Joel Beckerman, founder and lead composer of Man Made Music, shared eight sonic principles that can up the effectiveness of marketers’ creations in his Thursday session, “The Inescapable Influence of Sound” at PromaxBDA: The Conference 2015.

1. Sound triggers multi-sensory reactions.

Asking for a little audience interaction, Beckerman asked “What is the best-selling dish at Chile’s?”

You are probably tempted to shout out baby back ribs! (Cue that song that will now not leave your head for the entire day.) But the correct answer is sizzling fajitas, no cute theme song needed.

Just the sound alone of those fajitas making their way from the kitchen to the table subconsciously causes customers to also make that their order.

“If one person orders fajitas, the kitchen then makes 15. When the server arrives with the fajitas, with their sizzle, smoking platter and smell of charred onions, the customers are hooked. Everyone orders the sizzling fajitas.”

Takeaway: People respond quicker to sound than any other sense

2. It’s sound that tells the story.

“Television is not a visual medium, television is a sonic medium,” said Beckerman. “Television and movie creator JJ Abrams has said he believes 51% of the experience of his movies lies in the soundtrack.”

Beckerman cited research done by Aniruddh Patel Research that found:

—Sound helps create expectations about events that might be coming up next.

—Leads to associations that aren’t necessarily on the screen.

—Tells viewers if the story is resolved or not.

—Changes the way you interpret characters and their relationships.

—Influences what you remember.

—Allows viewers to be inside the film rather than being outside – that sense of immersiveness often comes from the music and sound.

Marketers also need to be careful about context. Royal Caribbean licensed Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” to market its cruise line, ignoring the fact that the song is really an anthem to heroin. Savvy viewers complained on social media and the campaign was pulled.

3. Sound forges movements.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired his followers to sing spirituals, and those spirituals then appeared on the airwaves around the country, kicking off a sonic, spiritual movement, said Beckerman.

4. Sonic trash kills experiences.

“Sonic trash is unwanted sound. It’s music or sound that doesn’t match the experience that you want to have with any kind of brand.”

A great example of this, cited by Beckerman, is the great Sun Chip noisy bag debacle. A few years ago, Frito-Lay introduced its brand Sun Chips in a new biodegradable bag, which the company thought its environmentally conscious customers would love.

Turns out, Sun Chips eaters were as sonically sensitive as they were environmentally so, and they quickly complained about how noisy the new bags were, forcing Frito-Lay to redesign and relaunch the brand’s packaging.

5. Sound is the secret of engagement.

To demonstrate this, Beckerman showed a fun interactive campaign starring the muscle-bound Terry Crews as the Old Spice guy.

Visitors to the site could tap on Crews’ muscles, each of which would make a sound.

“The campaign was incredibly engaging and incredibly fun,” Beckerman said. “Sound was a big part of this.”

6. Silence is power.

“Silence is the white space of sonic design,” Beckerman said, and the example he chose to illustrate this principle was Disney’s theme parks.

Visitors to Disneyland and Disneyworld probably don’t even realize that so much effort has gone into Disney’s on-site sound design.

“In all of their businesses, it’s remarkable how they use silence and sound,” said Beckerman.

Disney hides speakers in the bushes to create some sounds, and then inserts barriers around certain spaces to “create fake quiet.” What that does is allow visitors to the specific parts of Disneyland – Tomorrowland, Frontierland – to fully enjoy those spaces.

“That natural sound barrier between lands gives viewers permission to decompress without fear of mission out,” said Beckerman.

7. Sound breaks the tyranny of the screen.

As everything in our lives becomes more and more connected, we find that we can’t be glued to screens all the time. Sound can be the answer to that, with certain tones alerting users of certain activities without them having to look at their mobile devices.

“Sound will be a major tool in the Internet of things connecting brands to people,” said Beckerman.

8. Sound solves human problems …

And it does it in ways we might not necessarily expect.

“Everyone goes to hospitals to get better, but the soundtracks in hospitals make us sicker,” said Beckerman. “In a typical emergency room situation, there are always seven devices sounding alarms, which is scary for patients and makes them sicker.

Beckerman’s recommendation for this was along with sending your loved ones flowers when they find themselves in the hospital, also bring them an iPod with headphones.

“Give them an opportunity to choose their own soundtrack and their own path to health,” said Beckerman.

Beckerman concluded by asking the audience “what are those moments in your own life when sound transported you to somewhere else?”

He invited everyone to tweet about it, including #influenceofsound. Man Made Music’s New York-based social team will look at those tweets and authors of favorite tweets have a chance to win a free copy of Beckerman’s book, “The Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel and Buy.”

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