free that they would otherwise have to pay for.

For instance:

I would personally be more likely to listen to an album of romantic songs if they were delivered with a premium box of Godiva chocolates. Likewise, the global florist, FTD, has an immense opportunity waiting for them if they are first to deliver music along with their floral arrangements. Long after the flowers wilt, a loved one can listen to the song they were gifted and thereby continue living within an FTD branded experience.

I call this Camelback Distribution (or Collateral) because something else is carrying the load. In this latter example the something else is the flowers, and the load the music.

Any kind of sponsorship may not be the best platform for an unknown artist, for either the artist or the sponsor; but you can surely can see how it could be a profitable one for both current hit makers –(Mariah Carey & FTD, for example)– and for classic catalog recordings, which in effect represents a vast emotional repository for the entire culture.

To the customer the experience won’t feel branded: It will simply feel like a love letter received from one person to the other; or it will be accepted as a token gift of music, accompanying the bouquet. Either way, which florist do you think giver and receiver are going to call the next time either one needs to send a bouquet of flowers?

As a teen my friends and I traded songs or mix tapes. On occasion, the exchange was prefaced with an explanation that the person receiving the material was to pay attention to a particular set of lyrics. Thus, the music became the vehicle for a message attributable not to the songwriter, but to the person who made the mix tape, to be decoded later by the person he or she gave the music to. In a way, the gift which arrived was in fact neither the mix tape nor the music, but rather both mix tape and music provided Russian Doll like packaging for an emotive expression, which was the true gift!

Given this scenario, which continues today with the exchange of mp3s, why not bundle single roses with singles (songs) and market the combo to teen romantics at a price they can afford?

I can imagine that the attached card might read:

"Nothing says 'I Love You' like a rose, except for music. This song says more about how I feel about you than I could ever put into words myself."

The reality is, the music isn't free but  it feels free, because the ostensible purchase is for the rose (or other gift (the 'camel'). So, the music is paid for with each and every product purchase. Alternately, a corporate sponsor can eat the cost entirely, either as a loss leader or because by doing so they hope to profit by factors other than an immediate economic payback (–such as the goodwill and gratitude of their customers, for instance).

+     +     +

This article is one in series of articles about audio as added value. Read the other entries by following the links:

Music As Collateral: Using Audio to Add Value
The Compact Disc Is Dead
Saving The Music Industry One Brand at a Time
Self-Referential Jingles are not Content
Synergy = Energy

Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes

There may be a time in the future when the Apple brand is deemed an incompatible venue for one or more artists to distribute their works. It may happen, for instance, that a performer receives underwriting from Microsoft, or another Apple competitor. Apple, is not after all, retail agnostic. How long will Sony want to keep sending their consumers to their biggest competitor for music playback devices?

There’s absolutely no reason or need to send music fans to any specific online store, such as iTunes, whose own branded experience may fall outside any given artist's own brand mandate. Companies that underwrite artists should make downloads available on their own websites. Additionally –and in direct contrast to record label offerings– creative works resulting from corporate underwriting might even be offered without copy protection. Why? Because unlike traditional entertainment units, brands will want as many consumers as possible to share in their brand event/experience.

Assume an artist who receives sponsorship of some sort is satisfied with his or her compensation/funding. It follows that adequately financed, original works of art and music will have a chance of spreading virally as never before. And because the material is underwritten and not work-for-hire, the artist retains the option and opportunity to further profit from the material assuming his or her underwriters are duly credited (ex. 'This recording was made possible as a result of a grant from The Famous Soda Pop Co. Foundation For the Arts').

Underwriters might also negotiate such things as branded tags, keywords and icons so that the material can be located and viewed in iTunes (and other similarly formatted sites or applications) by BAND name and BRAND name. Why not? Doesn’t every movie begin with the producing studio's Logo? I’m not suggesting pre-roll audio commercial announcements be placed before a song or musical composition –although a .25 (quarter second) to 3.0 (three second) fanfare before a multi-song (or music+video) experience may not be too unreasonable for consumers to accept. However, I am advising that Song Info appear in any and all consumer databases fully credited:

‘Artist X’ – ‘Title X’ – courtesy of Brand X


For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest

itunes

Medici Model Revisited

There’s a historical precedent for patronage. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven –all the great classical composers– wrote music at the bequest of a variety of benefactors, be it the church, a member or royalty, or another extremely wealthy person. Michelangelo’s masterpieces were all created as commissioned works, and I don’t think anyone ever accused Michelangelo of selling out to the Medicis or the Roman Catholic Church.

As such, I don't understand why today our largest corporations do not commission symphonic works of some substantial length to merit an evening of music. If classical or concert music is dead, I can certainly imagine this kind of patronage changing the whole game, not to mention the potential contributions to the arts and culture such largesse would afford. By the way, I'm accepting such commissions beginning immediately.

