April 15, 2026
Sonic Branding
Sonic branding is no longer a jingle or an afterthought—it’s a strategic, system-level asset that encodes emotion, builds memory, and drives measurable brand impact when designed upstream.
6 minutes
Sonic Branding: Built to be Heard and Remembered
You sit down on the couch.
Snack to the right. Drink on the left. Best blanket in the house.
You scroll (probably too long). You choose. You hit play.
Tudum.
Tu…bi…Tubi.
Huu-whuum.
Fffsshh-ahhhh.
Before the first frame appears, you’re primed. The brand is already in the room.
Lunch break across the street from the office. You tap your phone or your card.
Da-da-ding, da-da-ding, da-da-ding.
Pa-ling.
That’s confirmation, a subtle, positive signal of trust.
None of these brands needed you to see a logo. They reached you through sound.
And yet, inside most creative processes, audio is still treated like garnish.
We all nod when someone says music can make or break an ad. And then we leave the audio conversation until the last week of production.
Defining Sonic Branding
The examples from the streamers are short sequences that identify a channel. The world of sonic branding has expanded from narrow definitions that basically mean “jingle” to a full toolkit and a sonic counterpart of what you might find in a brand book. Visual logos now have sonic logo counterparts. Sonic branding has developed into a system.
Call it sonic identity, sonic DNA, or sound world, really, what we are talking about is translating a brand’s values into tone, tempo, texture. Sonic branding is the audible version of a logo system. It’s how your brand sounds when you have time to explain who you are, and when you don’t. And as a system, sonic branding has to be just as flexible, recognizable, and emotionally intelligent as visual branding devices.
Foundations: Why Sound Works
Sound moves fast. An auditory stimulus can reach the brain in roughly 8 to 10 milliseconds, faster than visual input1.
More importantly, sound goes straight to emotion. It triggers feelings before logic has time to form an opinion.
According to Ipsos, ads with sonic brand cues tested out at 8.53x more effective at driving branded attention than other creative types2. System1 and Radiocentre’s research has shown that audio ads with more right-brain features (like character, melody) increase emotional response and are more likely to cause longer-lasting brand effects3.
“While less frequently used, audio assets are on average more effective than some visual assets, which suggests brands can take the opportunity of audio to improve the branded attention of their video creative over time.”
– Ipsos, The Power of You study
“Present to the consumer’s ears what visual branding offers their eyes…”
– Charles Spence & Steve Keller, Sonic Branding
The work of Dr. Charles Spence of the University of Oxford and Steve Keller of Studio Resonate details the art and science of multisensory perception in sonic branding and reminds us that sound doesn’t operate alone4. It shapes how we experience everything else around it.
I promise this isn’t just theory. Effectiveness researchers have shown that emotionally resonant audio strengthens memory encoding and brand distinctiveness5. Sound can do more than decorate a message. Repeated sonic cues build the memory structures and mental availability that brands fight tooth and nail for, increase ROI, and contribute to decreased price sensitivity.
Music will be the differentiator that helps define many of the most effective campaigns moving forward.
– Les Binet
The evidence is no longer fringe. The same researchers who have shaped how we think about brand growth, attention, and emotion are pointing to sound as a multiplier, not an accessory.
Sonic System Approach
Sonic branding moved beyond just meaning jingles a long time ago. But it’s not just background music or a catchy track either. It’s not something you pick once the edit is locked, at least it shouldn’t be.
It is a system. With its own language and the same depth we expect from brand systems.
A sonic logo. A tonal framework. A sound world. An audible version of your brand book.
Mastercard built its sonic branding approach around a melodic core that flexes across markets and moments6. Mastercard and GfK Global reported that within 12 months of the launch of their sonic brand identity, 77% of their consumers believed that the new sonic identity made the brand more trustworthy7. Mastercard also found that their implementation of sonic branding at the checkout experience led to 3.4x stronger assurance around safety, trust, and acceptance when sound and animation were used8.
