Music is the Way to Move Brands Forward

According to Heartbeats International, a brand-communications company from Stockholm about seven out of ten companies are using only 5% or less of their marketing budgets on music while 97% of brand managers and directors believe that "music can strengthen their brand." So why the disconnect? Apparently, for some, it is "the difficulty in measuring the value of an investment in music" as well as legal issues. This serves as an extremely lame excuse in my opinion...how exactly are non-textual graphics measured? What you hear is just as important as what you see if not more in some cases. Sounds Like Branding, is a video presentation conducted by Heartbeats International that outlines the importance of music for a brand's positioning especially in this new advertising environment (I recommend watching only the first 15 min). Key points made included: (1) how brands now need to not only have consumers but real fans; (2) music is the best personality identifier and (3) 75% of people ignore advertisements. All of this makes sense because brands need to become more human and music is human, it's emotion, it's feeling and expression so voila we can potentially have the perfect marriage. Brands + Music = More Human brand.
See Billboard.biz for more info.