M

usic is food for the human soul. Our ears were created to be responsive to music. It is not an exaggeration to say that a particular tune from a musician gives us a new perspective on life. The world-known philosopher Plato even once said, '€œMusic gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.'€

Some people even have a song that always lingers on their minds when they remember their memories with friends, families or lovers. Music is not just a pile of structured melodies and beautiful words. Music is the memory we share with other people.

Music scoring is also an important part of movies. Some award-winning film composers like Hans Zimmerman (for Gladiator, The Lion King ,The Dark Knight, Inception and the newest award-winner 12 Years A Slave) or our county'€™s beloved film composer Erros Djarot (for the timeless Indonesian movie Badai Pasti Berlalu) have successfully created unforgettable scenes with their engaging music, and created a certain trademark for those movies.

Music has an undeniable power to create an identity. Lusensky, in his book titled Sounds Like Branding, says that music reveals its listeners. It becomes an identity for each age, such as how people associate the 1960s generations with the '€œmods'€ and hippies, The Beatles and Janis Joplin.

Back to music scoring in movies, if we listen to the piece titled Aggressive Expansion from the movie The Dark Knight, we remember about the gloom that surrounded Gotham City while the Joker terrorized the city, and how Batman, the Dark Knight, saved people from the misery. The music helps people recall those scenes and always remember the message that the movie tries to distribute to its audience. Music can become one of the tools that helps people connect emotionally with the brand '€“ or in film scoring, with the movie as a brand.

Hans Zimmerman has helped some movies directed by Christopher Nolan, such as The Batman Trilogy and Inception. The music that Zimmerman composed served a certain mood that became an identity for Nolan'€™s movies '€“ gloomy, tense, musically rich and thrilling at the same time. It helped people realize the strong brand the director created, a full package of thrilling movies with tense scenes and musical illustrations.

From these examples, we can see that music is a strong tool for strategic marketing. A brand should sound great to create a distinctive brand identity. Aaker explains about the value of music branding and how music creates brand equity through its listeners. First, music is a way to create brand awareness. Second, music becomes a way to create the right brand associations. Music helps to create a perception in the customers'€™ mind and have a clear perception that is associated with the brand.

Third, music is also a way to enhance the experience of quality. It brings a complete, overall perception to the brand, based on experience and performance. It can push the quality surrounding the brand that we would like to create. For example, the Coca Cola global campaign through a song titled Open Happiness. The campaign was also executed in Indonesia and positively impacted the brand quality. Brands need music'€™s unique content to help cut through the noise. The music industry, on the other hand, needs a brand'€™s marketing exposure and resources to promote artists.

The music identity effect on a brand affects its distinctiveness, consequence and exclusivity. On the customer side, music impacts emotions, recognition, attention and positive associations.

Last but not least, music could be a way to build brand loyalty. Through music, a brand could create strong emotional bonds with the customers. To execute these four values from music that could create brand equity, you should know how people perceive your brand and how your brand would like to be perceived. By knowing this at first, you can know how to market your brand strategically through music. Let the music be the power of your branding.

Jessica Natalie is Brand Consultant & Shevani Thalia is Project Executive Brand Finance of DM-IDHOLLAND