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Sonic Brand Experiences or What we have learned in our 3 year history


17 February, 2010

Sonic Brand Experiences or What we have learned in our 3 year history

Every brand tells a story. Capturing and articulating that story is our goal as a creative team.
From the tiniest pin drop to the biggest sound...the most moving piece of music...voiceover or sonic ident...each project is crafted with that story at its heart.

Music is emotion, and sound design is a narrative. The advertising experience is 50% visual and 50% sound. We go beyond this and believe that music and sound has the ability to reach people on a human level which is all about emotion.

Where would we be without sound? Would we still be able to feel emotive watching scenes in a film, laugh out loud, connect with the voiceover message, understand the subtext in what we are seeing and feel something in response?

Radium is a company with this ethos as its core. People dont just watch. They listen and watch.

With this in mind we work towards digging out the story, unearthing the authentic attitude and personality of a brand.

Each brand does have a soul, each brand does have something to say. To ignore sound for the brand, film, animation, logo or online presence, is like cutting the umbilical chord which will connect your story to the very core of the viewers soul.

People do like to connect and people do know what moves them. Where would the world be without the ability to connect to each other, to share our spirituality and common humanity?

So, in our 3 years as a creative company, what we have learned is this.

Brands, Pictures, digital, products and moving images can tell a story without sound. We all know a picture tells a thousand stories.. and if we were data processing machines that would be quite sufficient.

However when you consciously choose to let the authentic soul of the visual story be articulated in sound, you can indeed communicate with the viewer on an emotional level which visuals alone cannot achieve. ...

We are human and we want to be loved, just like everyone else.
So share your love, passion, spirit and soul of your brand and connect with people on a human level.

In short, do it with sound & music.

Check out our work for Ferrari, Universal, Rolex, Bentley, Mercedes, 24, LG to hear how sound does capture and articulate the soul of the brand.

Thank you.

Digital agencies wake up to the power of sound.


19 February, 2010

Digital agencies wake up to the power of sound.

Andrew Diey, creative director, Radium Audio

“People don’t just watch, they listen and watch. Sound design is the narrative that underpins the story”

According to Greek mythology, Sisyphus was punished by the gods and condemned to push a rock up a hill only to watch it roll down again and having to repeat the same action. Until recently, working in sound design has felt like this. We’ve created great assets and then handed them over to digital agencies, only to hear results that were not as we intended them to be. Luckily, things are changing.

Sound design is a craft that’s part of several key industries, from movies, broadcast, manufacturing and entertainment to digital advertising. For example, over the past ten years we’ve created sound effects for many game development titles, which means we’ve created sounds that work within a digital environment that’s interactive.

People don’t just watch, they listen and watch, and with this combination comes music and sound. Music is the emotive experience which sets the tone, lifts the spirits and guides the audience towards a feeling. Sound design is the narrative that underpins the story.

Digital agencies are now becoming more adventurous and confident with making sound design an integral part of the creative, be it Flash pages, mobile apps, online games or banners. But this can be where things fall down. The creative part of sound design is only 50% of the job. The remainder is implementation: slotting the sounds into the assets and making them work as the designer intended.

When working with agencies we use soundmaps — flowcharts of where the sounds will fit within the Flash build, how they will play, looping, non-looping, single shot and so on. These also contain the information regarding the sound volume mix within the build and how each sound should be balanced within the digital ad.

Mapping out the sounds in a visual form also gives everyone input to the assets to be created, from a creative, financial or technical aspect. We also sit with agency technical teams during the Flash build so we can oversee content being placed in situ and make quick creative decisions based on what’s working.

Enlightened agencies understand the future of audio within the digital sector plays a very significant part of telling a brand’s story online. You can engage the audience on a much deeper level using sound. As digital creatives wake up to this, we can focus on implementing great sound design online, rather than repeating previous mistakes. Unlike poor old Sisyphus.