Rajamannar, speaking at Zeta Live 2023 at Times Center in New York this week, noted that people are bombarded with an overwhelming visual avalanche of 3,000 to 10,000 average commercial messages every day. In this challenging landscape, the ability to capture and retain people’s attention has become a paramount concern for brands.
To counter, Mastercard has focused on sonic branding as a way to differentiate. In 2019, the company debuted its sonic brand identity, a sound architecture that builds familiarity.
At the heart of Mastercard’s sonic strategy lies its distinctive melody of 1.3 seconds that accompanies every successful Mastercard transaction. On average, Mastercard processed 33 billion transactions per quarter over the past year, or 366 million per day, driving this sonic branding to reach a global audience.
“Since we launched this, we have become the world’s number one audio brand,” said Rajamannar, referring to the report by Best Audio Brands Index. “For four years in a row, we have held that position.”
While visual messages struggle to compete for recognition, the auditory senses offer a relatively untapped avenue for brands, underscoring Mastercard’s commitment to audio branding to break through the noise, capture attention and establish a consistent brand identity.
“For a brand, if you have to stand out have to think of going beyond the visual methodology,” said Rajamannar. “There is no audio saturation as there is a visual saturation.”