The sound of the Harrod’s Sale
Harrod’s. The Bazaar for the rich and famous. Harrod’s Sale. Not like any other sale. So true. I popped in today to have a listen to the shop. Entered through the main entrance and came upon the Sale Room full of Perfumes. It was shock and awe on my sense of smell. Then the sense...
sonic space: The Sound of Las Vegas
Ruth Mortimer pointed out a great example of how sound matters for brands in her article Branding the Perfect Pitch in Brand Strategy (February 2005). In Las Vegas it is not music that greets you when you enter a casino, it is the sound of coins coming out of slot machines. A few years ago...
FACT or Fiction: Topshop gets it all wrong in their windows?
First of all, I love FACT magazine. Definitely one of the most interesting magazines in the U.K. The latest issue is not impressed with the UK clothes retail chain TopShop and NME the (once iconic) music magazine. Louise Brailey spotted a recent TopMan Window display with three mannequins in the window, each representing a different...
Starbucks: smell the coffee and think small…
So have Starbucks given up on music or are they just refocusing their attention? When it was announced this week that they were to pull out of their record label Hear Music and hand over this business to their partners the Concord Music Group, an obvious reaction was ‘So what went wrong?’ This news was...
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Sonic Retail Rant 4: The Sound of Silence
In the citizensound sonicRetail survey, we found a few stores decided on a policy of a music-free zone in–store. Shops such as Church’s shoes had the sound of people talking and shoes being squeezed on to feet, nothing more. And this worked for the environment and the clientele. A sense of calm away from...
Brave Brands: / Sonic Branding: / Sonic Retail: / Sound & Vision: / The kind of stuff citizensound does:
Sonic Retail Rant 3: Is Mango the Westlife of Fashion Stores?
Mango stores are the sonic version of vanilla ice cream. After a while you are yearning for mint choc chip, raspberry, peach or mango even…anything but vanilla…I have to ask the question – what is the point of having music in store if the music is so bland? It got me thinking… If Mango...
Sonic Retail Rant 2 – GAP vs HSBC
In our first post on the sound of the brand at retail, citizensound mentioned the lack of investment that seems to go into sound within the retail space. This comes in part from a marketing focus on the visual when it comes to financial commitment. The sense of sight dominates marketing decisions – the logo;...
Sonic Retail Rant 1: What is the sound of your brand?
The magazine Media & Marketing ran a few features on Brands and Music in their February issue that are worth a read, including some thoughts from citizensound. Also published within the magazine was an article I wrote on the sound of retail environments. citizensound carried out an extensive survey at the end of 2007 early...