Innovate UK
Goldsmiths University of London & SoundOut Project
SoundOut and scientists in the Music, Mind and Brain group at Goldsmiths, University of London have recently teamed up on a year-long project supported by a £400,000 grant from the UK Research and Innovation Fund. The project integrates the latest academic research from music psychology with Soundout’s unique positioning as a world leader in sonic testing to produce state-of-the-art, psychologically informed implicit tests in music and audio branding research.
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The project will create a new gold standard for implicit (subconscious) music testing in the context of advertising and sonic branding, ensuring effective and efficient allocation of resources for brands worldwide.
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The project involves collecting data from 500,000 consumers in order to better understand the listener’s subconscious reaction to music in the context of audio branding.
The project has 3 principal aims:
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01
Brand Perception
The first aim of the project looks to quantify and benchmark the extent to which visual and audio elements subconsciously influence a consumer’s perception of a brand.
02
Recall
The second aim of the project investigates and identifies which musical features of sonic logos make them easier to recall.
03
Propensity to buy
The third aim of the project explores ways in which the intention to buy a product is impacted and benchmarked in the context of audio branding
Initial findings
Initial findings from the project have already been shared at various international conferences on audio branding and marketing such as Brand Week Istanbul (Turkey), The Future of Media (UK) and Most Wanted: Music 2021 (Germany).
Details regarding the methodology and analyses will soon be published in peer-reviewed journals to support the scientific basis of the tests. The project findings and benchmarking scales will be commercialised in a new implicit testing suite of products and integrated into Soundout’s testing platform in 2022.
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The IUK press release can be found here:
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Meet the key people from the project
Daniel Müllensiefen
Daniel Müllensiefen is a professor in music psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a co-director of the MSc in Music, Mind and Brain. His research topics include audio branding and the use of music in advertising. He has been scientist in residence with Adam&eveDDB for several years and received the prestigious Anneliese-Maier research prize from the Humboldt foundation.
David Baker
David John Baker is Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research investigates how tools from computational musicology and cognitive psychology can help answer questions about music perception. In addition to his academic research, he has worked on several audio branding projects with international clients where he draws on his expertise in music and science.
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