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The Sound of Norwegian - How Norwegian Air Shuttle aims to engage customers through music

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By Taruka Srivastav, Reporter

December 23, 2017 | 3 min read

Norwegian Air Shuttle, in collaboration with Adelphoi Music, has looked to the power of music for its latest campaign ‘The Sound of Norwegian’ which encompassed aviation, rewards, banking, cargo and holidays together through one unified sound.

As it was released, The Drum spoke with Norwegian Air Shuttle's senior strategy advisor Julius Einan Støback to find out more about the campaign.

What prompted​ ​the​ ​brand​ ​to​ ​craft​ ​The​ ​Sound​ ​of​ ​Norwegian​?

Norwegian has massive growth ambitions. We need consumers to remember us in a lot more buying situations through our advertising. Our brand track and mnemonic, Northern Colours, will contribute significantly to this as we build it into a distinctive brand asset to drive recall. Furthermore, for us as an airline, music is also part of the customer experience - on-board being the most important. Travel can be stressful and we wanted to use music to help emphasize the opportunity to relax, let go and enjoy the ride with us. Adelphoi solved that in a brilliant way.

Tell​ ​us​ ​about​ ​your​ ​experience​ ​working​ ​on​ ​a​ ​sonic​ ​branding​ ​project.

Working with music and sound in a branding context was new to us. We have of course worked with music within adverts before but for this project we had to think bigger and with a longer-term view in mind. This project differs from an ad campaign as Northern Colours will represent not only Norwegian Air but the whole Norwegian brand across all audio touchpoints. This includes the bank, the reward program, our cargo business and any other potential future industries we find ourselves in.

I did my homework before the project began (in the hope of not sounding like a ‘newbie’ in the agency discussions!) reading ‘How Music Works’ by David Byrne and ‘This Is Your Brain on Music’ by Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and music producer. I learnt a huge amount and Adelphoi’s approach was very informative and patient. We listened to a lot of music together to reach a common language for the process which was crucial for later decision making and most importantly, a lot of fun.

And​ ​the​ ​end​ ​result?

It was such a great moment when we decided upon Northern Colours as The Sound of Norwegian. Our decision making was informed by a combination of strategic criteria and human emotion, and that has been part of the magic of this process - music encompasses body, heart and mind. Norwegian Air currently flies over 35 million people a year across five continents. The fact that this music will be experienced as part of the product on board for all these consumers as well as our crew every day is very humbling.

When​ ​does​ ​Northern​ ​Colours​ ​roll​ ​out​ ​across​ ​the​ ​Norwegian​ ​business?

We are in the midst of making it come alive now; adapting the theme to sit across our plethora of touchpoints without moving too far away from the original score. There is a balance to be found because we want to build recognition but we also genuinely want people to enjoy it as a piece of music and not feel they are being “subject to brand building”. But that is the beauty of Northern Colours, it has turned out to be a very versatile piece of music. My personal favourite is the twenty minute boarding music track.

Norwegian Air Shuttle: The Sound of Norwegian

By Norwegian Air Shuttle

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