ComMUSICation: From Pavlov's Dog to Sound Branding

by John Groves

Music can say so much. It can make us laugh or cry - it can make us remember our first kiss as though it was just yesterday. Just one chord in a film score is enough to tell us that someone is hiding behind the curtain. We can even hear how a person is feeling just by the sound of their voice. By understanding how such processes work, we are able to create sounds that trigger the desired associations in a branding context. John Groves, a music consultant and composer with a long track record of creating memorable melodies for brands such as Olympus, Mentos, Bacardi, Mars and Visa, documents the birth of a new discipline - Sound Branding. He shares personal experiences and anecdotes of how music can be responsible for suicide, revolutions, and making people pay more for a glass of wine. He explains how sound and music can be used strategically to provide identification, differentiation and generally to steer perception. COMMUSICATION is a mix of cutting-edge scientific findings and one man's analytical - and sometimes humourous - views, ending in a walk-through of his structured system for developing and managing Brand Sound Identities. This book is a must-read for anyone involved in marketing, advertising, branding, music - in fact, for anyone who has ears!

232 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2011