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BUSINESS: Brands, Bugs and Bottoms Berlin-based MetaDesign is a branding company that doesn't limit itself to logos and product names. According to company web site, “Sound branding rounds out a company's integrated brand communications strategy. Its strategic goal is to make the brand recognizable in an aural environment. Like corporate design methodology, the sound branding process involves a variety of steps: research, briefing, conceptualization, implementation, and documentation. "The high art of sound branding lies in the sensitive combination of sound textures, aural logos, identity-related and functional sounds, as well as TV and film endings. The effective integration and presentation of all aspects of the brand give it strength and an effective identity.” A recent profile in the business magazine Fast Company reports on MetaDesign's work for electronics company Siemens. In addition to the usual branding features - typeface, logo, colors - MetaDesign created sounds and syncopated rhythms to help give the brand "more emotion." A team of 10 composers drew inspiration from the company's core values, its history, and "the Fibonacci series, a pattern of numbers found in nature by a 13th century mathematician." Not only did they deliver to Siemens an "aural logo," but they created a "complete toolbox of sounds and acoustic signals to experiment with on TV, radio, the Internet at trade fairs - even in its telephone hold music." Read the Fast Company short feature, "Sounds to Brand By" Visit MetaDesign and see their presentation on "corporate sound"
A somewhat less thoughtful -- and less successful -- business idea came from Ian Mears. The Briton's idea was showcased recently in Business 2.0 magazine's "100 Dumbest Business Moments for 2003." The 14th dumbest moment came when Mears, claiming to have caught the flu from former Beatle Paul McCartney, attempted to sell the germs on eBay. His offer (to either cough into a resealable bag or provide a plastic container full of mucus) was withdrawn; the hid bid at the time was around $2.00.
Read Business 2.0's entire "100 Dumbest Moments" [fee required], or simply an account of Mears' auction on About.com (April 25, 2003) Finally, some advertisers looking for the right song to promote their hemorrhoid treatment for will have to keep looking. The family of the recently-deceased Johnny Cash has turned down a request to use the late Man in Black's early hit, "Ring of Fire." Although the tie-in idea had been supported by Merle Kilgore, who co-wrote the song with Cash's wife June Carter Cash, also recently deceased, the surviving Cash family thought it would be demeaning, not "funny" as Kilgore had suggested. Daughter Rosanne Cash said "the song is about the transformative power of love, and that's what it has always meant to me, and that's what it will always mean to the Cash children." Read articles about the Cash "Ring of Fire" flap from the BBC or from NME |
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