When you're the leading brand of the consulting world, you need to embody excellence in all you do. The McKinsey sonic identity, blending percussive and synthetic textures, symbolizes innovation and transformation in a very unique way. It says a lot about how McKinsey deals with complexity to help their client succeed. Widely adopted across content, it distances the brand from corporate tropes and emphasizes agility and forward-thinking.
In 2019, McKinsey & Company has gone through a complete rebranding to enhance the brand leadership and its innovative capacities.
The strategic and creative idea was to convey a stronger sense of heritage and innovation, integrating a unique sonic approach to underline the ideas of contrast, acceleration and brand transformation. Additionally, the challenge was to help change the perception the the brand is an old-fashioned company and to define a sonic universe that would break away from corporate sonic codes – i.e. orchestral, dynamic and sophisticated classical music.
To capture the ideas of contrast and transformation, the sonic identity plays with percussive and synthetic textures that are individually unique, yet work together seamlessly.
We believed that the choice to be less melodic would also add to the perception that the brand is innovative – thinking outside of the typical corporate sonic codes and deconstructing the classical genre.
The sonic brand’s success has been measured by the enthusiasm at launch, the extensive use of the sonic system by creators (300+ videos in 2 yrs), and by efficacy research. We also measured how its amplifying the watch time and brand likeability* on all their digital content.
Research by Datakalab, 2021