- Paperback: 244 pages
- Publisher: Management Books 2000 Ltd (14 Mar 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1852525282
- ISBN-13: 978-1852525286
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 511,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Sound Business is a great exploration of the science of sound, its ineffable wonders, and the experiential potency it has for building powerful brands." Martin Lindstrom, author of BRANDsense and BRANDchild "Sound Business is a comprehensive review of the power of applying sound for improved business performance, a concept that is both new and intuitively appealing." Helen Alexander CBE, Chief Executive, Economist Group "Sound is all around us but many organisations have previously just accepted that it is there because it always has been. This excellent book fills a big gap by providing an understanding of the way in which sound affects us and can be used to influence our moods and intentions." Sir Paul Judge, Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts, President of the Chartered Management Institute and Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Marketors "An expert analysis of the power of sound to influence the behaviour of customers has been scandalously absent - until now. Sound Business is a rich and engaging journey, and should be welcomed by all those who take the experience of their customers seriously." Stephen Nelson, CEO, BAA
Product Description
Sound is a great undiscovered country for business. Most organisations are blissfully unaware of their sound, and yet sound affects people deeply. Sound can change people's behaviour in almost any commercial environment - including offices, shops, showrooms, advertising, the internet, hotels, bars and restaurants. Research shows that appropriate sound can increase retail sales by over 30% and triple productivity for some workers. In Sound Business, leading strategic sound expert Julian Treasure explains exactly how to predict these effects and take control of sound to improve almost every aspect of business. Combining the latest psychoacoustic theory, original thinking and practical tips for every application of sound, this is the first book to map this unexplored land of sound in business. The accompanying CD includes examples of applied sound as well as field recordings that show how not to sound.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
** Accessible
*** Inspiring
**** Practical
***** Relevant (to Audio Branding)
** Well-grounded
It will be interesting to see how many such explorations into the sensory aspects of branding will follow the 2005 publication of Martin Lindstrom's BRAND sense (itself a `must read!'). There are few books that focus on the commercial application of the assertion that `sound affects,' particularly written for those charged with integrating sound and music into their business strategy, branding, marketing, and communications. So Treasure's contribution is a welcome one, indeed Lindstrom endorses it as "A great exploration of the science of sound, and the experiential potency it has for building powerful brands."
First the bad news. Sadly, the potentially inspiring ideas in Sound Business are undermined by the too-many-to-be-reliable factual inaccuracies and inadequately verified theories in the first three-quarters of the book. Treasure also gets caught up in the language and excitement of the tools of the trade and his own intriguing set of brand names, which at best is a distraction to shared understanding, and at worst impenetrable. Like Lindstrom, my interests (and to date limitations to us both) are in broader business and brand strategy with a fascination for bringing brands to life. Working daily with experts in this field, I'm more convinced than ever of the rewards and risks of audio branding, and the need for shareable, generally applicable language and methodologies, based upon reliable data. Not to mention the little bit of magic that music brings.
That said, Treasure's strength is in his practical review of the many marketing and physical spaces in which `intentional sound' plays its part in supporting business goals and human relationships, and `noise' or unintentional sound gets in the way of them. He advises that every organisation should have comprehensive audio brand guidelines, detailing its intentional sound including its voice, brand music, sonic logos, advertising sound, product sound (as an asset or a liability), plus shops, offices and all manner of spaces in which we live, work, buy, and take our leisure. A large section is given to the telephone, customer-friendly automation, and the call centre, and many a consumer and business executive will be aware of the many issues here.
Given the continuing fragmentation of media, the high penetration of low cost technologies, such as the web, mobile devices, and interactive TV to name but a few, the lack of attention given to these channels is surprising. I beleive this is a key area where consumer behaviour, attitudes and expectations are changing at breakneck speed, and companies are searching for ways to create ever more richly-imbued, emotive, and personally meaningful brands as they strive to be distinctive and reinforce relationships of loyalty and trust.
*** Inspiring
**** Practical
***** Relevant (to Audio Branding)
** Well-grounded
It will be interesting to see how many such explorations into the sensory aspects of branding will follow the 2005 publication of Martin Lindstrom's BRAND sense (itself a `must read!'). There are few books that focus on the commercial application of the assertion that `sound affects,' particularly written for those charged with integrating sound and music into their business strategy, branding, marketing, and communications. So Treasure's contribution is a welcome one, indeed Lindstrom endorses it as "A great exploration of the science of sound, and the experiential potency it has for building powerful brands."
First the bad news. Sadly, the potentially inspiring ideas in Sound Business are undermined by the too-many-to-be-reliable factual inaccuracies and inadequately verified theories in the first three-quarters of the book. Treasure also gets caught up in the language and excitement of the tools of the trade and his own intriguing set of brand names, which at best is a distraction to shared understanding, and at worst impenetrable. Like Lindstrom, my interests (and to date limitations to us both) are in broader business and brand strategy with a fascination for bringing brands to life. Working daily with experts in this field, I'm more convinced than ever of the rewards and risks of audio branding, and the need for shareable, generally applicable language and methodologies, based upon reliable data. Not to mention the little bit of magic that music brings.
That said, Treasure's strength is in his practical review of the many marketing and physical spaces in which `intentional sound' plays its part in supporting business goals and human relationships, and `noise' or unintentional sound gets in the way of them. He advises that every organisation should have comprehensive audio brand guidelines, detailing its intentional sound including its voice, brand music, sonic logos, advertising sound, product sound (as an asset or a liability), plus shops, offices and all manner of spaces in which we live, work, buy, and take our leisure. A large section is given to the telephone, customer-friendly automation, and the call centre, and many a consumer and business executive will be aware of the many issues here.
