Auditory experiences get louder as we look beyond the visual playing field – Human Machine Interface
By Colleen Fahey, Managing Director USA
The extremely industrious Matt Klein, for a recent article called The Meta Trending Trends: 2020, looked at “+500 trends from 30 reports by: Deloitte, Google, Forrester, Gartner, Trend Watching, Trend Hunter, Accenture & Fjord, Frog, Kantar, Facebook IQ, Pinterest, Mintel, Twitter, Edelman, Future Today Institute, Mindshare, Springwise, CB Insights, Global Web Index, Foresight Factory, JWT, Carat, Hubspot, Econsultancy & Adobe, WGSN, Isobar, Ford, Landor, The Future Laboratory & Daniel Ecker.”
I can corroborate one of the meta-trends he identifies
More coherent approaches to sound
We’re feeling it in our business at Sixième Son. Companies are definitely seeking, not exactly louder, but more coherent approaches to sound.
Last year, a new dimension jumped in importance: branding for Human Machine Interfaces. Brands are putting the responsibility for the signals in devices, appliances and vehicles into the hands of brand designers rather than engineers.
tailor-made sonic ecosystems
On both sides of the Atlantic, we’ve found that companies are looking for tailor-made sonic ecosystems that express the brand while conveying the function through tiny sounds that signal “on” “off” or “connecting” and the like. It’s amazing how much branding through human machine interface you can convey with just one second of sound.
I suppose this is a symptom of another meta-trend identified in the analysis, “The physical and virtual blur, making distinctions both uncanny and archaic.”
P.S. Here are the trend-watchers’ headlines that led Matt to decide the auditory experience is meta-trend.
Turning the Volume to 11
Auditory experiences get louder as we look beyond the visual playing field
Sonic Branding — Springwise
Sonic Branding — JWT
Turning up the Volume — Kantar
Listen Up: Rise of Audio Influencer — Edelman
Audiophilia — Foresight Factory
From Pods to Screen (US) — Facebook IQ
Branded Podcasting — Trend Hunter
Voice Everywhere — Daniel Ecker
Read all 11 meta-trends here, I promise it’s full of insights. Thanks, Ella Duda for finding it!
Read this article on linkedin here