As it turns out, some corporations already do employ art buyers: to decorate their lobbies and offices; to contribute to environmental branding needs and to enhance an investment portfolio. So, if a company has an art buyer in their employ, why not also create an artist relations role? Or develop in-house music producers who not only are capable of eliciting world class musical performances from the artists and entertainers they work with, but who also specialize in cultivating, selecting and filtering works of art (i.e. the composition, performance, tonality and recording process) through the lens of a client's brand strategy.

Of course, artists averse to selling out –if they perceive it as such– don't have to participate. And there will certainly be those whose material is so offensive or politicizing that they would be hard pressed to attract mainstream sponsors. But for others, the idea of piggybacking on a pound of Starbucks coffee or a can of Pepsi will be considered a perfectly acceptable means of guaranteed distribution should they choose to accept a corporate commission or grant (certainly, if the result is getting heard by millions of people).

Has any one who loves building cars or driving them ever said, “No, I can’t accept a sponsorship because that would be selling out; and therefore, I will limit all my driving to public roads?”

No, of course not: The best professional drivers want to get behind the wheel of the best-made cars and drive them on the most exclusive, prestigious and challenging tracks in the world. There’s no reason a similarly constructed music industry can’t adopt something from the NASCAR model.

Can you envision a day when consumers make all their music purchases at a grocery store because all the produce they purchase comes with –or provides access to– the music they want? I can: It will either be an economic nightmare or a gilded age.

Perhaps a can of beans is not an ideal stage for a serious composer. Perhaps the public will be turned off by an artist who arrives home with them with their organic carrots. But at the same time, I can't help but think it still is a commercially viable model for the production and distribution of entertainment, given the suitability of artist and corporate partner. I'd be more than happy to bring home the complete remastered works of Duke Ellington with a Lexus, and I wouldn't think less of the man or his art. A market exists for this delivery system right now, and it is probably larger than anyone right now can even imagine.

This may mean that companies such as Proctor & Gamble –to mention one company which is perfectly poised to take advantage of the proposed model– could eventually come head to head with companies like SONY/BMG. No doubt, today’s corporate titans are on the verge of a market shake-up that will define tomorrow’s entertainment behemoths and modern day Medicis. As a result, a company best known for selling soap and detergent today, just may win the upcoming war for consumer loyalty, and do by simply creating connections with artists; by funding music and distributing it with or without explicit tie-ins to their products and services (the music/ entertainment/ art might be made available only at their website, or by via some kind of non-commercial venue).

Proctor & Gamble is an especially formidable player in this regard because they already have a significant, if often overlooked, history as a content producer.

It bears mentioning that reasons for corporate patronage also include a desire or necessity to curry political favor in another country, as Lorenzo de' Medici is known to have done. By investing or contributing in another nation's arts and artists, one possibly wins favor with its members of government. For American and European interests (seeking foreign industrial contracts), it may seem like good strategy to spend dollars developing tomorrow's Chinese rock stars and East Indian gangsta rappers. Likewise, we may one day witness Asian governments sponsoring indigenous African and mid eastern cultural activities in a bid to compete for those country's petrol resources.

It should also be noted that government sponsorship of artist tours abroad are neither new nor even revolutionary. We are reminded by the Heritage Foundation on the Americans for the Arts website, that:

“Cultural exchanges are part of our first line of defense, helping to bridge ideological gaps and policy disagreements with person-to-person contact and close-up views of the United States. Such programs helped end the Cold War and could have reduced costly complications for America in the global war on terror.”

Future artists will greatly benefit from national patronage –or another form of sponsorship– if only for the guarantee of distribution and exposure, and if not always as a result of an association with the underwriter. –Although negative perceptions of artists (for participating in these relationships) by existing fans can largely be avoided if both parties –brand and band– make good public partners. New fans won’t care if patronage, endorsements or sponsorships are in play because that will be how they discovered the artist/s in the first place.


For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest

sponsorship

Auto-Tune™ Goes Public

Auto-Tune™ is digital processing software used to correct the pitch of vocal or instrumental performances. It was introduced to the market in 1997, by Antares Audio Technologies. However, I’ve recently noticed the word/phrase ‘autotune’ being used as a generic term, –regardless of whether the lawyers at Antares, think that's a good thing or not.

Other trademarks have slipped into the public domain: Kleenex, and Xerox, for two examples. Henceforth, when I use the word as a descriptive, I will refer to ‘autotune’ and ‘autotuning’ (no capitalization; no hyphen).

I define autotune, or autotuning as:

Fixing or otherwise enhancing a vocal performance, using modern mojo.

