Barilla made a sensory soundtrack for its pastas with help from ‘White Lotus’ composer

Taking a bite of a delicious meal can sometimes feel like music to your ears. And digging into a flavorful pasta might trigger symphonic melodies in your mind. That experience is exactly what Barilla aims to capture in a new music-oriented campaign for its Al Bronzo pasta line. Launched Tuesday and led by Edelman, “Barilla Al Bronzo” tapped “White Lotus” musical composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer and Nobel Prize-winning experimental psychologist Charles Spence to create a soundtrack for the feelings evoked from eating the different pastas in the Al Bronzo line. The campaign puts Dr. Spence’s “sonic seasoning” theory into practice, which claims that sound can enhance eating by evoking distinct and visceral reactions with every bite. To achieve this, Spence wrote a paper detailing the textures, shapes and flavor profile of each pasta cut from the Al Bronzo line—Bucatini, Mezzi Rigatoni, Spaghetti, Penne Rigate, Fusilli and Linguine. De Veer was then brought in to give each cut of pasta its own tone, tempo, harmonic, pitch and emotion, to best elicit taste and texture. The process took about two and a half months, and even included Al Bronzo pasta as percussion instruments, in addition to woodwinds, piano, and strings, informed by the “sonic seasoning” notes from Spence. “The Al Bronzo ‘sonic seasoning’ guide from Professor Spence, which describes associations between various flavors like sweet, salty, bitter and sour to sounds in various registers and tones, in a way served as a script,” de Veer told Ad Age. “I chose instrumentations to build around those ideas, and the melodies and rhythms serve as a context or scenario for those flavors to develop. “The music creates a context and hopefully enhances the tastes with its sounds,” he continued. “As a gastronomy tourist myself, I reimagined the different countries I’ve visited and how the surroundings enhanced the meals as much as the ingredients. Music can build an immersive experience around a traditional pasta dish.” When developing the campaign, Zac Rybacki, executive creative director at Edelman, said the agency settled on music as a sensory vehicle because “it can be easy for many to access, [such as through] Spotify, versus say painting your walls or experimenting with different textures on your dining table.” “We love that music is often already a part of our meal experiences, it just hasn’t been considered quite like this,” he told Ad Age. Hiring de Veer as composer was also inspired by recent interest “for all things Italian” such as Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” which “ignited a viral infatuation with Italian culture,” Rybacki added. The final soundtrack, which is available on Spotify, contains seven tracks—a welcome track and six tracks for each pasta cut. The goal of the campaign is to “help people appreciate that when you pay attention to the details, like Barilla does with Al Bronzo, it has a profound impact on the eating experience,” Rybacki said. In addition to the soundtrack, which will run on Barilla’s Spotify channel and across Barilla’s digital and social accounts, the brand has also created a special-edition bronze vinyl record featuring all six tracks. A custom mailer, available at AlBronzoSoundtrack.com, will include curated recipes with tasting notes for each Al Bronzo cut, as well as instructions on how to set the scene for tasting.

Barilla made a sensory soundtrack for its pastas with help from ‘White Lotus’ composer

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