It’s rare for a commercial to be so moving it sends chills down my spine, but Nike’s “Human Chain” ad struck me just right.

“Ali in the Jungle” by The Hours is great song, but I’m not sure the song itself would have given me goosebumps. And the visuals, stunning as they may be, would never have done it for me without this song. Many of the 250,000+ YouTube viewers would probably agree – these music supervisors and film editors found the perfect match of music and images.

If an ad agency knew the secret formula for a “chill response” and could guarantee X number of them in their viewers, they’d be set for life. Why?

1. A chill response signifies an intense emotional reaction.

2. These reactions to music and film are almost always associated with positive feelings.

3. The chill response is physically measurable market research.

So why haven’t marketers been all over this? In truth, psychologists have been studying chill responses to music for years, but their findings have been limited by the unpredictable nature of chills. A powerful chill reaction is rare, and it seems to depend on a delicate balance of many factors. Reactions can vary widely from person to person, and some people reportedly never experience chills or goosebumps at all when they listen to music.

Still, some studies have found common musical qualities that tend to give people the chills:

1. Changes in volume

2. Entry of a voice

3. New or unprepared harmonies

4. Sudden textural changes

5. Solo instrument emerging from a softer orchestral background

While none of these factors alone will guarantee an emotionally powerful song, they can be helpful guidelines for critiquing a track. Ask: does the track change enough musically? Does it have dynamic highs and lows? Does it surprise the listener at key points? These questions can help steer you toward the next goosebump-inducing hit.

Which commercials are so good they’ve given you the chills? Post them in the comments section below.

For more info, this study outlines some of the best chill research out there: “Listening to Music as a Re-Creative Process” Grewe, et. al., 2007 (pdf).  http://musicweb.hmt-hannover.de/kopiez/Grewe-etal(2007)Chills.pdf

Charlie McCarron, Sound Consultant
soundlounge

Everyone in the recording business felt it coming – the growing stampede of internet-savvy listeners who got a taste of free music and never went back. While many cynics see this as a harbinger of doom for the music industry, optimists like Terry McBride see this transformation in listener behaviour as an opportunity to rethink the system. McBride believes the focus needs to shift away from monetizing music files, because he predicts our desire to “own” music will fade away in the next few years.

“The iPod is over,” says McBride, referring to the hassle of downloading and organizing music files. If his predictions are correct, on-demand streaming programs like Spotify and Last.fm will inevitably change our cultural instinct to collect CDs, download mp3s, or otherwise “own” a music library. Instead, we will have instant access to any piece of music ever recorded (just check out the YouTube-based Muziic.com if you don’t agree). Who wouldn’t want infinitely free music?

There still may be a part of us that isn’t convinced. Why should I replace my personal, meaningful album collection with a vast, impersonal database of songs somewhere up in the clouds? This question is one at the heart of the new music revolution, and it’s precisely the point McBride is getting at. According to McBride, it’s no longer content that matters, but the music’s context. The new industry leaders will be those who create the most emotionally engaging system for listening to and discovering music.

Back in 2002, Wired’s co-founder Kevin Kelly wrote an insightful article on the digital music revolution:

“Copies are so ubiquitous, so cheap (free, in fact) that the only things truly valuable are those which cannot be copied. What kinds of things can’t be copied? Well, for instance: trust, immediacy, personalization.”

In other words, we don’t need a gigantic database of music files, we need a friend who finds us awesome music we will like. When the music is free and infinitely reproducible, real-life human recommendations become the precious commodity. Talent scouts will be leaders in this new music industry – heartening news for the music supervisors, reviewers, DJs, and mixtape junkies of the world.

Charlie McCarron, Sound Consultant
soundlounge

A few weeks ago, we posted an article about the influential “sonic logos” of a baby’s life – its mother’s heartbeat, its mother’s voice. But what about its mother’s music? Can music be just as powerful inside the womb?

Shortly after posting the article, we were contacted by Michael Godart, whose day job revolves around prenatal music listening. He and his wife Adrianne have developed the Lullabelly, a musical belt for pregnant mothers to play songs for their unborn babies. Michael has been researching the effects of prenatal music and getting feedback from Lullabelly moms, so we were excited to hear his thoughts on the matter.

Listen…

So prenatal listening can calm babies and connect them with their parents’ voices. After birth, babies may even remember the music played to them in the womb. But now, the question on every parent’s mind – Will my baby become a musical genius? Michael shared his thoughts on prenatal music as an educational tool.

