Why I Decided Mastercard Needed More Than Just A Sonic Logo

 Sonic branding, one of the big talking points at Cannes this year, has become something of a personal passion, too. 

 While I think this trend is evidence that more brands are heading in the right direction, my take is that marketers must go wider – beyond appealing to our eyes and ears – and begin to register with all our senses. ‘Multisensory branding’ is the right way to think about it.

But before we can unpack that concept, it’s worth examining why ‘sonic branding’ has become such a hot topic. 

Brands have been using sounds (most often in the form of earworm jingles) for a very long time. Music can carry emotional weight that a flat symbol – a traditional logo – simply can’t. When a piece of music is tied to something we enjoy, hearing it packs an emotional punch. And music stays with us. A survey conducted by PHMG found that most consumers have better recall of the sounds in a commercial than the visuals. 

Today, however, the context in which consumers make purchases has changed. And it’s changed fast. In 2018, 15 million Amazon Echo devices had been shipped – but the projection now is that, by 2022, sales will jump to 244 million in the U.S. alone. 

Now consumers are buying things differently in our digital world, either by voice shopping or by tapping a mobile device, I knew we had to rethink how Mastercard relates to its customers– by incorporating multisensory branding. 

A ‘sonic logo’ is not a new concept altogether. The sound when you power up a Macintosh computer or the Intel chimes are well-known and have been around for decades. What has changed now is that, as more of our purchases are voice-enabled, there’s a new opportunity for brands to own that moment. 

At Mastercard, we’ve begun to build on the concept of sonic branding, beyond just a sonic signature.  Our 1.5 second tune, which debuted in our marketing efforts during the Grammys, plays at the point of sale after a successful credit card transaction. But this snippet is just a small part of a brand melody that will play during all of our marketing efforts and integrations. 

Our mission at Mastercard is to be recognizable at every touchpoint of the consumer journey – whether that journey takes place by voice-enabled platforms or on digital devices. We’ve even created an extensive musical architecture that allows us to create variations of our melody, customized to different locations, countries and platforms. 

When you buy something at Tiffany’s, for example, the transaction sound will be different than the one in Gamestop – and if we have a marketing effort in Bogota, our melody will sound different than in Mumbai. 

 Looking to senses other than sound, we’re creating special dining experiences for travelers in branded restaurants that capture the seamless, ‘priceless’ qualities Mastercard is known for – and, in so doing, appealing to a wider set of consumers’ senses. One example, which opened in June of this year, is called Bistro, a restaurant at the Fiumicino International Airportin Rome. At its entrance, Mastercard cardholders are greeted by a robot named Pepper. These guests are then seated at one of our Priceless Touch Tables, which include inbuilt touch screens that present all the menu options, allowing guests to order with just a few taps – effectively transforming the waiting experience. At the end of the meal, they simply pay by tapping their card/phone on they table. In other words, Contactless payment technology is directly integrated into the tables. On the whole, Bistro offers a faster, smoother service than guests have ever experienced before. And the food itself is great! Indeed, leveraging new technology in this way makes the dining experience at Bistro slicker and interactive, but also more fun. 

Basically, the whole idea of branding boils down to connecting with consumers emotionally. And the way you do that effectively is by understanding where they are and what they’re passionate about – and how your brand can best fit into that context. By tapping into several different senses, multisensory branding in general (and sonic logos in particular) provide an opportunity for brands to forge a powerful connection between themselves and the consumer. Expressing a sentiment unique to the brand though multiple doors of perception – be it through the eyes, ears or even taste – distinguishes a given brand’s character from its competition. And when several of our senses receive branded information at once, the commercial takeaway sinks deeper into our minds.

 In a digital world equipped with VR, contactless payments and voice-assisted technology, the time has come for forward-looking brands to make their mark across all five of consumers’ senses.