A protracted time after Intel introduced its iconic “bong,” one more most necessary chipmaker has its non-public sound to face out.
Qualcomm has crafted a recent sonic brand for Snapdragon, the mobile processor platform powering a wave of recent AI-enabled smartphones, PCs and headsets. The “Snap Beat,” which debuts right this moment, will show up in an array of marketing efforts from Qualcomm and its different companions.
The sonic’s notion is relatively literal, nevertheless no longer the acquire an stamp on. Listening to the “snap beat” feels fancy an auditory wave flooding each and every ears earlier than all straight away being thrown into into a cave filled with six snaps and 4 heartbeats. Qualcomm says ASMR — or self sustaining sensory meridian response — wasn’t in the design, nevertheless it undoubtedly’s easy to hear similarities.
First introduced in 2006, the Snapdragon brand has turn out to be an more and more great section of Qualcomm’s person marketing. On the other hand, Snapdragon nonetheless has different stages of consciousness around the field. The sonic brand is a “pure step” in building the platform into a person brand, per Qualcomm CMO Don McGuire.
“Being at the center of devices everyday, the heartbeat [is already] constructed into the visible identification for Snapdragon — the fireball and the history of the emblem domestically, nevertheless additionally globally,” McGuire informed Digiday. “Various cultures and other areas, how they hear song otherwise, reply to sound otherwise.”
The Snapdragon beat used to be born amid the ongoing AI urge as it competes with other giants fancy Nvidia, Intel and AMD for every and every commercial and person consciousness. This year, recent Snapdragon chips will be released in a fluctuate of AI-powered smartphones and PCs from Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo, Xiaomi and other most necessary brands. Per a recent inform from IDC, AI-powered PCs might perchance perhaps develop up nearly 60% of the entire PCs shipped in 2027, rising from 50 million devices shipped in 2024 to 167 million in three years. (Snapdragon’s prolonged actuality platform is weak in headsets fancy the Meta Quest, HTC Vive and an upcoming XR headset by Samsung.)
Bigger than precise song
The sound will be weak as a signal-on and signal-off in brief-design command material right by procedure of owned command material, digital promoting, social media and by the usage of partner campaigns. There’s additionally a long version for demo videos, the exhaust of as background song differing kinds of command material, taking part in at Snapdragon events, in alternate reveals or other conferences. One other option is to acquire Snapdragon Insiders — Qualcomm’s community of 14 million creators and fans — collaborate with the sound on TikTok and other platforms.
“We want to preserve up the sonic’s IP factual to what it is,” McGuire acknowledged. “But I’m all in prefer of amplification and virility for this stuff. I have confidence we acquire loads of avenues that shall we unleash it for oldsters to acquire some fun with it.”
Sonic trademarks aren’t something else recent. From monetary companies to hasty food chains, hundreds of brands acquire spent the previous few a long time making their non-public sounds for every and every alternate. Some examples consist of Visa and Mastercard, McDonald’s and KFC, and HBO Max and Netflix. One other is Audi, which additionally has a heartbeat in its sonic brand.
Qualcomm additionally isn’t the principle firm in chip-making to exhaust a sonic brand for its category. Intel introduced its iconic five-expose “Intel bong” in 1994 earlier than updating it again in 2020. Partners fancy Samsung and Nokia additionally already acquire their non-public sounds. On the other hand, the category isn’t cluttered with sounds fancy any other industries. (As an illustration, in the insurance world, necessary brands acquire their non-public sonic.)
World commerce and elevated competitors are using more brands to preserve up in thoughts incorporating more sound of their methods. Sounds are additionally world in methods words aren’t, per Michael Boumendil, co-founder and president Sixième Son, the company in the assist of sonics for brands fancy Renault, Samsung, Sanofi, Huggies and Tour de France.
While many branded sonics are melodic, specialists expose that a nice tune isn’t ample. Industry requirements can additionally be “a lure” in the occasion that they affirm off companies to merely adhere to existing norms, per Boumendil.
“If there are requirements and also you merely attain what folk are already doing, nothing will can enable you emerge,” Boumendil acknowledged. “The notion is to introduce a kind of twist on issues so that they to find pleasure from the category tone and folk will talk to them as belonging to a category, nevertheless no longer losing their capability to suppose, ‘We’re different.’”
