Audio Branding the Olympics

​As a kid during the "Snap, Crackle, Pop, Rice Krispies" jingle era, I was fascinated by the recent "What does a brand sound like?" episode of the podcast Household Name. It’s true, what a brand sounds like can be just as important as what it looks like.
 
As early broadcast television transitioned from full-length songs touting the goods and services of its sponsors to shorter commercials with jingles from advertisers, the 1980's brought us one of the earliest and most successful examples of audio branding. Today, if any of us hears just a few bars of “Rhapsody in Blue,” we can’t help but think of United Airlines and the thrill of travel.  
 
Listening to this George Gershwin melody made me think about Leo Arnaud's "Bugler's Dream." ABC Sports first used this spine-tingling fanfare when it broadcast the 1964 Winter Olympic Games from Innsbruck, Austria. This movement from Arnaud’s “The Charge Suite” became so synonymous with ABC's Olympic telecasts, everyone started calling it the "Olympic Theme." From the first timpani drum beats, this piece of music conjured up so many emotions, that even another network, NBC, continued to use Arnaud’s rousing masterpiece when it took over broadcasting the Olympics. 
 
ABC was a pioneer when it came to fusing music with sports. In The World Was Our Stage, Doug Wilson writes about how music was more than just audio frosting slapped on top of a video cake. Whether they were using Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” to heighten the senses while soaring above the Lauberhorn downhill course in Switzerland or Frank Sinatra’s recording of “Foggy Day (in London town)” as a satirical overlay for the opening of Muhammad Ali’s bout with English boxer Brian London, their combination of ingredients created what Doug described as a “sensational tingle."   


Listen to "Bugler's Dream"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lpX-4hISk

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