Hear Perdue Foods’ first sonic logo

Chicken purveyor Perdue has introduced its first sonic logo as the brand looks to invest more in audio channels and stay top-of-mind for consumers. The new sound, meant to evoke farms and being outside, can be heard at the end of new ads for the brand from Colle McVoy. Both spots depict people working in Perdue offices. In one, executives are trying to choose a new Wi-Fi password; in the other, they consider how to better their chickens by singing to them. Creating a sonic logo has been a business goal for several years, according to David Zucker, executive VP and chief marketing officer at Perdue. He first brought it up in 2022 when Colle McVoy won Perdue’s business. The idea was put on hold during the pandemic. “This was a significant asset that we had not developed,” Zucker said. “And brands that have that full suite of assets I feel are the ones that are the most mature and have the highest impact.” Sonic branding Indeed, a 2020 study from Ipsos found that ads with sonic branding cues experienced an 8.5x uplift in branded attention—a metric combining brand recognition and correct attribution. The new sonic logo will also allow Perdue to invest more in audio marketing channels. Alli Bolger, VP of group brand strategy at Colle McVoy, pointed to how most people listen to social media with sound on and the rise in consumers listening to podcasts. “Just look at the most recent election, which was won or lost based on podcasts because of how fragmented the media landscape can be,” Bolger said. “We see an opportunity to build brand there since it has more involved attention.” There are plenty of other brands with sonic identifiers, including Netflix and Hulu, as well as The Home Depot’s ad music and McDonald’s “ba-da-ba-ba-ba.” In 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, made its own sonic logo as consumers use voice activations to find information. Perdue says this is the first sonic logo in the packaged chicken category. The process for coming up with the new sonic logo took a little over three months. Perdue and Colle McVoy worked with Made Music Studio on the sound, having the teams listen to a variety of sounds and musical samples to determine what best represents the brand. “It’s a sonic soul session—similar to visuals or images being put on a mood board,” said Danielle Venne, executive creative director of music production at Music Made Studio. “What sounds trigger an association with your brand, what feelings come up? For this, we wanted it to trigger the association with farms and being outside.” Perdue narrowed it down to five sonic tags and then partnered with audio attribution analytics company Veritonic to test them with consumers, looking for how well the sounds did on brand attributes including trustworthiness, likeability and authenticity. The final sound had a high affinity score across attributes, making it the clear winner. Based on Veritonic research, the Perdue sonic logo scored 12% higher than the consumer packaged goods category norm and 75% of listeners said it was memorable. Zucker said the goal of the new sonic logo is to increase ad recall and improve return on ad spend. “We have measured our return on ad spend pretty diligently for the last five or six years,” Zucker said. “Now that we know what it was before, the expectation is that we’ll see more efficiency.” Perdue also believes that the new sound will help keep it top of mind for consumers the next time they are in the grocery store. “With all that’s going on in the market, we know that those brands who stay visible will win in the long run,” Bolger said. “Now is not the time to go dark, but to build equity.” Clarification: A previous version of this story said that the ads were shot in Salisbury, Maryland, where Perdue is headquartered. The ads were shot in Los Angeles.

Hear Perdue Foods’ first sonic logo

Featured Stories