citizenbay

Welcome to the Sound of Fonts

When we describe the business value of Sonic Branding to clients, inevitably conversation gets round to comparing our approach to creating the sonic identity of a brand to the work involved in creating the VISUAL identity of a brand.

There is nothing more visual in the visual identity of a brand than the font. And I love fonts.

Be they the classics like:

ones used on album covers:

even a musician’s own hand-writing:

(found here if you want to contact them Morrissey) 

I recently came across this fantastic offering by those clever people at typeradio, a radio channel on type and design, based out of Den Haag. I recently listened to a insightful discussion they had with Phil Baines. Typeradio’s position is simple:

Type is speech on paper. Typeradio is speech on type.

The Sound of fonts. lovely. 

curious thought

Font, like marketing generally, is primarily filtered through the visual sense. How much of the marketing is filtered through the other senses?

The Best LIFT in the world: How a lift (elevator) can reflect your brand

Right. You get in a lift. A confined space. With people you don't know. You choose the floor. Someone might even ask you to push the button for another floor too. You look up at nothing. You look sideways or to the floor for no apparent reason. This really is time in your day where joy rarely features.

In thousands of offices every day, employees, clients, customers and suppliers all travel a few floors in the metal box. Some suffer from claustrophobia, others from bad body odour, while others just struggle with standing next to the 'crazy one'.

Occasionally, someone decides to share personal information (we try not to listen, but we just can't help it can we?)

However, a few smart cookies have been making the 'lift experience' into something other than entering the void, Star Trek style.

Some years ago, I came across IKEA getting clever in a lift. They transformed a lift into a cosy room, where people could sit comfortably and enjoy the ride. Perfectly on brand.

Meanwhile, in Stockholm, Hotel Lydnar was a cool little hotel before it re-opened into a less rock n roll version. I stayed there a few times and loved their lift. A lift that had a panel of buttons that allowed you to select the type of music you wanted for the journey ('Can I have the 3rd floor and some reggae please?'). A perfect way to travel...

So, what lift gets the award for the Best Lift in the World?

Any suggestions please share...

Venice Festival of Media

Well the Venice Festival of Media happened last week, and for a first time out I have to say that it is hats off to Charlie Crowe and CSquared for pulling it off. Great city, well organised and a stunning line of major speakers.

On top of that, little citizensound ran a workshop on how brands should best get involved with music marketing. Here is the flyer for the citizensound session (put together by fellow citizen Nick Watt, and inspired by the design ethics of Factory Records).

If you click here, you will find a host of posts on the citizensound session over at the citizensound blog

M&M Europe Awards night

Great night had by most at the 2006 Media and Marketing Europe Awards night. Good to see non-UK based international agencies collecting awards. Congratulations to OMD as media agency of the year and Fallon as Creative Agency of the Year. Some might feel that Fallon won the award on the basis of one ad - the Sony Bravia Bouncing Balls ad. Not sure of that myself.

One thing is for sure. Making a simple ad is becoming as cool as Cliff Richard and Johnny Halliday. The Sony Bravia ad has managed to prove that there is life in the old dog yet. First we have the memorable visual elements, then the strong sonic branding which has taken a life of it's own (and shifted lots of units for Jose Gonzalez), add to that the contribution of word of mouth to it's status as a great ad and of course the little matter of it's contribution to helping Sony sell lots of tellies.

This ad has done more than just shift tellies and CDs though. It has highlighted the overall contribution that great creative work still makes to the success of the clients business. In a world of growing focus on procurement, numbers and ROI, we should celebrate such stunning work that proves epic ads can help shift units. We should fight any move towards mediocrity, which inevitably comes with shifts towards marketing by spreadsheet.

So if Fallon won the award for only this one piece of work, well frankly good on them.

And good on M&M Europe for ensuring that these awards are given out for campaigns judged equally on communications insights, media brilliance, creative excellence and business results. Looking forward to seeing even more great work next year.

What does your Brand smell like?

Further to his speech in Finland (and elsewhere no doubt), Martin Lindstrom is mentioned here saying that 75 percent of all the emotions we generate every day are due to what we smell, whilst 83 percent of all commercial communication we are exposed to every day is crafted to appeal to just our eyes.

Through his research with Millward Brown, he was only able to identify

a handful of brands which truly owned an aroma to their brand (outside the frangrance-related product categories). Play-doh and Crayola Crayons were hardly aware of the power their aromas represented.

