Sound ideas for seasonal sonics

It’s that time of year again! We all bundle up, gather with loved ones, exchange gifts, and, most importantly, watch holiday adverts. 

While most commercials feature the generic seasonal songs we’ve come to associate with this time of year, many brands have been attempting to expand their merry acoustic catalogues. 

Lacking a distinct auditory signature is no excuse for neglecting all forms of sound strategy.

The holidays are deeply intertwined with musical traditions. It’s a season of nostalgia, so brands often find it challenging to sound unique – especially when attempting to blend branded audio with conventional festive tracks.  

Brands approach this season in a variety of ways. Take Macy’s, for example; as a brand that lacks its own sonic identity, the department store decided to play into tradition. This year's commercial dives into older holiday music, with a 1953 recording of Hey Santa Claus by The Moonglows. It’s a choice that fits the department store's Christmas energy well.

Macy's holiday spot went for nostalgia with a jazzy hit from the 1950s.

Lacking a distinct auditory signature is no excuse for neglecting all forms of sound strategy. Although Amazon has no holistic sonic identity – though it has certain assets such as the iconic voice of its Alexa smart speaker – the brand attempted to connect with its audience through nostalgia-laced popular content. It's 2023 Christmas spot, Joy Ride, utilised a popular piece of music and manipulated it to fit the content's message. The brand chose to use In My Life by the Beatles, but performed on the piano by Nico Casal in a sentimental holiday style – a thoughtful sonic approach.

Amazon put a spin on Beatles' classic In My Life, which boosted the contemplative mood of Joy Ride.

While it can be risky using popular music due to its cultural significance outside of the brand (In My Life was released in 1965 from the album Rubber Soul), in this case the spot successfully manipulated a hit song to fit the content's message, displaying a thoughtful sonic approach.

Alternatively, other brands, such as Duracell and Lidl, seem to have abandoned their owned audio assets entirely in the pursuit of a more widely accepted festive sound, despite sinking substantial budgets into their holiday ads. 

Using amp’s Sonic Radar, we determined that Duracell used its sonic logo (a brief audio asset that quickly conveys a brand's identity) in 63 per cent of its content over the last year, with Lidl featuring its asset in 46 per cent of content. These two brands use sonic logos regularly, so shelving them when it comes to crucial holiday content indicates poor strategy on both fronts.

Both Duracell and Lidl avoided using their normal branded audio for their festive marketing. 

However, not all brands are so quick to give up this an opportunity to use their own branded audio. For example, while KFC UK&I and Aldi SÜD both use popular tracks in their respective holiday spots, (Puccini’s Nessun dorma in KFC and Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo from the 1950s Cinderella film in Aldi), both ads also end with their own sonic logos. 

A key feature of a brand’s audio identity, which often includes a sonic logo, is that is should be flexible enough to adapt to and emphasise any message, especially one as important as the holiday season. The abandonment of these assets begs the question: are these brands’ sonic identities as effective as they could be?