The sound of the IFA and visitors as DJs

Judicious and well planned use of music at and to promote trade fairs heightens awareness. Sound evokes associations and emotions intensify the brand experience.

What do brands sound like? That is a question nobody finds absurd today. The ear is a legitimate receptor of brand messages. Even trade fairs use music as a marketing tool for their self-presentation and advertising. For example, since last year the IFA Consumer Electronics trade fair has had its own sound CI. It was developed by digitalklang sonification services, Berlin. The Berlin organisers are convinced it is possible to generate additional awareness in saturated markets by using target-group-oriented acoustic design. Corporate sound, the audible dimension of the corporate design, is very hard to ignore and is processed by the brain even when not consciously listened to.
However, coming up with a distinct corporate sound is an art unto itself. So what is the sound of the IFA? Finding it was a multi-stage process. The Berlin company started with a brand analysis of the IFA by compiling core criteria for the trade fair's self-image, analysis of the visuals, the current campaign, Miss IFA, the target groups and finally the emotional worlds to be communicated. Result: The sound is orientated towards the core concepts of the IFA - modern, innovative, high-quality, technical, entertaining - and communicates them through music in the most powerful way possible, with emotion.
The second step was to search for a range of sounds by presenting sounds considered to be associated with the core concepts. Five loops were finally chosen that provided the basis for developing an individual sound world and the official IFA sound logo. These sound elements and the sound logo are used in the Internet, in TV ads, on the CD ROM presentation, as a gap filler and for announcements in the trade fair halls.
As the example of the IFA shows, sound design can create a framework and boost the recognition value of a brand via different communication channels. But a sound for an entire trade fair is by no means all that can be achieved with music.
"If it is to fulfil the communicative function of an exhibition or trade fair, the creation must produce an ambience that places people, innovations and products in relation with one another and gets them resonating together", says Bertram Ernst. The managing director of Bochum-based mönchspfeffer GmbH is convinced that music has always played a decisive role in defining positions and interconnecting people and contents. "So it is only logical to use innovatively prepared musical vibrations to meet today's challenges in modern brand communication and build a bridge between the brand world and the target group." Admittedly he does still come across customers who only think of music as a higher noise level, but he claims success in making music an essential part of holistic communication.
His maxim is: The use of music at a trade fair should promote communication, contribute to giving the brand a face and act as a pointer to different aspects of the content. The purposes of exhibition music as defined here cannot be met with just archive or chart music, which is not specified in terms of content. Instead, it requires a new composition that reflects not only the brand world and the current communication orientation but also the product world. "In addition to the compositions and their sound design, the formats are decisive in our experience-oriented communication world: Alongside the use of music in conventional stage presentations, ‘sound ceilings have become popular in recent years."
For Volkswagen AG, the Mönchspfeffer sound studio developed various compositions as sound ceilings for their trade fair appearances at NAIAS, the Tokyo Motor Show and the Geneva Motor Show. These succeeded in expressing each product segment in space and time. These sound ceilings were played with differing intensity in various partitions of the stand and homogenised the surrounding noises. "A suitable grooving ambience music will make the trade fair stand appear to be a closed unit and shut out the surrounding noises of nearby competitors. It is inviting and stimulating; it harmonises and synchronises all activity on the stand", says Ernst, who also works as a composer.
The company is currently the only one on the market to offer a tool whose simple user interface allows users to ‘navigate musically' through the various parts of the stand. For example, the trade fair visitor can make his or her own sound ceiling from prepared tracks and flood the stand with sound as a sound designer or DJ. The idea is not to let the visitors become composers but rather to encourage active interaction with the brand and its characteristic features. This innovative tool is called I-AM (interactive mixer) and offers everyone the creative process of music. Without long training, without tuition, without installation - just click and go.

m+a report Nr.7 / 2006 vom 27.10.2006
m+a report vom 27. Oktober 2006