Audio
Audio content is what people remember best. What is heard is immediately processed in the brain and creates images, often entire stories, in the mind’s eye. Making the best possible use of this for communication and branding is the task of the audio department in the branding agency. WIDESOUL is the audio brand of INCREON.
AUDIO BRANDING.
Creating emotional impact for the brand with sound typical for the brand.
Sounds trigger emotions.
They create the bridge to our feelings. And this is where the great opportunity lies. Let’s take a look at the rational content of a website, for example. It can be given an emotional balance through sound. This makes rational content easier to understand and better absorbed. Music creates a feel-good aspect in communication and thus achieves a special closeness to the brand. Audio branding therefore also underscores the identity of a brand. By developing the sound pattern strictly according to your brand positioning, we can arouse emotions in a targeted manner and guide them in favor of your brand. WIDESOUL helps you to manifest the identity of your brand with audio branding.
Audio branding in brand communication
Sound is the bridge to our heart and soul. Using acoustic stimuli in brand communication therefore has enormous potential. Acoustic branding is still in its infancy compared to visual branding. And there is often a general lack of awareness. Audio branding is therefore a relatively young discipline. Jingles or sound logos have been around for a long time, but the aspect of using audio branding holistically in brand development is rather new. The main reason for this is that the use of multimedia media in communication is constantly on the rise. Ultimately, it is no longer a problem to integrate audio files and video files into websites thanks to the high data bandwidth on the Internet.
Users now expect a website to virtually speak to them and communicate the content using all the possibilities of multimedia. On the other hand, it has become much easier to deal with multimedia media. Every smartphone can record, save, edit, and distribute images and sound. The “photo of the future” is the 15-second video anyway. Sound plays an important, emotionalizing role in all these media. We hear movies more than we see them. With this in mind, even in the days of silent films, moods were made comprehensible with the piano and images were emotionalized. Without music and sound, a movie is abstract.
How to create effective audio branding for your brand.
As a branding agency and brand consultancy, INCREON always focuses on the brand. At WIDESOUL as a sound branding agency, the brand is also at the center of all productions. We always have the target audience in mind and emotion in the gut. We build on technical perfection with experienced intuition. And we top off sparkling creativity with strategic advice. We are always artistically free and versatile, not closed to any direction, but essentially mainstream with a slight focus on soul, jazz, and groove.
Hear the emotion. That is the motto and goal of WIDESOUL. Sound branding is part of strategic and creative brand work. The task of WIDESOUL’s sound branding service is to make the core and personality of a brand tangible not only visually but also acoustically. Acoustic stimuli appeal to people’s subconscious much more strongly than purely visual communication can. Sound branding transports positive associations and emotional images into the minds and hearts of your target audiences. Using this not only offers great opportunities for successful branding in B2C markets, but also in B2B markets. This is because an acoustic stimulus has an intensive subconscious effect. A video with below-average production and sound, for example, can ruin a lot in terms of branding. Precisely because acoustic stimuli tend to have a subliminal effect, their impact is enormous. The acoustic perception of a brand makes a quick and lasting impression. This is why it must be built up from the outset and across all means and media in a brand-strategically sound manner. Sound branding is no coincidence, but is the result of strategic creativity.
WIDESOUL supports you in all phases of sound branding. Once the brand positioning has been defined, clear specifications for sound branding are derived from it. Within these defined specifications, we then systematically build up a suitable, unique acoustic brand identity.
Consistency within the brand identity is crucial to the success of sound branding. The aim is to develop a uniquely perceptible sound pattern (sound image) for the brand. This sound pattern must then be implemented consistently across all media and in line with the occasions and the respective use. This means that the sound pattern must have a consistent effect at all sound branding touchpoints (points of contact with the target audience).
Sound Branding Touchpoints
- Internet: website, web video, web banner, web slider
- Sales: room acoustics, elevator music, entrance/waiting area, point of sale
- Events: trade fair/show, event, product presentation, company presentation
- Media: radio, cinema, TV
- Product: Product sound, packaging sound
- Telephone: waiting loop, ringtone
- Internal: computer startup sound
WIDESOUL is your partner for the production and implementation of sound branding.
The success of sound branding is based on three factors: a sound strategy, independent creation, and consistent implementation. Technology is a means to an end and is neither a significant success factor nor a cost factor. This is because the technical possibilities for sound branding have changed dramatically in recent years. Many things have become easier. For example, smartphones equipped with an external microphone can now be used to make high-quality sound recordings and professional video recordings. Really good individual results can be achieved with relatively little effort. This does not mean that everything has to be produced completely custom-tailored. Rather, the aim is to find the right and appropriate sound for your brand from the wealth of available options and then customize it. This is often enough to position and distinguish yourself independently within the framework of sound branding.
WIDESOUL produces unique and high-quality sound branding creations for your brand. In the context of sound branding, high quality is also defined by the fact that standardized processing qualities, mixing qualities, and uniform data qualities are used. Our expertise, experience, and technical capabilities guarantee you the best possible results from recording to final mastering.