Many point to Cher’s ‘I Believe’ as the first commercial pop song that brought autotuning to the general public’s attention. There are conflicting reports whether the effect on Cher’s voice was the result of an extreme Antares Auto-Tune™ setting (whose effects are usually transparent on minimal fixes), or the sum results of another technology. The British recording magazine Sound-On-Sound does a pretty good job of documenting that the song was in fact produced using Antares technology.

Whatever the technique, the result may be inhumanly perfect pitch, but the sonic artifacts that one hears as the pitch is centered to an absolute setting is not the result of a heavy handed producer, but rather an intentional artistic decision. Quite simply, –and most twelve year olds agree– the heavy-handed effect sounds cool.

What did recording engineers and producers do before Antares made Auto-Tune™ pitch correction available (there are other similar DSP solutions to correcting pitch, such as Melodyne™ (Celemony), which I also include as autotuning software).

Before the advent of either Auto-Tune™ or Melodyne™, producers and engineers might have used digital samplers to fix vocals –a painstaking task. Before samplers they might have ‘comped’ vocal passes (which continues to be a common technique). Comping is the art of splicing (now cutting and pasting) a number of vocal takes together in order to create one perfect master take. Equally common is the art of 'punching' in a new vocal or instrumental take over a pre-recorded take, that is recording a live bit of new performance over a bit of pre-recorded material.

Punching in a word or note here and there may not seem the egregious bit of studio magic that autotuning is, but punching in every single word of a lyric, or note of a solo– certainly is. On the other hand, if the end result sounds great, why not do it? Is the purpose of a commercial recording A) to document a musician's skill set, or B) to document the best performance of the work/song. The answer is invariably –but not always– 'B'.

There are other ways to create perfect vocal. For example, a touch of reverb or chorus has long been a producer’s best friend in this regard. Unlike autotuning, which centers the pitch, reverb, chorus and other similar effects serve to mask a poorly pitched vocal.

Effects aren’t just used to correct a vocal performance. Just as often they are used to enhance a vocal performance. Consider Alvin and the Chipmunks, for instance, and enjoy the technological marvel of slowing the tape down during record, and playing it back at regular speed (thus speeding up the vocals at the same time as raising the pitch).

One device, the Eventide’s H3000™, has long been a staple in recording studios for it’s ability to facilitate ‘Harmonization’ techniques – whereby a recorded performance is doubled and then the replication is re-pitched, and/or delayed, thus creating a harmony, of varying realism.

Vocoding –that robotic effect we sometimes hear, is essentially the sum of a a vocal signal modified by an electronically produced signal.

Some argue people who have no business singing are using autotuning to cover up imperfect performances. However, it is just as often the best musicians and singers who demand autotuning because they want to sound even more perfect than they are.

I sometimes wonder if there is also a racist or sexist component –or a bias against homosexual oriention– that underlies criticisms against autotuning and other similarly creative digital signal processing. I know that sounds patently ridiculous on the surface, but consider the DEATH TO DISCO movement during the nineteen seventies: At the time it was thought an innocent backlash against an overplayed trend. But from our current perspective, we can see that it was propagated by a mostly white, heterosexual American male population upon the collective popular works produced by either gay, European or African American artists.

Similarly, much of the bemoaning over autotuning, vocoding and harmonizing, comes across as a wholesale prejudice against urban, pop and dance music genres. Any armchair pop anthropologist has have to wonder: Is it the technology? Or the people using the technology?

Further, I’ve never once heard any guitarist decry the use of Fuzz or distortion. Yet, guitarists have been hiding sloppy technique behind torn speakers, overdriven amps and stomp box emulations of both since the sixties.

Remember a DC comic book character called Bizarro Superman? Bizarro Superman was Superman’s doppelganger: an Anti-Superman who was everything Superman was not. Thus Bizarro logic dictates black is white, strong is weak, good is evil, etc.

I’ve come to think of rampant distortion as Bizarro autotuning. Instead of centering guitar pitch, it masks it. That’s why it’s called distortion! –And it is the constant friend of many a hammered fingered rocker.

Auto-Tune, DSP, music production, sound effects

Sonic Semiotics Series

Click on any link below to read all the articles in the four-part January 2006 SONIC SEMIOTICS series exploring the author's musicological development of a personal branded theory for sound.

