Mumbai: BrandMusiq was founded by ex-Creative Director and musician, Rajeev Raja, with his advertising colleague, Ajit Varma as CEO and Co-Founder, BrandMusiq is the pioneer of Sonic Branding in India & Asia. BrandMusiq has perfected a process that expresses a brand’s persona and emotional essence, by applying the science of sound and the art of music.
Rajeev Raja is the creator of the term MOGO™ or ‘musical logo’, Rajeev
was a celebrated advertising Creative Director and is one of India’s finest jazz and fusion flautists. His company BrandMusiq, brings the science of brands and the art of music together, creating tremendous value for clients.
Indiantelevision.com in conversation with BrandMusiq founder Rajeev Raja on moving on from advertising to launch Brandmusiq, creating a unique identity and much more………
On moving from being a creative director to now heading BrandMusiq, how has this journey been
Undoubtedly. My journey in the world of branding and music has been quite diverse and enriching. I have had the privilege of working with a wide range of brands from the household names of Unilever to innovative brands like Virgin Mobile and even mass-market products like Tata Salt. This diverse experience gave me a deep understanding of how marketing and branding work, the principles of brand building and the crucial role of branding. I believe this extensive exposure to the dynamics of branding has been invaluable in our work at BrandMusiq, where we always emphasize putting the brand first. My background in advertising was especially important because it taught me to start every creative process with a deep understanding of the brand itself.
On the other hand, I have a strong connection with the world of music. My experience as a musician, working with brands and working in studios as a creative director for advertising has given me a unique perspective on music. I was closely involved in the approval of countless jingles and this enhanced my musical sensitivity and compositional skills. Live performances especially opened up new dimensions in music for me. So merging these two worlds – branding and music – enriched my understanding. When we founded BrandMusiq, one of our core principles was to develop a strong process, because music can often be seen as a mysterious black box. Analysing music and making informed decisions is difficult for non-musicians. That’s why we focused on creating a process that allows brand owners and managers to understand the logic behind our music choices objectively.
Essentially, my journey has helped me bridge the gap between branding and music, ensuring that our work at BrandMusiq is based on solid branding principles and guided by the art and science of music while being accessible and understandable to our clients.
On working with the best brands as a creative director how have you gone about creating a unique identity for BrandMusiq
Well, first of all, let’s look at some of the values that we hold here at BrandMusiq,
some of the brand elements, and some of the brand parameters. Well, one is certainly a sense of optimism, a sense of happiness, having fun at work. That is very, very important for us. The second is our expertise and branding knowledge. Third is a scientific approach to sound. The fourth is an artistic approach to music. When you put this together with our mindset, which is essentially one of exploration, creativity, fun, and happiness, all of this comes together as a brand that is essentially creative but also exploring all the time. And at the end of it, the final creation is like magic. So, it’s like logic meets magic. If you take all of this together, we created a colour palette, which essentially had the colour yellow, not just any yellow, but it was turmeric yellow. And this really was a tribute to our Indian roots, a very subtle tribute to our Indian roots.
We all know the importance that turmeric plays in all of our lives. So, the colour yellow was our principal colour. We also had secondary colours, such as grey, which I think balances the yellow with a sense of gravitas, which is a reflection of our deep thinking and our brand processes. And we also, to supplement this, we also had some tertiary colours, which were purple and pink. I think the purple adds a sense of premium and the pink really celebrates a little bit of hatke, thinking, in this colour palette. So, all of this comes together. And of course, black plays a role against yellow. Coming down to our logo, we created a name, first of all.
The way we spelt brand music was B-R-A-N-D-M-U-S-I-Q. And if you look at our logo closely, the B and the Q are like musical notes. So, this immediately locks us into the category that we are operating in. And thirdly, we walk the talk and create a logo, a musical logo for ourselves. Here we took inspiration from the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is essentially a scale that uses only five notes. And it is the most fundamental scale of humanity, really. It’s the most universal scale. It exists in every single musical culture. Even the most basic of music cultures will have a pentatonic scale. So, there’s that sense of universality to it. We felt that since brands do want to touch people and be inclusive, it was fitting that we had a logo, a musical logo that was universal, but at the same time, distinct. So really, all this coming together was the result of all the years I spent in advertising and one knows how to craft your brand identity at various levels.
On BrandMusiq perfecting a process that expresses a brand’s persona and emotional essence, by applying the science of sound and the art of music.’ Can you elaborate on this
In essence, BrandMusiq combines a scientific understanding of the impact of sound on the human psyche with the artistic ability to create music and soundscapes to develop a complete audio identity system. This system helps brands convey their unique personalities, feelings and essences through sound, enhancing brand awareness and connecting with consumers on an emotional level.
