If you didn’t see the latest episode of Alan Yentob’s arts documentary series IMAGINE on the BBC last night please go and check it out on the BBC iPlayer (click the image below). Yentob’s fascinating documentary was based on real case studies from Dr. Oliver Sacks excellent book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Sacks is neurologist, and if you don’t know his books you may know the movie Awakenings, which featured Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams playing Sacks.

Sacks had some fascinating ideas about the power of music, but just three of the points made in the programme are worth remembering…

Music occupies more areas of the brain than language does, humans are a musical species.

Music can move to the heights and from the depths of emotion. It’s often what we turn to in moments of joy and despair.

For virtually all of us music has great power…this propensity for music shows itself in infancy…and probably goes back to the very beginning of our species.

citizensound says:

If the power of music is so ingrained in all of us, then why aren’t more brands constantly harnessing this power? Is it simply because marketing has been defined merely in visual terms, thus denying the immense value that sound (and the other senses) can play in brand engagement?

Last week myself I went to see Findlay Brown, at the Gladstone, a new pub/live music venue in South London.  

If you are wondering who Findlay is, you've probably heard his before music without knowing it. His song "Come Home" was the soundtrack for the Mastercard  ‘Priceless’ Christmas TV advert, which captured real people reuniting with their loved ones at the arrivals gate of Heathrow and Gatwick airports. The music for this TV ad campaign was pitched to Mastercard’s creative agency McCann Erickson by an independent sync company, via songwriter Findlay Brown’s manager. “I think the chorus from Come Home held some poignancy with the subject matter for the advert” claims Findlay.

Nobody ever says goodbye, but I don’t mind. Just come home. Come home"

A number of tracks were considered for the advert, “it was between me and Snow Patrol apparently, but I needed the exposure more than they did” he joked!

The advert, which has been used across the globe, was first used in 2006, and then again last Christmas.  “The use of the song definitely brought my music to a wider audience,” he said, “and although I got a small amount of ribbing from my friends for letting my music be used in an ad, most people thought it was a positive thing”. The awareness gained from the song being used in the advert had a significant impact, with a noticeable increase in the number of hits to his Myspace page and his official website over the last festive period. Findlay also found that when he played at last year’s music festivals, such as Glastonbury and the O2 Wireless Festival, that lots of people knew the words to the song, and were singing along to it! As a consequence of the advert’s success Come Home was released as a single by his label Peacefrog (also home to José González, whose track Heartbeats was used to great effect on the first Sony Bravia advert), which Findlay believes wouldn't have happened without the music appearing on the advert first. When he asked him if he would let his music be used again  for an advert he firmly stated that "It depends on what it was for. I wouldn't do anything for any cheese-based products, not even Dairy Lee".

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Whether you are still unconvinced about the power of popular music, you like smart ex-NME journalists talking about the music dialectic, or you simply love great pop TV - you must check out arts critic and author, Paul Morley's excellent documentary on BBC 4 last night. He explores and celebrates the beauty and mystery of three-minute pop single.

BBC4 are currently running an excellent season of programmes on pop music, including the excellent Pop Britannia series (Friday's at 10pm). You  can Watch Morley's excellent documentary and some of the other excellent programmes in the series on the BBC iPlayer online for the next 7 days.

Too often the sound is a last minute scramble in the advertising process, as advertising agencies all too often pitch ideas visually rather than sonically.

So it is no surprise that the mood set by the sound of the ad is poorly thought through in most advertising.

When is is right, it is immensely powerful.

Here is a great example of the power of sound. Another one of those clever Honda ads.

PS What is the half life of your sonic branding… 15 seconds…15 minutes or 15 years?