THE

Four
Golden Rules
OF

Sound
– The Sound Agency –
Your business is already
making sound - and if it’s
not planned or designed, it
could well be hurting you.
Here are our four golden rules for designing and deploying sound in
any organisation. Follow these as you plan your own sound, and you
won’t go far wrong.
1.

Make it
congruent
1. MAKE IT CONGRUENT

All our senses affect each other in what are

cross-modal effects.

If you line the senses up with messaging that’s

pointing in the same direction – saying the same thing,
or in the same style – then you benefit from
super-additivity, which is actually more multiplicative
than additive: add congruent sound to a visual
stimulus and you will more than double the impact.

Think of sound in films to prove this to yourself: most of the

emotional impact in any movie comes from the music and sound
effects, not what you see. And research shows that well-designed
sound dramatically increases both recall and liking for any
commercial.

So ask the question: is our sound amplifying or undermining

our visual brand in each touchpoint? We now have ways of
measuring how well sound matches a brand’s personality or
values, so congruence is no longer a matter of gut feel.
2.

Make it
appropriate
2. MAKE IT APPROPRIATE

Sound always exists in a context, and for a business

there are many contexts to consider: advertising,
events, corporate videos, social media, websites,
podcasts, the telephone, and of course physical
spaces like corporate receptions, offices, shops and
showrooms - and probably many more for your
particular organisation.

They all need to be designed for the ears as well as the eyes.

You can start this yourself by doing a simple exercise: close

your eyes and listen, in each context. Is what you hear fully and
accurately expressing your brand or organisational culture, in a
way that works in that particular context?
3.

Make it
valuable
3. MAKE IT VALUABLE

Sound can help or it can hurt: noise is a major

problem in many spaces, distracting people and even
making the unwell. Badly designed sound erodes
effectiveness and desire, making it harder to work,
buy or otherwise create value.

Well designed sound can increase dwell-time in shops, enhance

consumption of food, drink and many other products, raise
customer and staff experience to a new level, and add a whole
new dimension to every interaction, surprising and delighting
people.

We’ve installed nature sound in service station toilets and helped

to increase customer satisfaction by 50%; we’ve increased retail
sales by up to 10% with effective sound; we’ve sonified airports,
banks, vast conventions, shopping malls, offices and even ski
slopes, in each case creating extra value for the people using
those places.

If your sound is not creating value, maybe switch it off!

4.

Make it
consistent
4. MAKE IT CONSISTENT

Is the quality of your organisation or brand reflected

by the quality of your sound in all touchpoints
(which in physical spaces also involves the acoustics
and the quality of the sound system)?

We have very often found a mismatch there, with low quality

sound in poor acoustics contradicting the claimed quality of a
brand.

And then there’s the content itself. Music is both the most
powerful and the most abused of all sounds, as we often
experience songs, styles or artists that are inconsistent with the
context , the brand or values behind it, and what people are
attempting to do.

Consistency matters in time and space as well as in messaging:

as your employees, customers or other stakeholders move from
one context to another do they get a consistent message through
their ears?

One common problem is telephone sound. Try some secret

shopping on your own phone system and ask: how well does
this match the rest of our brand experiences?
CHECKLIST

✓ Make it congruent.
Is your sound amplifying or undermining your visual brand?

✓ Make it appropriate.
Close your eyes and listen, in each context.

✓ Make it valuable.
If sound is not adding value, consider switching it off!

✓ Make it consistent.
Try some secret shopping on your own phone system and ask:
how well does this match the rest of our brand experiences?
These golden rules are invaluable, but of course
there’s no substitute for experience and
appropriate skills.

If you’d like a chat about how The Sound Agency could help
deliver astounding return on investment by releasing the
power of sound for your brand or organisation, please email
jonny.round@thesoundagency.com.