Confirmation of the overall idea

The CKO project, ideas, and methods for applying listening tests in a branding context was presented at the Audio Branding Academy conference in Hamburg.

The workshop had participants from most of the professional sound branding industry (from Brazil to Italy) and a few leading scholars within the field of perception, cross-modal interaction, and strategic use of sound i a commercial context. As always it was a pleasure getting inspiration from the key note speak by Dr. Charles Spence (please have a google, this guy knows how to make novel experiments).

One of the main elements that we took home from the conference (other than presenting some of our initial studies and promoting our concept) was that some initial signs of needs for pre-testing of sound/music in branding are showing. A simple and straightforward question asked to one of the presenters was "have you tested that". If directly seeking valid documentation for many of the claims made by the sound branding industry needs supporting in this type of network (people believing in the power of sound), then there surely must be a stronger request from the doubters out there?

It is also worth mentioning that the issue of sound and electric vehicles was discussed in a separate panel session - apparently one of the hot topics these days. This inspiring discussion confirmed the relevance of a previous project that DELTA SenseLab in corporation with Sonic Branding and EC Tunes did during the autumn of 2010. In a range of listening experiments we evaluated the need (or lack off?) sound for electric cars at low speeds (as well as which sound was considered appropriate for the purpose). Initial results and conclusions about the topic are currently being boiled down to a white-paper, which will be presented on this web page at a later stage. It should be noted that it is a topic which can fuel many and loud discussions because the final output will influence our everyday sound scapes in the years to come. See the following link for a short introduction - http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/05/idUS264460506620110205

While this only indirectly has connection to the ExSl project it confirms that listening tests may contribute with relevant findings, documenting effect, and quantifying the various perceptual characteristics in a wide range of domains.