Given the continuing fragmentation of media, the high penetration of low cost technologies, such as the web, mobile devices, and interactive TV to name but a few, the lack of attention given to these channels is surprising. I beleive this is a key area where consumer behaviour, attitudes and expectations are changing at breakneck speed, and companies are searching for ways to create ever more richly-imbued, emotive, and personally meaningful brands as they strive to be distinctive and reinforce relationships of loyalty and trust.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Julian Treasure's book Sound Business is treasure trove of practical tips and business practises that tie into the science of sound. The book has a focus on business (although it includes elements on schools, hospitals and other public spaces), so it not only applies sound techniques to sales, but also to branding: corporations spend vast resources visually identifying themselves, but they are deaf to the possibilities of sound. This book gives them the tools to approach sonic branding - as made so famous by Intel and Microsoft.
As a psychobiologist I found the information in the book both accurate and well-selected, yet the style of the book is suitable for non-scientists because the book is both accessible and engaging; managers and marketers will find that the book reads like intelligent advice backed up by scientific evidence, with much new information that can be put to use immediately. Treasure shows how changing a room's soundscape is invariably less expensive than making made-to-measure visual changes in a room, and scaling up to change the sonic identity of a company will be far more affordable than equivalently valuable visual changes. The book also includes a CD with real life examples of bad practise likely to harm those businesses' balance sheets.
My favourite part of the book was its consideration of emotional and behavioural effects in "Part 2: Sound Affects." In it Treasure considers in detail the effects on people (and on sales) of music, and also of environmental sounds. His treatment of the relationship between musical tempo and "dwell time" in a store as the basis of additional sales is an absolute must-read for managers and designers in the retail sector.
Overall, I found this book not only informative but enjoyable, in the way that any good education - and that is what this book is, an education into a long overlooked aspect of retail environments - should be. I have gone back to the book for information that I read in it on several occasions, and I think this book will provide the business reader with many memorable and useful nuggets worth returning to.
Dr. Harry Witchel, author of "You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are"
As a psychobiologist I found the information in the book both accurate and well-selected, yet the style of the book is suitable for non-scientists because the book is both accessible and engaging; managers and marketers will find that the book reads like intelligent advice backed up by scientific evidence, with much new information that can be put to use immediately. Treasure shows how changing a room's soundscape is invariably less expensive than making made-to-measure visual changes in a room, and scaling up to change the sonic identity of a company will be far more affordable than equivalently valuable visual changes. The book also includes a CD with real life examples of bad practise likely to harm those businesses' balance sheets.
My favourite part of the book was its consideration of emotional and behavioural effects in "Part 2: Sound Affects." In it Treasure considers in detail the effects on people (and on sales) of music, and also of environmental sounds. His treatment of the relationship between musical tempo and "dwell time" in a store as the basis of additional sales is an absolute must-read for managers and designers in the retail sector.
Overall, I found this book not only informative but enjoyable, in the way that any good education - and that is what this book is, an education into a long overlooked aspect of retail environments - should be. I have gone back to the book for information that I read in it on several occasions, and I think this book will provide the business reader with many memorable and useful nuggets worth returning to.
Dr. Harry Witchel, author of "You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are"
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Organizations spend millions on visual identity. But almost nothing on aural identity - what you sound like to customers. Yet sound has a massive impact on your customer experience. Two sounds that put customers' teeth on edge are espresso machines and diesel engines, according to this book. The latter is not surprising but the former gives you pause for thought if you are a Starbucks-a-like and think your proposition is a relaxing place for a quiet cup of coffee...but your espresso machines are the equivalent to finger nails on a blackboard to your customers. I am interested in this book for the same reason Martin Lindstrom's Brand Sense and Andy Milligan & Shaun Smith's See, Feel, Think, Do books are interesting: they help us think more clearly about designing a customer experience based on all the senses with which the customer experiences your brand. Treasure is one of the few experts in the neglected area of sound design. Even the word 'design' has visual origins, so excludes sound. Treasure includes a CD with his book (can't say for certain that it's included with this version, to be honest, so you may want to check rather than rely on me) that lets you listen to turn-ons and turn-offs that will keep your customers relaxed and happy or tense and running for the door (often without realising why). At Glasgow airport, says Treasure, they play natural, ambient sounds (birds singing, plus soothing chillout music underneath it) over the loudspeakers to relax travellers. Sales in the airport shops went up 10%. Supermarkets have always been good at this manipulation of the senses and I don't like the underhand aspects of that. But the rest of Treasure's proposition is, er, sound. Phil Dourado. Leadership Consultant, Speaker, Author. www.PhilDourado.com
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Enlightening!
As I am nearing the end of my MA dissertation which deals with sound branding and design management, `Sound Business' has been vital for my research progress, it has developed my... Read more
Published 21 months ago by N.Sarkis
Business book of the year?
Sound Business is a remarkable book, for its vision, for its insight and for hard-edged practical advice. Read more
Published on 16 April 2007 by W. P. Gibbons
The path to a sound business
This book proposes the first practical model for designing appropriate soundscapes in business.
As the title suggests, the whole point of this book is that we need to... Read more
As the title suggests, the whole point of this book is that we need to... Read more
Published on 14 April 2007 by Mark Wing
Suspect evidential claims undermine potentially interesting topic
As a musician, educationist and frequent contributor to business learning programmes internationally my feeling is that to write a book about the impact sound has upon our daily... Read more
Published on 4 April 2007 by M. J. Spencer
Poorly researched
It is unfortunate that such a potentially interesting subject is supported by this catalogue of sketchy and inaccurate research. Read more
Published on 3 April 2007 by Music Fan
Remarkable
This guy is really onto something. The idea of sound in branding has been a source of interest to me for ages but Mr Treasure has laid out all the academic background right here in... Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2007 by Roderick Banner
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