Now, creating the music is one thing, but systematising it into a framework, which is a sonic identity system, is really critical. Once we actually understand the brand, we create the sound, then we systematise it into a mogoscape, a mogo, a mini-mogo, and then, once we get approval on that, we amplify it across ear points. There could be thousands of ear points that a brand owns, which surprises brand owners when we show them the possibilities of where all their sound could be heard. So brand discovery, sonic mapping, where we share initial sketches of sound, then the final sonic identity system, and finally, amplification across ear points. So, this really is the process that we follow.
Well, I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg for sonic branding more and more marketing heads are understanding the impact and the dimension that sound adds to their brands. So it’s not just about having a visual identity, and a logo, and a set of colours that represent your brand, but it’s also about having a sonic identity, and a MOGO, and a sonic palette ( MOGOSCAPE) that represents your brand. Today, you can count the number of brands that have a sonic identity. It’s already increased exponentially in the past two or three years.
On Sonic Branding and What is MOGOSCAPE and MOGO
In simple terms, audio branding, also known as sonic branding, is a marketing strategy that focuses on using sound and music to create a unique and memorable brand identity. This includes the development and use of distinctive sound elements such as music logos (Mogos), soundscapes (MogoScapes), jingles and other sound assets to enhance brand awareness and evoke specific emotions or associations in consumers.
A Mogo, which is a musical logo, and in this digital age, we even create a mini-Mogo, which is often only for alerts, notifications and other confirmation sounds that the brand may need. So this really was how we combined all these elements to create a unique sonic identity for brands. So, Mogo really came from the thought of a summation or essence of the sonic identity, which is, we call them Mogo, it’s really another short form for musical logo, and the whole idea of Mogo is, as I said, the summation, therefore there is a sonic scape, what we call a MogoScape, surrounding it, the Mogo is embedded within that, and over time, we say the Mogo is the shortest distance between a brand and a consumer’s heart, and over time, a Mogo should unlock the entire brand world of emotions, of imagery, without any visuals also being there, once you hear the Mogo, if you have used it strategically and cleverly, then it will unlock your entire brand world, a sort of Pavlovian effect, whenever you hear it, the colours of the brand should come alive in your mind, the feeling or emotion of the brand should come alive in your heart, so that’s really the power of a Mogo, but of course, it needs careful managing, it needs careful tracking, and it really should be used judiciously across what we call ear points, which are nothing but audio touch points the concept of creating a unique sonic identity for brands and the importance of understanding how a brand should think, feel, and behave like a human being.
This sonic identity includes elements like a MogoScape, Mogo (musical logo), and mini-Mogo for different audio touchpoints. The goal is to evoke emotions and imagery associated with the brand solely through sound. Notable examples of brands successfully implementing sonic branding include Mastercard, which integrated its sonic identity effectively across various touchpoints, making it a model for others. Other brands include Britannia, Titan, Airtel, and Intel, with Intel being considered one of the first successful examples of a “sonic logo” or Mogo in the Western context. We emphasize the importance of creating a distinctive and emotionally evocative sonic identity for brands and provide examples of brands that have achieved this successfully.
On being one of India’s finest jazz and fusion flautists, now an entrepreneur, does it hamper your creativity
The question if my being with Jazz and Fusion, Flortis and being in the sonic planning space with it, it hampers my creativity. Not at all. In fact, I think it enhances and adds tremendous value to my creativity. First of all, BrandMusiq would have never started if I wasn’t a musician in the first place. I’m a musician and artist. I wandered into advertising and stayed there for 25 years. I really enjoyed my time in advertising, but that’s what spurred me to start BrandMusiq, which is coming together branding, marketing, advertising, thinking, and strategy along with music, and therefore creating a deeper sense of music and impact for brands. Rather than hamper, I think it not only enhances, but it is essential to my current journey. I couldn’t imagine a life without music and I can’t imagine a life without brands. There it is. It’s a lovely combination.
On BrandMusiq in the next three years
In present, Well, I see BrandMusiq as a leader in the sonic branding space, renowned for its unique processes and a profound understanding of the science of sound and the art of music. The company excels in crafting unique sonic identities for brands. Looking ahead three years, BrandMusiq aspires to become a global player, already having established offices in New York, and representation in Singapore, Southeast Asia, and possibly the UK. The aim is to work with world-class brands at a larger scale.
Additionally, BrandMusiq is on a path toward becoming a new tech company. The company is swiftly embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize various aspects of the music world, from musical creation to validation and process automation. This transition will position BrandMusiq as a comprehensive new tech company.
Currently, BrandMusiq is a pioneer and leader in India, but the goal for the next three years is to expand its leadership not only in Southeast Asia but also in the Western Hemisphere. The vision is to grow rapidly, scale operations, and build a remarkable global team. Ultimately, BrandMusiq aims to make the magic of creating exceptional music and unique sonic identities accessible and enjoyable for brands worldwide.