Yet does the smell of a brand actually change a consumer's relationship with the brand, or merely solidify their existing position? When people walk past a McDonald's and smell the aroma of fries those that love the smell will feel hungry, while those who abhor it will run a mile...but will the aroma actually convert people to try Ronald's burgers?

If you want to get involved in music, speak to the right people...

Rafael McDonnell from brand entertainment agency RED Entertainment (and the man behind mycokemusic) admitted that at times it can be a nightmare dealing with the music world. He mentioned a deal that Coca Cola was on the verge of securing with The Sugarbabes, after long conversations with their record label. With Coke packs all printed up and ready to go, the formalities of contract signing was all that was left to do. Unfortunately, according to Rafael, the band manager decided that the deal was not for them So Coke had all the marketing and pack collateral but with no artist in place, whilst the record label was left trying to explain themselves to the client

Fellow panellist Gary McClarnon of Sparklestreet and champion of band management, responded:

You were talking to the wrong people

. Ouch!

Record labels can help smooth a Brand's path to music alliances. Yet somewhere along the line, a conversation with the band manager will need to take place. Better earlier than later...

Tony Wilson and the Music Concierge

Tony Wilson talked of being a

concierge to artists

whether established or unsigned.

Unsigned bands are every brands' darling right now. The list of brands (consumer and media) who are running searches for the next big thing is getting longer and longer. Even with the contribution that brands play, along with social networks as openers to new music, there is a growing dependence by consumers on someone to guide them through the maze...someone they trust...hence the rise of online record stores, such as Piccadilly Records, as guide, or music journals, such as Mojo, as helper.

Media brands, Online Brands, Consumer Brands...they will all be looking to secure this space more than ever. A time to knock heads together perhaps?

Tony Wilson: Thoughts on the Telco's

Until they are ready to re-think their financial model, the mobile operators will, according to Tony Wilson, hold back the massive opportunity for all to make significant revenues with music in the mobile space. As long as the cost of downloading a track to a phone is significantly more than online, then consumers are going to continue to reject it.

When I attended In The City conference last year, the mobile phone operators were demonised by music management and music industry alike. They were portrayed as the ones who are holding out for massive revenues whilst ignoring the market demand for a more online-comparable pricing for mobile track downloads.

You could say that that both industries have complex pricing models that encourage layer upon layer of fees/royalites et al. Yet, the simple fact is that online we are looking at 79p/99cents a track, and on-phone this can be easily multiplied by four times.

Tony Wilson is absolutely right that until this pricing issue is sorted, the ubiquity of the mobile phone will not translate into music as revenue generator for both music and mobile industries. This though will require a massive leap of faith, fresh thinking and simplicity at the core

Tony Wilson at Brands Bands & Audiences

Opening speaker at Brands, Bands & Audiences was the right honourable member for Manchester, Tony Wilson. The founder of the iconic Factory Records and also of In The City gave a great opener to the conference. Here are the highlights.

Music is counter-culture. Great Bands think they are above commerce

Which is why so many Brands are hesitant to walk into the midst of the music world for potential marketing deals. He shared an example of U2's manager Paul McGuinness putting in two years work to set up a deal with Vodaphone, only for the band to say no at the wire. Their prerogative, they have final say, but it does mean Brands need to be aware of such risks when entering into sonic marketing.

Another comment I enjoyed was:

Guys in suits love money & musicians love music. Myth. It's the other way around. Music is what (bands) do

His example here was New Order taking a big cheque from Sunkist in the U.S. They re-recorded Blue Monday (with words praising Sunkist...yes really) for a large payoff. They thought if would be a laugh, looked fun, but according to Mr Wilson, a little extra push was needed for the words to get recorded. This involved the cheque being held up to the singer (Barney) as he recorded the revised words in the studio....truth or fiction, it still conjures up a great image. After all that, Sinkist decided not to run the ad, but still paid the band!

Ad-supported P2P music service

EMI are going to make their music catalogue available to the first advertising supported peer-to-peer service, called Qtrax, as reported here.

As more of the labels work out how to embrace the technology that they shunned for so long, it will be interesting to see how brands engage with this. Do they work with the majors to secure music partnerships, the 'media owners' working within a TV-advertising model, or with the artist and fans directly? More to explore here...