🎧 What if a brand's emotional appeal was primarily conveyed through sound? In a world where every second counts, how do you make a brand instantly recognizable from the very first notes? How do you create a cohesive, moving, and memorable musical universe that resonates globally? 🌍
🔥 During an exclusive exchange with Vrej Sarkissian, Director of Music and Experience at Orange, the Club We Are COM had the opportunity to delve behind the scenes of theThe Group's sonic identity.
A signature designed to evoke emotions, reinforce brand consistency, and make Orange shine far beyond a screen. 🎶
Hello Vrej, to begin with, what aspects of musical identity do you work on?
Vrej Minassian: Brand management is all about managing emotions. Emotion is essential for a brand, and music is an unparalleled emotional lever. Have you ever tried watching a movie without the music that accompanies it? That's all. 😊
On a daily basis, I manage all the group's emotions in terms of sound. It is from this sonic territory that all the audios of a brand are defined: its voice, its functional sounds, its hold music, its event atmospheres…
At Orange, Our global identity is "Orange is here," an identity available in 18 versions to adapt to the different countries in which we operate internationally. For a brand to be easily identifiable and memorable, it is absolutely necessary that its sonic territory be developed in a consistent manner.
In parallel, I provide solutions to the group's communications team, by framing and facilitating the use of music.
It is not enough to make a judgment of "I like it" or "I don't like it", but to think about business.
What makes a sonic identity memorable? How do you choose one?
Vrej Minassian: A memorable sonic identity is one that promotes memorization and attribution. It's not enough to simply judge it by "I like it" or "I don't like it," but to think from a business perspective. Take the Carglass sound identity, the question is not whether you find it elegant, but whether or not you already know what it is.
The idea, as you've probably guessed, is immediate recognition. From the very first second, you have to be identifiable. At Orange, our brand signature was designed with a focus on proximity and shared understanding. Regardless of the country, these few notes should be instantly associated with our brand.
When should a sonic identity be renewed?
Vrej Minassian: As long as it is working, it is not necessary, and is even discouraged, to renew it. The Nespresso case is interesting. A few years ago, the brand wanted to evolve its famous jingle… The result? A total disaster, because consumers associated those few notes far too closely with the coffee brand and its spokesperson George Clooney.
The point at which we need to start asking questions is when the indicators change, when consumers get tired of a sonic identity. In radio, it's fairly easy to follow the indicators, in television it's more complicated, as audio is not the only element to take into consideration.
Orange collaborates with Universal; how does an advertiser work with a music library?
Vrej Minassian: Universal has been simplifying the lives of our communications professionals for years. Collaborating with a music bookstore means avoiding a lot of legal trouble. In parallel, Universal supports us in more specific projects. We are currently producing a documentary series about talent in Africa, for which they have selected all the music.
When we don't use a music library, like all advertisers, we buy the rights from record labels. However, Orange has the unique feature of having internalized this task. Thus, we contact the rights holders ourselves without having to go through a third party. On the one hand, The composers are quite happy to communicate directly with the client. On the other hand, it is a significant financial advantage is not having to pay an intermediary.
Finally, we also produce our own music, music for which we own all the rights.
So, how do you measure the ROI of a piece of music?
Vrej Minassian: In the short term, the ROI of a track is simply calculated based on Sacem budgets. When a song earns you twice as much as it cost you, it's profitable. 😊
The ROI of a music campaign is more complicated to measure, Given that the impact of audio alone cannot be isolated, is seeking a return on investment in music truly understanding its value?
Is seeking a return on investment in music truly understanding the value of music?
And then what? What do you think the future holds for branded music?
Vrej Minassian: The real question is, what will the music of tomorrow be like? There will always be music, but will it be created more by artists or generated by AI? At Orange, we have decided to absolutely prohibit the use of generative AI music, in order to remain aligned with the rights holders, until the issue of their remuneration has been settled.
Not everything about AI is bad; there are even some wonderful things about it. Some say that these new tools will only replace poor production... However, When we see how quickly artificial intelligence is progressing, we can still ask ourselves: how far will we go?
Visual: Freepik