Similarly, six months after creating their sonic logo, Tostitos reported a 38% increase in brand recall, a 13% increase in brand score (compared to category benchmarks), and a 70% increase in overall logo appeal9.
This is what sonic identity looks like when it is built upstream, not as an afterthought.
The Blind Spot: Sound is an afterthought
Here’s the truth: we are late.
Sound has always mattered. The research has been building. The platforms have shifted. But, for the most part, our processes have not caught up.
For much of the 2000s and 2010s, social feeds were silent by default. Video autoplayed muted. Captions carried the weight. Then Snapchat, Stories, and TikTok flipped the switch. Sound came back on. Music became discovery. Audio became culture. (Anyone get caught vocal stimming the latest TikTok sound in public? Just me???)
Brands adapted tactically.
But strategically, audio is still often treated as a channel instead of an asset.
Right now, the data is there. The case studies are there. The measurement frameworks are there. What is missing is process change. Audio is still treated as a channel, not as a brand asset.
Audio-First, Not Audio-Only
The shift ahead is not about launching more podcasts or buying more radio.
It is about upstream thinking.
Audio-first means designing with sound from the strategy stage. It means asking what the brand feels and sounds like just as much as we’re asking what it looks like. It means building sonic branding systems that flex across markets, moods, and moments.
The real shift ahead is procedural, not technological. Brands that move to audio-first frameworks will design with sound from the strategy stage. Not because they are launching a podcast. But because sound is one of the fastest ways to encode emotion and memory.
Sound becomes infrastructure, not a last-minute decoration.
The Question
You can close your eyes and still recognize Netflix.
You can look away and still recognize Mastercard.
You can hear a tone from across the room and know exactly who just spoke.
That’s the beauty of having a multisensory brand personality.
So here’s the question.
If your brand went silent tomorrow, would anyone notice?
And if the answer is no, it may not be a creative problem.
It may be a process problem.
- Jain, Aditya; Bansal, Ramta1; Kumar, Avnish; Singh, KD. A comparative study of visual and auditory reaction times on the basis of gender and physical activity levels of medical first year students. International Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research 5(2):p 124-127, May–Aug 2015. | DOI: 10.4103/2229-516X.157168 ↩︎
- Sheridan, Adam, IPSOS. The Power of You: Why distinctive brand assets are a driving force of creative effectiveness. February 2020. https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/publication/documents/2020-02/ipsos_views_power_of_you_0.pdf ↩︎
- System1, Radiocentre. Listen Up! Emotion’s Defining Role in Audio Advertising Effectiveness. https://system1group.com/listen-up ↩︎
- Spence, Charles & Keller, Steve. (2024). Sonic branding: A narrative review at the intersection of art and science. Psychology & Marketing. 41. 1530-1548. 10.1002/mar.21995. ↩︎
- Spence, Charles & Keller, Steve. (2024). Sonic branding: A narrative review at the intersection of art and science. Psychology & Marketing. 41. 1530-1548. 10.1002/mar.21995. ↩︎
- Marketing Brew. Inside Mastercard’s ‘10-layer’ sonic branding plan. Oct 17, 2022. https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2022/10/17/inside-mastercard-s-10-layer-sonic-branding-plan ↩︎
- Spence, Charles & Keller, Steve. (2024). Sonic branding: A narrative review at the intersection of art and science. Psychology & Marketing. 41. 1530-1548. 10.1002/mar.21995 ↩︎
- Mastercard. Mastercard Sonic Branding: The unique set of 6 notes and animation that reinforces peace of mind through a multisensory confirmation. https://developer.mastercard.com/product/mastercard-sonic-branding/ ↩︎
- Rebellion Group. Sonic Branding: Leveraging The Power of Sound for Your Brand. https://rebelliongroup.com/news-insights/sonic-branding-leveraging-the-power-of-sound-for-your-brand/ ↩︎
