Ba Daa Ba Dinnng. A Sound Strategy
November 11th, 2006 by Chief Nut
You know the notes … those are the four tones that are as tightly tied to the “Intel Inside” brand strategy as the blue oval logo. People are picking up on multi-sensory branding (finally) and some BIG money is being spent in the process. Microsoft retained musician Robert Fripp to develop the perfect 4 second chime that will help burn the Microsoft Vista brand into our collective Cerebral Cortexes (err … Corti? … Cortexans? … oh, never mind). Eighteen months in the making, this new chime is one second longer than the Intel Inside chime. And, according to this article by Seattle Pi, Microsoft estimates that these and other sounds, “will be played trillions of times in years to come.” (ACK! I’m good with only hearing it a couple of hundred million times, thank you!)
This becomes a love/hate topic for me. It’s fabulous that companies are realizing that there are three or four untapped senses in their existing brand strategies. What distubs me is that, although Intel arguably has the most recognized sound on the planet, there are hoards of people that despise the sound because it’s over played. Repetition good … Annoying people bad.
