Sounds, sea and scientists

The majority of communications budgets are spent on visuals – but what about appealing to the rest of our senses?

Scott King and Russ Jones of the sonic branding agency Condiment Junkie, speaking in the Sight, Sound and Emotion session, explained how sounds can affect our perception of taste, colour, etc. “You can enhance brand properties through sensory design.”

The atmospherics of an environment can combine to make an experience that fires emotions, thus making an experience more memorable, they said.

By way of example, Condiment Junkie revealed how they worked with Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant to try to associate sounds with flavours. They also worked on the creation of the Sounds of the Sea, the restaurant’s signature dish, where scallops and tapioca ‘sand’ are served with an iPod playing a recording of the seashore. 

Indeed, music and sound are good at stimulating emotion, so music can be used to enhance the emotion that people feel about a brand, said Hall & Partners Europe CEO Paul Edwards and Adam & Eve DDB’s scientist-in-residence Daniel Mullensiefen.

They talked delegates through a test of two Volkswagen TV ads – one with music, one without. Using both implicit and explicit response testing, they found no difference in the explicit responses to either ad, both pre- and post-exposure. But implicit response was up – and even more so with music.

“Music plays a role beyond that of gaining attention,” said Mullensiefen. “It helps drive emotions which drive brand choice. But that’s not evident using the explicit measurement.”