Insurance, AutoZone Among Radio Advertisers With Most Effective Audio Logos.
If you're thinking Liberty Mutual Insurance might be overdoing it with “Liberty” sung four times in its spots...think again. The home of the LiMu Emu is one of the most effective advertisers in terms of its connection with consumers able to associate an advertiser's audio logo with its brand. It's also one of four high scorers – along with fellow insurance providers State Farm and USAA, and AutoZone – which were among radio's 30 top advertisers of 2020.
The measure of successful sonic branding comes from the latest in a series of annual studies by audio intelligence company Veritonic, which tapped 3,700 consumers in the U.S. and UK to evaluate over 100 consumer brands' audio logos during the first quarter of 2021, the results of which are reported in Westwood One's latest “Everyone's Listening” blog.
“The Veritonic platform reinforced the two immutable laws for strong sonic brands: the audio logo has to say the name of the brand and have melody,” Cumulus Media Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says. “Insurance firms understand the power of putting the brand name into the sonic brand.” Indeed, when respondents were asked to name the company that came to mind when hearing its audio logo, those including both brand name and melody scored highest, with insurance companies State Farm, Farmers and Liberty Mutual among the top 10 sonic brands with the strongest degree of correct association.
Advertisers where less than 10% of consumers surveyed were able to correctly associate an audio logo with its brand – where in many cases there was either no melody, or no mention of brand name – include several among radio's top spenders in 2020, with Cricket Wireless, T-Mobile and Taco Bell in the 7-9% association range, and Sprint, Nissan, Metro and Bounty all hovering around 0%.
“How can these companies grow association of their audio logo with their brands? They should take a page from State Farm’s resurgence of brand association and introduce the brand name into the audio logo,” Bouvard says.