John Smeddle, Head of Creative, WithFeelingEver run your finger across the Highland Bull leather of a Rolls Royce seat, lingering momentarily on the luxury embossed cross-stitching engineered to feel smooth and textured at the same time?
And while you’re lingering, take in the faintly earthy and warm aroma of said leather which will trigger all sorts of self-validating emotions. Jeez, even reading that back is evocative!
Sight. Touch. Smell. They’re known as the holy trinity of luxury brand marketing and as a persuasion toolkit, they’re potent.
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But one has to wonder why luxury brand marketing hasn’t embraced hearing with equal weight to these other three senses. Sight, touch and smell have provided the sturdiest of bridges that cross the divide between having money and having taste.
But numerous research studies show that sound triggers more brain electricity than smell, always considered the most evocative of the five senses. And the reason, we’re told, is sound touches personality and character. Or as many Asians would put it, sound reaches every layer of the onion, right to the core.
May I present exhibit A, the Ferrari? A four year old child has displayed a slightly accelerated heartbeat and increased body motion when hearing a Ferrari engine in the distance. That’s not a reaction based on life experience. The child does not even know what it is, yet it’s still interesting and exciting. An unfamiliar sound that reached right into the psyche and stirred his or her young soul, providing a positive experience for reasons only Freud and Jung could debate.
Sight can be illusionary. In fact, it’s mostly illusionary in marketing. Touch is easily faked by veneer or distraction. Smell is too unreliable, dependent as it is on circumstance. (I’ve left taste out of this equation because it can neither be properly nor improperly represented in anything but, well, word of mouth.)
But the brain has a different filtering system for sound. No one has yet discovered a way to manipulate either the auditory cortex or the amygdala. And sound isn’t a promise either. It either induces emotion or it doesn’t. Does this mean that hearing is the most honest of all the senses?
There are luxury brands which use sonic branding, of course. The high end of the hospitality sector or property development, for instance. Or the first or premium class sub-brands of airlines. One or two others may come to mind while you’re reading this, but in the pantheon of luxury brands around the world, the percentage of those using sonic branding as a primary stimulus is probably no more than twenty.
Given the penetrative nature of sound and the brain activity it ignites, this percentage beggars belief. Whilst acknowledging that this is probably the worst pun you’ve ever read, it would be true to note it makes no sense at all.
The visual allure of jewellery could be a whole lot more immersive with a sonic identity. Imagine hearing a lovely piece of music for De Beers. Or Cartier. Or Richard Mille. The music doesn’t make you think about them. You feel them. It’s a visceral connection which needs no logical explanation.
These particular brands may already have sonic identities. But who knows about them? Even worse, could you hum a tune right now if we said “Louis Vuitton”? No. Because this icon uses its sonic branding to reflect on the quality of the product, not the quality of emotions it stirs.
Brand caretakers should start believing their ears more than their eyes. Even science will tell you it’s the quickest portal to true brand connection.
By John Smeddle, Head of Creative, WithFeeling