Listen…

For more information about the Lullabelly, visit lullabelly.com.

soundlounge

Sound Branding, Brand Alliances With Music, or Branded Entertainment, call it what you like, these are effectively a form of advertising disguised as: a game, event, sponsorship or hospitality. Midem, the largest international music convention dedicated several sessions to that almost Holy Grail, ‘How Can Bands and Brands Work Together?’ So it is not surprising that some serious players from the brands were invited to take the stage, from Nokia to Coca-Cola (‘Top Brands talk Music Strategy’ and ‘Converse, Pepsi and Cornerstone talk Music Marketing’). Music and Brands are big business. According to the Association of National Advertisers, in 2006, the top 100 US advertisers splashed between $150 million and $2 billion just on sound-enabled media, such TV ads and the Internet. In the UK, it is estimated that in 2008 the production spend on acquiring copyright music for synchronization, that is the right to choose a well known track and use it in a commercial, hit £60m ($98.8 million). Current predictions are that in the next decade, advertisers will be looking to invest an eye-watering $240 billion on branded entertainment.

With marketers freely admitting that music makes up 50% of the total consumer experience, it may have been a little surprising for the Music Industry to learn from Emmanuel Seuge of The Coca-Cola Company “The music industry is much more open and willing to find new creative models in the way we interact with them…but at the same time it’s much more complex. The management of the artists are more smart marketeers than I am! They have a real vision of what they want to do with their artists, and the artists themselves have a point of view. Aligning everyone on a shared view is the challenge.”

This brave comment goes straight to the heart of the issue and it may be some consolation for Emmanuel to learn that he is no alone. Whilst 63% of Brand marketers use music, 56% have no idea how to measure the use of sound and music and 20% don’t even try (Resource Association of National Advertisers).

So having heard from the Brands – it was the turn of the Music Industry to take the stage. Management giants like Chris Morrison from CMO Management (Blur, Gorillaz, Grace Jones and many more) had some very important things to say about bands and brands. Morrison agreed that Brands will be involved in some of his artist projects with a word of warning: “You have to be very careful about branding – there’s a great danger of music being corporatised at this point, and I see things that certainly worry me considerably.” When asked what kind of things Morrison is seeing that he doesn’t like: “The Duffy Coca-Cola ad was abysmal, and Robbie Williams on T-Mobile was terrible…You have to be very very careful with how you associate with brands.”

One thing is for sure, simply slapping a brand logo on stages is very different to becoming true partners. And with an increasing number of events and artists now wanting to enter the dialogue and the projected figures brands are willing to invest, we have to be talking real music strategy rather than just brand involvement. We know that just like any relationship, it will need trust, honesty, shared values and vision and that will mean a shift to what can I do for you, from WIFM. Then Emmanuel, we can start to get real alliance round the table.

Ruth Simmons, CEO
soundlounge

Imagine a commercial with music so alluring and contemporary that it draws thousands of YouTube visitors within weeks with comments like “can you tell me from where i can download the song please?” and “it’s really awesome!!!”. It must have used a hit song or a track from a new artist with Record Company marketing clout, and it probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to licence, right? Listen for yourself…

In reality this track chosen for the new Canon commercial (”Blackbird Song” by Ben Cocks) was from a production music library. The truth is that it was significantly less expensive for our client than a hit song would have been. And the song’s production quality and “catchiness” is on par, if not ahead of, most higher-profile tracks out there. Read more…

The very first sonic logo I heard was at 12 weeks gestation. It was my mother’s heartbeat. The second was her voice. These two simple sounds gave me a sense of self and my first, albeit hazy, understanding of the world outside. With these audio clues, I could tell not only where my mother was but also whether her surroundings were exciting or calm, happy or sad, dangerous or safe. I even heard my mother’s language and imitated it in my own cries. From the moment I was born, I was able to recognise like-minded spirits simply from the sounds that I heard.

But I was no baby genius. This ability to detect subtle changes in mood, geography, safety and hostility just by listening is a survival skill inherent in us all. The truth is that sound is one of the most sophisticated communication tools that we possess and one that neuroscientists are just beginning to understand.