The legal hurdles involved in the acquisition of intellectual property, particularly with regard to the use of music, can repeatedly lead to problems and subsequent costs. Ultimately, it is hardly possible today to keep track of where and in what context data is used. Audio data, video data, and image data are quickly integrated into a PowerPoint presentation, passed on, reproduced, or published on the Internet. We do everything we can to ensure that our customers are legally unassailable. That is why WIDESOUL works exclusively with license-free music or GEMA-free material. The buy-out is also regulated when voice actors are used within the scope of the definition of sound branding voices. For purely in-house productions, we even go so far as to assign the exclusive rights to our customers.
With WIDESOUL you play it safe. The use of 100% royalty-free music or 100% GEMA-free music protects you and ensures your independence.
Just like the copyrights, the costs at WIDESOUL are structured in a customer-friendly and pragmatic way. There are no time or geographical usage restrictions within our pricing structure. With a one-off payment, we transfer the unlimited use of our pieces to you. This is also guaranteed for material that we incorporate from external sources. Thanks to efficient processes defined in advance, WIDESOUL’s overall costs always remain manageable. This applies to the simple dubbing of a web video as well as to the development and implementation of an overarching sound branding concept. In addition, your sound branding project will define exactly what the result should look like right from the start. Briefing, re-briefing, coordination, and collaboration follow clear processes and structures. This gives you maximum cost certainty throughout the entire sound branding process.
With WIDESOUL, you know right from the start what you can expect: professional results at fair prices with no follow-up costs.
Instruments and technology are important for the production of professional sounds, but they are more a means to an end. As an agency, knowing which instruments, which technical solution or software, or which plug-in will achieve the goal most effectively is the basis of our work for our customers. It goes without saying that the equipment is precisely tailored to the respective requirements. The most important thing is to understand our customer and the brand and to creatively, uniquely, and successfully implement the brand positioning in words and music.
Brands and equipment we trust:
Our network consists of many different professional speakers, copywriters, musicians, and artists. However, we are also open to new talent and welcome qualified applications. In the case of musicians and artists, a decisive prerequisite for us is that they are not members of GEMA. This is the only way we can guarantee our clients GEMA-free music. As an audio branding agency, WIDESOUL only offers 100% royalty-free music and GEMA-free material. That’s why we can only include musicians and artists in our network who can offer us their material accordingly. In addition to in-house production and our own resources, we also draw on external partners and sources, which are then individually adapted to the requirements of the project.
Sound branding, audio production, music composition …
Sound branding
Charge your brand emotionally with sound branding (audio branding), strengthen the brand identity at the branding touchpoints, and increase the efficiency of your media.
Audio production
Use the emotional power of music, speakers, sound effects, and acoustic stimuli for integrated and holistic brand communication.
Music composition
Give your presentations, videos, and films their own brand-typical acoustic pattern and emphasize your brand being experienced with all senses.
How sound branding is now possible and affordable for every company.
Effective audio branding with little effort.
We have to keep reminding ourselves of the technical changes that have taken place in recent years. Music production and the studio landscape have changed dramatically. Tablets and smartphones can now be used to make professional music (idea development, songwriting, parts of pre-productions). With a little equipment and software, any computer can be upgraded to a fully-fledged professional recording studio — right through to mastering. This alone makes audio production much more efficient.
All technical devices have also become smaller and more powerful at the same time, which in turn means that they can be used much more directly and from any location. The simple technical editing options mean that changes can be made quickly and easily. And professional technology is now accessible to a much larger group of artists: Virtually every musician now has their own recording studio at home. This results in a higher quantity of very good and unique sound material at relatively low cost. The majority of artists offer interesting audio material via a variety of databases. And the material is no longer just average, as it was in the past. Today, high-quality material is available at comparatively low cost.
Being location-independent also means that voice-over artists, for example, do not have to go to a specific recording studio and record on location. Many professional voice-over artists record their voice-overs in their own homes, which means that we now have access to a professional selection of international voice-over artists for dubbing videos in all countries relatively quickly and at reasonable cost. This in turn leads to a reduction in costs in this area.
All companies no longer have to worry about the cost of sound branding. This is because it is much more about the consistent understanding of branding and the resulting opportunities than the high costs associated with technology. In short: The artistic component wins out and the cost of technology continues to fall. We have a large repertoire of good basic material that can be put together effectively for your own needs and used to create a strong brand. Today, even mastering can be done to a high standard without great effort.
Our promise for effective audio branding:
All for too often, people in the music and audio industry fall into the quality trap. Especially among musicians and sound professionals, it is not uncommon to “tweak the last 2% to get the last 1% out”. This last percent is usually only heard by full professionals, but it is what ultimately causes costs and time to explode. We work extremely efficiently in this area and always try to strike the right balance between technology, time and, last but not least, the nerves of everyone involved.
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