1. Say It In 1.25 Seconds
2. Bumps, Bugs, Beats and Brands
3. The Message In Merrill Lynch
4. Packaging Vs. Branding

* * *

Like this topic? Explore these four other articles from the Critical Noise Archive, exploring the relationship between Sound and Symbol and Sonic Branding:

1. This Is Where The Story Ends (March 1, 2003)
2. The Ur-Song (February 1, 2002)
3. Branding With Audio (March 30, 2001)
4. HBO ZONE: Creating a Sonic Identity (October 01, 2000)

Music Packaging Vs. Sonic Branding

In 1996 I was asked to serve as a lead music supervisor on the 1996 NBC Olympics, a project spearheaded by Elias’ special projects lead, Audrey Arbeeny, who turned out to possess a preternatural talent for maximizing the entertainment value of broadcast sporting events. My future business partner, Michael Sweet, also worked on the project programming a precursor to iTunes, which would serve as an onsite digital library for NBC’s location based producers.

My own responsibility was to listen, select and identify music –and edit points– for possible license. In this capacity I personally selected and categorized approximately 3000 pieces of music by sport and mood, so that, for instance, Victorious Track and Field different from a music selection suggestive of defeat, but Victorious Track and Field would be distinct from Victorious Swimming or Victorious Gymnastics. Categorization coupled with the digital interface allowed on-site NBC producers instantaneous access to a music bed suitable for any event or situation.

It was by this process that I soon realized how music could thread connected but different events (the activities), within an overall multi-experiential event (NBC's Olympic Broadcast).

While the Olympic Project taught me a good deal about music identification and selection for a broadcast, it also changed the way I think about branding. In fact, I hesitate to think of this work as 'Branding', which I admit goes against the grain given its use in this manner by many music supervisors I meet.

Heres why:

My personal standard for what is and isn't branding starts with a uniquely identifiable mark.Certainly, branding has evolved beyond the limitations of mere mark, but nevertheless, a distinct mark embedded with symbolic data continues to serve as a valid lens through which we may create branded experiences and other related assets.

As it happens, there's nothing distinct about licensing music from the same pool of work which others do, notwithstanding the argument that the music selection in conjunction with the picture creates a unique experience.

Moreover, a winning athlete doesn't need my jubilant rock selection to brand the event victorious. He or she has defined the occasion by virtue of their own efforts. My music selections for the Olympics,then, provided a utilitarian function to enhance (or focus) mood and maximize the entertainment value of those who are spectators to the event.

One could argue a DJ spinning a uniquely and specifically conceived playlist for a given venue is in fact branding the environment. I agree in the general sense of the term, but I still think some other nomenclature is on order.

Wrapping an in-store experience or hotel lobby up in a bundle of musical works specifically composed for an event or the venue itself reminds me more of producing a score for film and TV.

Is a soundtrack a Branded playlist?

Even I'm guilty of labeling such things BRAND MIXES, which is what I called them (and continue to call them) when I first started pitching them to clients in the mid nineties.

But when my company, Blister Media, was recognized by the television industry with the 2000 Gold Promax award for Best Original Music & Sound Design for Network Packaging (HBO Zone) I realized then that the concept of 'Packaging' film and video entertainment could be applied to any media platform, and even environments, and have made the distinction ever since.

Although, lately I've been thinking of retail and hospitality environments as volumes of space (which they are) and therefore maybe 'packaging' isn't quite right because it's something we apply to the outside, when in fact, we fill a space with music from the inside out.

Regardless, it may sound like an arbitrary distinction, but here's how I distinguish between Branding and Packaging:

Branding is the transmission of uniquely distinctive signification in order to convey a client's position for the purpose of creating a bond with an audience, user or consumer. Branding may thus be said to be: The art and science of composing a semiotic construction for the purpose of business-to-consumer communication.

In contrast, a Packaging assignment implies the utilitarian design and construction of mood enhancers for the benefit of participants or spectators, and which may or may not compel a specific action (or inaction).

For instance, the music provided by a DJ in a hotel lobby is meant either to entertain you or float through the air like a kind of aural wall paper, but nary a single track is necessarily identifiable as representing the hotel. Granted, some venues do make effective use of music to brand an environment, but if entertainment is the client's primary purpose, then any brand statement is going to be compromised, or at the very least suffer from potential dilution, as the message of one piece of music fades into the potentially contrasting content of another.

Audio for devices provides a great opportunity for the production of branded assets, although in practice it is more likely a signature 'tone' will be identified as the logo, and the rest of the sounds, though they belong to the same 'family' or 'palette' simply serve to provide confirmation of physical execution.

Perhaps it is better not lump all applied audio as sonic branding or packaging, but simply to speak of the need for utilizing sonic signification for a specified purpose.

In the meantime, I continue to think of audio branding the commission of an original mark (embedded with a message), and packaging as a curated collection of sounds created for a functional purpose. And that utility may –and often does– include the intent to entertain or inform, as each circumstance requires.

So as Branded Audio is to a single ray of light, Packaged sound is the reflections bouncing off a mirror ball.