We are physiologically programmed to respond to nature. Most of us find the sound of the sea very soothing, and not just because it reminds us of holidays. Its frequency of 12 cycles per minute is actually the same as the breathing frequency of a sleeping human. Birdsong also promotes feelings of well-being. We know instinctively that when the birds are singing we are safe; when they stop, we get worried. BP have recently installed birdsong soundscapes in their toilets as part of their campaign of stimulating a sense of well being and calm for their motorist customers. Check out the number of garages that play heavy rock. As my colleague Julian Treasure remarks – if motorists are listening to sounds like that, are they ever going to drive within the speed limit?

So if getting close to nature is one way to connect with humans very quickly are brands using these stimuli to connect with consumers? The answer is yes.

Take MGM. Nothing says louder that I am ‘king of the jungle’ than the roar of a lion. In a time of intense competition and a city that felt like a human jungle, Metro Goldwyn Meyer adopted the lion’s roar as their logo.

But one brand takes us right back to Mama. Check out Audi’s sonic logo blatantly based on the human heartbeat. The ultimate endorsement of safety and life itself. Where’s my dummy?

Ruth Simmons, CEO
soundlounge

Music is one of the most valuable tools at an advertiser’s disposal. In 2006, the top 100 US advertisers splashed between $150 million and $2 billion just on sound-enabled media, such TV ads and the Internet, according to the Association of National Advertisers. In the UK, it is estimated that in 2008 the spend on acquiring copyright music for synchronization hit £60m ($98.8 million).

But brands have worked to understand how a particular target group, with shared values and aspirations, forms a loyalty to a specific brand. They have figured out how to manage and measure how we respond to color, texture, lighting, and other apparently visceral stimuli. So is sound simply the next frontier?

For the full article, please click here.

The iTunes store has changed the way listeners judge music by putting a 30-second time limit on their attention spans. Songwriters may cringe, but it’s now unavoidable. The hard truth is if a song doesn’t deliver in this short window of time, it simply won’t sell.

Working out how to sell product with 30 seconds of sound has been our focus at soundlounge for nearly 3 decades. Since commercials rarely use more than 30 seconds of music, we have to find songs or parts of songs that “sell” (i.e. make a memorable, emotional impression) in a very short amount of time. How?

1. Get to the hook quickly. Whilst romantic composers like Mahler and Strauss had the privilege of fans with hour-long musical attention spans, today’s songwriters have no such lattitude,. The 30 second sample must have a memorable ‘hook’ – a catchy guitar riff, a clever lyric, a killer beat. A good hook sticks in your head for weeks and compels you to listen to the track again and again. That’s the kind of song that spreads online like wildfire and gets chosen for that next Apple iPod commercial.

2. Create a distinctive sound ‘snapshot’. Advertisers and bands have at least one thing in common – they both need to be heard above the noise. In this area, advertisers can actually learn a thing or two from popular bands who have worked hard to consistently stand out from the crowd. Having a unique sound is part of the solution. But what if your listener doesn’t even give you 30 seconds? Many impatient listeners take an ‘audio snapshot’ of the first few seconds and judge a song based on its production quality and instrumentation.

3. Take us on a journey. Music moves us when it moves. Great songs give us something to anticipate from start to finish. They lead us along through imaginative melodies, chord progressions, and lyrical stories. 30 seconds might be short for a musical journey, but that may be all you’ve got so even a hint of oncoming change will go a long way. If your 30-second sample sounds stagnant, try varying the dynamics, instrumentation, or harmony to keep your audience wanting more.

Charlie McCarron, Sound Consultant
Ruth Simmons, CEO
soundlounge

So which tv Christmas commercial most holds a special place in your heart? At soundlounge, we have created a list of our own personal selection. Let us know if we have left out your favourite…

1. Coca Cola (Holidays Are Coming)
2. John Lewis (From Me To You)
3. M&S ( This Party Started)
4.Budweiser (Horses)
5. Coca Cola (Polar Bears)
6. Irn Bru (Walking In The Air)
7. M&S (Most Wonderful Time Of The Year)
8. Heineken (Let It Snow)
9. Kellogg’s
10. Lucky Strike

And your word for the day is…’diegetic’. Diegetic and non-diegetic are cinematic terms relating to the use of sound in a film. Diegetic refers to sound whose source is visible on the screen, or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film. Where as non-diegetic is sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action. A film’s music soundtrack is nearly always non-diegetic, creating a sense of mood and accentuating key moments in a film’s plot. In the following clip from Mel Brooks’ film High Anxiety, he cleverly plays with this convention – moving the music from non-diegetic to diegetic – enjoy.

Brian Kelly, Creative Director
soundlounge