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
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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
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As I was watching Sprint’s clever “What if ____ ran the world?” ads, I noticed they used no music, no jingles, nothing that would traditionally qualify as a sonic logo. Only one sound stands out consistently in each ad: the walkie-talkie-like bleep of the Sprint phone itself. And every time we hear it in Sprint’s commercials, it’s followed by a joke. By the end of each ad, we’ve heard it 6 to 12 times, and it’s no longer just a phone bleep. It’s a brilliantly timed comic device that has preconditioned us to laughter.

Of course, the same sound can mean vastly different things for different people. For the majority of us, the sound of an incoming text message is exciting, a happy beep signaling a new message from a friend. But for my mother, it’s a sound that strikes terror in her heart and gets her adrenaline flowing. For her, it means she’s received a text from my younger brother in Africa. Often his messages bear bad news – he was robbed on the street once and lost all his money. So this seemingly harmless sound evokes fear and maternal instincts in a split second. One day she told me, “I hate that sound more than any other sound.” Who knew a simple, neutral beep could stir up such an emotional reaction?

The finest sound designer can craft the most perfect sound for your brand, but context is everything. Though most of us don’t start salivating, we’re a lot like Pavlov’s dogs once we’ve been trained to hear a sound in a certain way. Sprint was smart; they trained us from the beginning to hear their phones as fun, even before we interact with one in real life. As soon as a strong sonic branding plan meets a positive customer experience, the Pavlovian buttons will be pushed in just the right ways. For 99.9% of us, this is good news. For the unfortunate alarm clock marketers of the world…I wish you luck.

Charlie McCarron, Sound Consultant
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In sonic branding, much thought and effort goes into finding the perfect sounds to fit a brand’s style. Part of this process involves breaking these sounds into their essential ingredients and critiquing them: “That trumpet is a shade too mellow. Can we find one with more punch?” or “We need to decide if we want a brighter voice or a darker voice.”

Every musical detail counts in the advertising world. Think of the Intel Inside sound, one of the most memorable audio logos of all time – only three seconds long. Creator Walter Werzowa needed a keen ear to carefully design each sound. In the first note alone, he used over 20 different instruments and sounds!

Listen to the Intel sonic logo

Did you hear the anvil, tambourine, and electric spark? If you’re like most listeners, probably not (we’ll get to the reason for this later). But Werzowa hand-picked each of these sounds for a reason. He knew their unique sound “flavours” and was able to mix them perfectly into a memorable audio logo.

We can all tell when an instrument sounds right or wrong in a certain context. This is the “I’ll know it when I hear it” approach, which drives many sound branding decisions. But when it comes down to a few seconds of sound design, it’s important to understand why an instrument sounds mellow, punchy, bright, or dark.

With a little science and an open ear, we’ll explore some of the basic “spices” of sound undiscovered by the average listener – overtones.

Can you sing more than one note at the same time?

Tuvan musician Kongar-ol Ondar employs an age-old Tuvan tradition of overtone singing to sing two, three, or four notes at the same time in this clip from the Late Show with David Letterman:

“How did he do that?!” you might be thinking. Let’s take a closer look at overtones – Read more…

The wrinkles and folds of our ears aren’t just bizarre and useless vestiges like human tailbones, webbed feet, wisdom teeth, or appendixes. In fact, complex outer ears like ours are an evolutionary breakthrough. You won’t find protruding ears on less-developed creatures like fish and lizards. Human ears, on the other hand, are complex sound-catchers. The odd bulges and crevices of the pinna (the visible part of the ear) are designed to amplify sounds relevant to humans, especially the sounds of speech. As Robert Jourdain explains in Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy, “Our pinnae are too small to reflect the long waves that constitute low-frequency sound; they boost only high-frequency components…those most important for speech.” Thanks to the logic of Mother Nature, the sounds we produce when speaking are the same sounds we can hear the best.

So how does the shape of our ears affect how we hear music? Read more…