Compelling results additionally acquire led more brands to preserve up in thoughts making their non-public sonic brand, per Paul Donato, chief evaluate officer at the Promoting Examine Basis. He renowned a 2020 see by Ipsos, which found advertisers with sonic brand cues made ingenious resources 8.5 times more vulnerable to lead to better advert take hang of. On the other hand, he additionally renowned there’s nonetheless a must catalog the character of more than just a few resources to basically based utterly mostly on attributes fancy timbre and tonality.
“I endure in thoughts going to Pandora early on and they’d acquire musicians classifying song on 140 different dimensions,” acknowledged Donato, who spent 15 years as Nielsen’s chief evaluate officer. “The Intel brand’s is entirely different from Mastercard’s.”
How it used to be made
To develop the sonic brand, Qualcomm collaborated with Made Song Studio, a sonic branding and invent company that’s worked with deal of brands fancy AT&T, Lexus and Tostitos. Before deciding on snaps and heartbeats, Qualcomm tested five outlandish sound attributes ranging from melodic to less melodic. The selections had been tested with 600 shoppers in each and every of 5 most necessary markets: U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, India and China. The aptitude sounds additionally had been tested to comprehend how listeners perceived them alongside other sounds ranging from raindrops and crying babies to nails on a chalkboard.
Snapdragon’s sonic additionally used to be designed for versatility and adaptableness basically based utterly mostly heading in the right direction market, surroundings, time length — and to work with different companions. With the snap beat, the sound can even be lower or speeded up and nonetheless develop sense.
“When you develop a five-expose melody or seven-expose melody, no less than for the principle 24 months it desires to remain a five-expose or seven-expose melody,” acknowledged Made Song president Lauren McGuire (no relation to Qualcomm’s CMO). “You might perchance perhaps additionally develop it faster to a couple of extent — nevertheless only to a couple of extent or as humans we don’t to find it. So that that it is possible you’ll presumably’t acquire a three second version and a one second version of something fancy that.”
Per Made Song’s McGuire, the goal for Snapdragon used to be to bring two attributes — “driven” and “chuffed” — while additionally developing something that might perchance perhaps resonate with world audiences fancy avid gamers, digicam enthusiasts and vehicle fans.
“From sonic identification standpoint, those are anxious attributes to acquire upward push to the head in a single sound,” she acknowledged. “Resulting from ‘driven’ has an very excellent boldness to it, and ‘chuffed’ command material [is] very different. But there’s something about this one which will get to each and every of those issues.”
Beyond snaps and beats
Snapdragon’s recent sonic brand is precise one side of Qualcomm’s total design. Final year, Qualcomm signed a most necessary take care of Manchester United to develop Snapdragon the soccer team’s entrance-of-shirt sponsor for the upcoming season. Snapdragon is additionally a multi-year sponsor of the Mercedes F1 racing team, and Qualcomm currently created a virtual actuality journey with driver Lewis Hamilton which might perchance be expanded this year.
Various marketing efforts consist of a 2022 marketing campaign known as “Edge of Imaginable” starring actress Michelle Yeoh, which highlighted how Qualcomm powers mixed actuality and metaverse experiences. It’s additionally collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a Snapdragon-powered smartwatch, and with Bose on different headphones.
Qualcomm doesn’t converse its advert budget. On the other hand, recordsdata from the advert-tracking company MediaRadar reveals Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia collectively spent $75 million for different media from January to November 2023. Half of Qualcomm’s advert use used to be for on-line video, one more 28% went in direction of demonstrate adverts and precise 1% went to paid social. (For comparability, Nvidia weak 45% of advert use for paid social while AMD weak 26%.) In January 2024, Nvidia and AMD spent less year-over-year, nevertheless Intel and Qualcomm each and every spent more than in January 2023.
Even supposing some tech companies currently sold Immense Bowl adverts to promote AI products, Qualcomm’s McGuire acknowledged the Manchester United sponsorships for males’s and girls’s teams will give Qualcomm identical publicity more effectively.
“If I needed to bewitch 40 Immense Bowl adverts, that it is possible you’ll presumably imagine how powerful that might perchance perhaps cost me,” he acknowledged. “It’s no longer fancy we’re shying far off from publicity or building consciousness for brands. We precise explore at methods to achieve it in a mode that’s relevant to our target market that achieves our commercial targets.”
