This was a pleasure to work on. Not only are hearing clinics and sonic branding just a natural fit, Quinte Hearing Centre in particular presented some great branding opportunities.

When branding any business, you’re looking for something unique. With sonic branding, you’re looking even deeper. You’re looking for some sort of emotional hook from which to build a musical hook. What I found appealing about Quinte Hearing Centre is they’re audiologist owned and operated. They focus less on sales and more on hearing health. As they like to say, they don’t have clients; they have patients.

Most people would liken hearing loss to vision impairment, but losing one’s hearing is not like needing glasses. It’s more like losing a limb. Those with hearing impairment often find themselves at a disadvantage. They feel left out and isolated. Ultimately people leave Quinte Hearing Centre feeling taken care of, empowered, seen, and more confident.

They hear because they have been heard.

We built their sonic brand on three guiding traits. The following are excerpts from the sonic style guide we developed.

• Compassion
  Quinte Hearing Centre’s music needs to evoke a feeling of warmth and care. This starts with a bass sound that is deep and rich, but also steady and unobtrusive – more felt than heard. The music must also follow a moderate pace – not too fast or too slow. Sparse acoustic guitar will work to ground the piece, while also helping to create a sense of space and openness.
  
• Independence
  Hearing aids can be life-changing. They don’t just only allow users to function more independently. They open up a whole world of sensory experiences they had previously been missing. These qualities will be expressed in the composition and production of the piece. The feel must be positive and inspirational without being over-the-top. We’re not trying to bring about a sense of adventure but confidence, freedom, and gratitude. In terms of production, nothing here is in-your-face, but sparse, bright, and open. Instrumentation will also play an important role here with light synths and percussion.
  
• Modernity
  While Quinte Hearing Centre engenders an image of compassion, care, and community focus, the tools they use are state-of-the-art. The music needs to feel current without coming off as trendy or esoteric. It also can’t sound like a jingle in the traditional sense; more like music that happens to be about a brand. Synths will be present to evoke notions of modernity and technology. At the same time, they will be in supportive roles as to not overpower the piece. Their function is to help create colour, texture, and space in the composition. In addition, the percussion will be kept light and airy. It needs to feel less like a beat and more like a pulse.

Since the Quinte area is a surprisingly dense and competitive market, we knew attribution would be very important. We needed a melody that would be not just memorable, but singable.

Of course Quinte Hearing Centre presented us with an added challenge. In addition to being on brand, we had to consider accessibility. A large portion of our target audience will have hearing loss in the 2kHz to 20kHz range. While the high frequency ranges will play an important role in the piece, the music and voice still had to be able to function independent of them. Both the sung and spoken voices must still be reasonably discernible despite the potential absence of high frequency sound. Here is what the piece might sound like to someone with hearing loss.

The piece also features a crescendo leading to an open space. This serves a few functions.

• It’s meant to symbolize the transition from hearing loss to hearing clarity. It’s the sound of the world opening up once the hearing aids are activated.
• When stock tracks are required, it allows for more seamless transitions; a sort of sonic palette cleanser.
• It creates space to highlight spoken commercial messages before the resolution.
• The transition is accented by a synth that sweeps the 2k-20k frequency range that is typically affected by hearing loss.

And that takes us to the finished piece.