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Elena Kunau spoke with Alexander Wodrich, Managing Director of why do birds, at TYPO Berlin 2018 about the importance of sound branding in today's brand communication, as well as the collaboration with MegaFon, Russia's leading mobile operator.

What do you think of TYPO Berlin this year?

I'm at TYPO Berlin for the first time this year and I think it's great. I was previously of the opinion that TYPO Berlin is more for typographers, but I was wrong. I think it's great that designers and branding fans also get their money's worth. I will gladly come again.

What role does branding play nowadays and what can you achieve with branding?

For me, branding is the only way that people can build a relationship with a brand. Anyone who wants to sell a product needs branding. In today's world, products are becoming more and more similar and in order to successfully differentiate yourself from the competition, branding was and will be the most important tool. A good 20 years ago, you could be successful if you had a commercial on TV. Today, it's more complex. There is a much larger number of communication channels that have to be addressed specifically in order to communicate a brand and its values.

Why is sound branding important for brand communication?

Branding translates the personality of a brand into sensory dimensions (hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and tasting). For better brand perception, it is necessary to address all senses consistently. For example, when we hear the iPhone ringtone, we immediately associate it with the brand. The interaction of all senses makes the brand experience perfect - sound is a crucial building block. Unfortunately, few companies still address the sound of their brand and miss the opportunity for more effective communication and brand perception.

What companies or industries should definitely be involved with sound branding?

I would say all companies that communicate through an acoustic channel (YouTube channel, radio spots, movies, phone hotline) should look into sound branding.

How do you start when you want to create a sound concept?

It is similar to corporate design. First, you need a central idea. You have to think about what the brand stands for and what the brand wants to express. Then we find the appropriate acoustic means to achieve these goals. In MegaFon's case, it wasn't that complicated. We closely followed the corporate design (developed by the Interbrand agency).

Interbrand developed a "Super-Sign" for MegaFon that consisted of the existing three dots in the logo. They declared this super-sign a hero and staged it very conspicuously across all media. It was clear to us that we had to stage this element sonically. Three sounds were created from the three dots to form an audiovisual unit.
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How did the cooperation with MegaFon, a Russian company, come about?

We were fortunate to have worked with Interbrand before this project. Interbrand therefore already knew us when they started the project with MegaFon. MegaFon is a big brand that communicates a lot through TV and social media. Interbrand and MegaFon immediately understood that sound is an important branding building block for these communication channels. We then flew to Moscow and did a sound workshop with the whole branding and marketing team. Interbrand was also there, as they knew the brand very well. The sound workshop was very productive. The colleagues from MegaFon were very open and interested. They took sound branding very seriously and wanted to do everything right with the sound.