When customer experience works, customers receive a consistent and seamless interaction with a business from touchpoint to touchpoint. An often overlooked feature of CX is sound. TD Bank sees it as key to connecting with customers, colleagues and communities they serve. That’s why the company created a new sonic identity, rolling out to digital touchpoints and physical locations (such as ATMs), to knit together key points in the customer journey with a familiar theme aimed at building an emotional connection.
“One of the main goals for our sonic identity is to be highly recognized and associated with the TD brand in the same way as, for example, the logos of Intel, Netflix and McDonald’s are recognized with their brands,” said Nathan Strawn, senior group manager, global brand management for TD. “That means we want to cut through the noise and be memorable [and] develop an emotional, authentic connection with our customers because they are the center of everything we do.”
Creating a sound for customer experiences
TD worked with sonic branding agency Sixième Son to build a score that is optimistic and catchy. Two of the central components of the sonic identity are:
the brand melody
and the shorter “sonic logo.”
“This is TD’s first sonic identity,” said Strawn. “There may have been jingles in the past but nothing like what we have today.”
“Creating a sonic experience for customers lets brands enhance all of their communications with more precision, subtlety, and consistency while strategically addressing particular communication angles,” said Michael Boumendil, President and Chief Creative Officer for Sixième Son. “It is the ultimate tool for generating brand momentum.”
“The sonic logo is what the TD Shield (our logo) sounds like or, in other words, the audio equivalent of the TD Shield,” said Strawn. “We went a step further and created a sonic ecosystem of sounds and music beds that can be adapted and applied to various customer touchpoints.”
Customer experience touchpoints include:
- Hold music at call centers,
- Video ads,
- Podcast/audio ads,
- Canadian ATMs,
- Canadian branch overhead music, and
- Canadian branch phone lines.
The new sounds are also part of internal assets, including:
- Events music,
- Colleague support phone line, and
- Internal videos.
“Our sonic identity is an expansion of our brand identity and reflects one cohesive experience each and every time our customers interact with TD,” said Strawn. “Our sonic identity is consistent, easily recognizable and welcoming — and a purposeful way to extend our brand so that it is accessible to all our customers.”
Dig deeper: The omnichannel opportunity: A path to seamless experiences
Brand goals
The new sonic identity aims to support consistency and trust for customers across all experiences. TD also has high expectations for what the new sounds will achieve.
“We want to see a lift in brand recall, recognition, attribution and awareness,” said Strawn.
“By designing a strong sonic identity, you allow the brand to speak with a consistent ear-print across all touchpoints, increase its attribution and recall, and build brand equity,” said Boumendil.
“The sonic identity reflects our brand values so that even when our brand can’t be seen, we can still be heard,” said Strawn.
The sounds of the sonic identity were aligned with the company’s previously developed “brand personality” — the brand’s promise, values and strategy. The melody had to be authentic, passionate and forward-thinking, according to Strawn. This was reinforced with clapping, bells, voices and other jazzy upbeat sounds.
“Our brand is focused on putting people at the center of banking and we believe that that optimism comes through in our sonic identity too,” said Strawn.
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Reinforcing an identity through sound
Optimism is a key element of the company’s brand. The new sonic identity, which customers will hear consistently in ads, online and over the phone, should become familiar, making the company even more approachable.
“Our goal is for our customers to feel a connection with our sound, one that is likable and upbeat, as if you were walking through a familiar neighborhood, into your local TD branch,” said Strawn. “It’s about being customer-centric as opposed to being bank-centric.”
One important sound cue in the sonic identity is the door chime. It gives the impression that going to a TD location is like stopping in at a local shop.
“We really wanted to design around the idea of human warmth, a welcoming space, where a confident dialogue can exist, where words are said and voices are heard,” said Boumendil.
Measuring sonic success
TD collaborated with audio measurement and software company Veritonic to evaluate emotional engagement against brand values, according to Boumendil. The brand will conduct ongoing research and testing to measure and help achieve goals of consistency and awareness, Strawn said.
“We help our client decide which testing method will be the most appropriate to evaluate the performance of their sonic identity or sonic logo,” said Boumendil. “We like to test the ability of a sonic identity to grab attention because in the long run, and with repetition, this is what will build recall.”
“Having a close ear to the ground is important to understand the impact of our sonic identity and its impact on our customers,” said Strawn. “This means continuously looking at ways to gather feedback, to incorporate the sonic identity in our touchpoints and to do so with consistency.”
A sound implementation
“Implementing is a crucial component of success,” said Boumendil. “We could design the most impactful sonic identity; without a good implementation strategy it is meaningless.”
He added: “That’s why we always insist on writing and sharing very clear sonic guidelines to the internal teams once we have approval from the management team. The TD brand team has done an incredible job in sharing early all the tools we had developed and it’s unusual to see them being implemented so fast for such a huge organization.”
“The response so far has been very positive,” said Strawn. “Colleagues and consumers are delighted to hear the new sonic logo at the end of their transactions in the ATM and elsewhere.”
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