Guest Column: Why Brands Still Treat Music As An Afterthought In Advertising Campaigns

For an industry that prides itself on understanding human behaviour, advertising has a curious blind spot. It spends an extraordinary amount of time debating what consumers will see, but remarkably little discussing what they will hear.

Creative presentations routinely dissect scripts, visual treatments, celebrity choices, colour palettes and media plans. Music often enters the conversation much later, somewhere between post-production and final delivery. By then, the campaign has already been conceived, sold and approved.

The brief for the soundtrack is usually functional rather than strategic: find something uplifting, energetic, emotional or youthful.

This would be surprising in any market. In India, it is particularly puzzling.

Few cultures are as deeply intertwined with music as ours. Music is not merely entertainment; it is a social language. It accompanies religious ceremonies, weddings, political rallies, cricket victories, road trips and heartbreak.

Film music routinely shapes popular culture in ways that far exceed the influence of the films themselves. Entire generations can identify brands, eras and even stages of life through songs.

Yet, despite operating in one of the world's most music-obsessed societies, many brands continue to treat music as an executional element rather than a strategic asset.

Part of the problem lies in how advertising has evolved. The industry grew up in a visual-first ecosystem. Television, print, outdoor advertising and, later, digital display all reinforced the idea that branding was primarily a visual exercise. Logos, colours, typography and packaging became codified assets. Companies invested heavily in visual identity systems because they could be documented, protected and consistently deployed.

Sound never received the same institutional attention.

Most brands have detailed guidelines governing the use of their logos. Very few can articulate what they should sound like.

The irony is that some of the strongest examples of brand recall globally have little to do with visuals. Intel's sonic signature, Netflix's opening sound, McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" and Nokia's ringtone all became instantly recognisable assets because they were treated as intellectual property rather than background accompaniment.

India once understood this instinctively. The era of advertising jingles produced assets that outlived the campaigns they were created for. Decades later, consumers still remember "Washing Powder Nirma", "Vicco Turmeric" and "Hamara Bajaj". Their staying power was not accidental. The music itself carried the brand memory.

Somewhere along the way, however, the industry became more interested in licensing culture than creating it.

Today, brands frequently attach themselves to trending songs, viral sounds or film releases in the hope of borrowing relevance. While this can generate short-term visibility, it rarely creates long-term distinctiveness. Audiences remember the song, not necessarily the sponsor.

This distinction matters more than ever because we now inhabit an audio-first internet.

The rise of short-form video has fundamentally altered how content is consumed. On platforms such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, sound is often the organising principle around which content travels. Trends are built around songs. Creators build communities through recurring audio cues. Music is no longer supporting content; it is helping to determine distribution.

A creator launching a reel instinctively understands something many brand teams still overlook: sound influences attention, recall and participation.

The data increasingly supports this. Research across multiple markets has shown that campaigns with distinctive sonic assets tend to improve memory structures and brand recognition. Yet, when campaign budgets come under pressure, investment in music strategy is often among the first things to be compromised.

The assumption appears to be that consumers notice visuals more than sound.

Human psychology suggests otherwise.

Neuroscientists have long observed that music accesses emotional processing systems differently from visual stimuli. People may forget the details of an advertisement, but they often remember how it made them feel. Music frequently acts as the emotional shortcut that creates that feeling.

This is perhaps why some of the most successful branded entertainment initiatives of recent years have been built around music itself rather than traditional advertising formats. Coke Studio's enduring appeal offers an instructive example. Its cultural value extends well beyond brand messaging because audiences actively seek out the content irrespective of the sponsor. The music is not supporting the marketing; the marketing is supporting the music.

That is a fundamentally different relationship between brands and culture.

The emergence of AI-generated content may make this conversation even more urgent. As creative production becomes easier and visual assets become increasingly commoditised, differentiation will become harder to achieve through imagery alone.

Distinctive sonic identities could become one of the few remaining assets that audiences can consistently recognise across fragmented platforms and devices.

The challenge for marketers is not simply to use more music. It is to involve music earlier.

Instead of asking what soundtrack fits a campaign, brands might benefit from asking what role sound plays in their identity. What emotions should audiences associate with the brand? What cultural spaces does it wish to occupy? What should consumers recognise before they even see a logo?

These are strategic questions, not production questions.

Advertising has always been in the business of creating memory. The industry's fixation on visual branding has led it to neglect one of the most powerful memory-making tools available to it.

In a marketplace where attention is increasingly scarce and differentiation is increasingly difficult, that seems less like an oversight and more like a missed opportunity.