| In India, music provides a unique branding opportunity. |
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| "Tandurusti ka raksha karta hai lifebuoy, lifebuoy hai jahan tandurusti hai wahan…" the jingle has been abandoned years ago, but it still rings in the minds of those who have grown up on it. |
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| "Badal rahe hai hum yahan, yeh zameen yeh aasman, naya hai kal, hamara aaj, naya hai aaj, naye bharat ki naye tasveer …" Hear these words and Bajaj comes to mind. |
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| "Kuch khaas hai ham sabhi mein, kuch baat hai ham sabhi mein, baat hai, khaas hai, kya swaad hai zindagi mein ..." No prizes for guessing the brand — Cadbury Dairy Milk. |
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| "You and I in this beautiful world, green grass, blue skies, in this beautiful world, you and I ..." and this is the sound of Hutch. |
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| Just imagine Mozart's 25th symphony playing and you see watches — Titan watches; think of Shubha Mudgal and her Boondon mein jane kya alag hai and its Alto and AR Rahman's notes that connote Airtel. |
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| These are brand sounds — created by advertising that has left a lasting impression on consumers. There is something special about music and brands — something perhaps unique to India and Indians |
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| It is postulated that our ancient seers living in communion with Nature "saw" and "heard" music in many forms and ways. They heard music in the sounds of nature — in the thundering clouds, in the gurgling rivers and crashing waterfalls, in the cries of birds and animals and in the rustle of leaves and trees. These sounds created flutter in their hearts and a feeling of harmony and tranquillity in their minds. So, with joy and thrill, they created the seven basic notes — sa re ga ma pa dha ne sa — from these natural sounds. They then used the permutations and combinations of these notes to create a whole repertoire of ragas that produced in the listener different experiences. Thus was born Indian classical music as we know it today. |
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SA: from the cry of the peacock with its two sounds of lower and higher pitches
RE: from the cry of the bull
GA: from that of a goat
MA: from the cry of the Krauncha bird
PA: from the voice of the Koel in spring
DHA: from the neighing of the horse, and
NE: from the cry of the elephant. |
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| This may be apocryphal but it's interesting to see that the origin of the seven musical notes in India can be traced to our animal brethren. It thus makes music, perhaps, the most basic form of communication and self-expression in India. |
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Consider some other interesting facts about Indians and music.
1. Every Indian movie — Hindi, Tamil or Telugu — is a musical. Songs and dances are a given. And in music, as a culture, we are ready to suspend reality. Playback singers sing for our stars on the screen. In the same movie, different singers sing for the same star and it is alright. |
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| 2. Our religious rituals are accompanied by songs — bhajans — and all our festivals and marriages are celebrated with music — loud, boisterous and uplifting. |
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| 3. Each region in India has its own brand of music — and its own versions of instruments. So the western drum becomes the tabla in the north and the mridangam in the south. |
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| Simply put, India is a musical nation. And music, somewhere in the unconscious, is linked to sight. We see music as much as we hear it — as most music is linked to visuals through films or life rituals. And that's an opportunity for brands. |
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| Today we are moving into a world of experiential marketing and communication. In his seminal work Brand Sense, Martin Lindstrom postulates that as we move forward, strong brands must appeal to more than two senses — the more the better — to deliver experiences. The best experiences involve all the five senses. |
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| Of the five senses, sound is most closely connected with mood. It creates feelings and emotions. Smell is connected to memories, touch creates connections, taste is strongly linked to smell and sight is the over-riding sense. In terms of importance, the senses stack up as follows — in order: sight, smell, sound, taste and touch; but in terms of loyalty building it is: taste, smell, sound, touch and sight — sound clearly middle in both cases. |
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| However, sound is the most portable sense — much stronger than even sight. Pictures do speak a thousand words but to impact, they need to be seen often. Music is carried in our unconscious, can be hummed and be "danced to" without actually having it around. Good music often plays in our minds and hearts easily. Pictures need to be much more powerful for impact to linger; music tends to do this more easily. We tend to, on average, instinctively remember more tunes than visuals! Brand building is about creating memorability — this gives sound and music a distinct edge. |
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| The portability of music and the fact that an Indian "sees music while hearing it" provide brands an opportunity to add another sense to their experience. Some product categories have sound embedded in the product — the opening of a carbonated soft drink bottle, the crackling of a coated wafer biscuit, the shutting thud of a car or the ringtone on a mobile. But music allows any product or brand to add a sound dimension through just creating something memorable. Add to this the fact that music creates moods and emotions and brands are about emotions, it makes the music-brand fit just perfect and terrific. |
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| The advent of television with the dual power of sight and sound made it more attractive for brand building. We are today in a world of reducing "still" time — people being more and more on the move. The return of the radio in the form of FM and the accessibility of music through mobiles and ipods provide brands an opportunity to re-evaluate the role of music in brand communication. |
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Adding music to a brand has other advantages. At one level, it's cheaper to mount — a film cost tens of lakhs to make, a sound track in single digits. It is easy to change — and this is important in an age when you can rarely tell what works until you put it in the market. And can easily be updated with re-mixes, new interpretations and new orchestrations — and thus keep the brand contemporary with just sound!
Something worth thinking about.
Madhukar Sabnavis is Country Head- Discovery and Planning, Ogilvy and Mather, India. The views expressed are personal. Madhukar.sabnavis@ogilvy.com
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