Nurofen embraces sonic branding with pain management song

Created in partnership with Dr Claire Howlin, a psychology researcher at University College Dublin, and music producer Anatole (aka Jonathan Baker), the calming music harnesses instrumental and orchestral sounds to transport the listener to a happier place.

All of Us combines strings, pianos, bells and vocal samples chosen following a survey of pain sufferers carried out by Howlin, which asked patients to grade their pain before and after hearing the sounds. Those effects that had the greatest benefit were passed to Anatole to craft something more melodious.

Overseen by McCann London, the harmonious track comes with a custom cover conceived by artist Nicholas Rougeux who transposed the audio into a visual language, representing each instrument by its color and mapped to each specific note.

Sezi Unluturk, category manager at Nurofen, said: “Nurofen is a pioneer in pain management and is committed to finding new solutions that go beyond the pill. ’Tune Out Pain’ was developed to help further scientific knowledge of new holistic pain management techniques that can complement existing pain-relieving medications.”

Sanjiv Mistry and Jamie Mietz, executive creative directors at McCann, add: “We’re proud to be collaborating with Nurofen on creating unconventional services like this – a music track scientifically engineered to help with acute pain – all in a quest to help it find interesting and effective new ways to put people in charge of their pain management.”

’Tune Out Pain’ has precedent in 2019s Swear Labs campaign, which saw the team scientifically assess the impact of swearing on short-term pain relief.

Brands have been cottoning on to the power of sound to reach consumers after long prioritizing visual mediums, with a new science emerging in pairing adverts with the most appropriate sounds. Taking this a step further are brands such as MasterCard, which has pioneered ’sonic brand architecture’ to stand out and be heard.