Request the free quickscan
Send us links to anything with sound in it. Two weeks from the day the links land, you get the report. No cost, no obligation.
What is a sonic brand audit?
A sonic brand audit is a structured listen through everything a brand already puts out with sound in it: ads, social cuts, brand films, podcast intros, the app and the phone line. It reports whether that sound fits the brand, whether anything signs the work as yours, and what to fix first. Studio ZK runs the quickscan version for free.
Send us the work you have put out with sound in it: video ads and social cutdowns, brand films, podcast intros, event openers, the app, the hold tone on your phone line. The quiet everyday pieces tell us as much as the campaign films, so send those along as well.
Most brands have a colour code, a font and a page of rules for the logo. Sound tends to arrive later, at the end of an edit, with a deadline in the room and no brief to check it against. That happens in the best teams, and it is where an audit finds most of its material: the distance between the care your visual identity gets and the care your sound gets.
Does it sound like you
We are not marking the track out of ten. We ask whether it fits this brand, saying this thing, in this campaign. Music can be good on its own and still belong to somebody else.
Made for you, or chosen from a library
Library music is a fair choice, and we reach for it ourselves when a project calls for it. What we look at is whether you have anything of your own to reach for, so your editors start from something instead of from a search bar.
Is there something that signs the work
A short sound at the end that marks the film as yours. Plenty of brands do not have one yet, and it is the quickest thing to put right, so we look for it first.
Two things you can hear yourself
Whether your audio logo and the music underneath it sit in related keys, and whether the music lands on the beat or gets cut mid phrase when the edit runs out. Both are audible on a laptop speaker, and once you have heard them you keep hearing them.
Quickscan or deep dive?
Quickscan, free of charge
You send the links, we listen to all of it, and you get three things back: a report you can forward internally, a session where we take your team through it, and a short list of what to fix first.
Two weeks from the day the links land, and it costs you nothing.
Full audit, priced per brand
Everything in the quickscan, plus a benchmark against the brands you compete with for attention, a measurement of what a laptop speaker hides, and a look at how music gets briefed inside your team.
It runs in three parts: we scan the work, we report on what we heard, and we sketch the sound that follows from it, so you hear a first version of your own identity before you commission one. We price it per brand, because a company with three videos and a company with three hundred are not the same job.
| Quickscan | Full audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Priced per brand |
| What we listen to | Everything you send | Everything you send, plus the brands you compete with for attention |
| Technical checks | The two you can hear yourself | Those two, plus a measurement of what a laptop speaker hides |
| You get back | A written report, a session with your team, a fix-first list | All of that, plus a look at how music gets briefed inside your team and a first sketch of the sound that follows from it |
| Right for | Brands that have never commissioned sound, or suspect theirs drifts | Brands with a large back catalogue or several agencies producing at once |
How the audit works
1. You send the links
A folder, a Drive link, or a list in an email. If you are unsure whether something counts, put it in. Working out what matters is our side of the job, not yours.
2. We listen to all of it
We play your work back to back and in order, which teams seldom get to do with their own material. That shows us how you sound today, and how much of that carries from one channel to the next.
Three questions per asset, the two technical checks, and the pictures alongside, so we can say how close your sound sits to your look.
3. Report
You get it in writing: where the sound holds together, where it drifts, and what a brief underneath it could look like. Every finding comes with what we would do about it, so you can forward the report internally without translating it first.
4. Session
We come to your office and take your team through the report, and answer the question that comes up first: what do we fix first. Most brands decide at the end of that hour whether we carry on to the direction session, and that is where the music starts.
From the audit to your own sound
Most brands come to us for the audit and leave with music. The audit tells you where you stand today. In the three steps after it we write the sound you end up using, and each step starts when you say so.
1. Audit
Where you stand now. You hear your own material in a row, and we tell you which touchpoints agree, which pull apart, and what a brief underneath them could look like. Free, and it takes two weeks.
2. Direction
What your brand should sound like, agreed before anyone writes a note: register, tempo, instrumentation, and what stays off limits. One session, and most brands book it straight after the report, because the audit already shows what the sound has to carry.
3. Identity and guidelines
The part where we make the music. Your sonic logo, the anthem, the UX sounds, written and recorded in the studio, plus the guidelines that keep them intact once agencies and freelancers start briefing from them. See what we build.
4. Rollout
We brief your editors, agencies and in-house teams, so everyone who touches the sound knows what to do with it. This step decides whether your sound is still recognisable in three years.
The audit, explained
What does the quickscan cost?
Nothing. The collection, the listening, the report and the session are free. Most conversations about sonic branding start with a brand hearing its own assets in a row, so we would rather you hear that first.
What happens after the audit?
We walk you through the findings and stop there if that is where you want to stop. Plenty of brands take the list and fix it themselves. If you want to keep going, the next step is a direction session, and we talk about scope and cost at the end of the walkthrough.
Do we need a sonic identity already?
No. Most brands that book this have never commissioned a note of music, and that is the normal starting point. The audit works with whatever is out there. Finding that none of it was a deliberate choice is a result in itself, and usually the most useful one.
What if our sound turns out to be fine?
Then you have that in writing and you have saved yourself a project. We look for a clear brief underneath the work, and plenty of brands have one even when the execution wanders between campaigns.
How long does a sonic brand audit take?
The quickscan takes two weeks from the day your links arrive, including the written report. The session with your team is one hour. If you want to run a first pass yourself before sending anything, our five-step guide takes about three hours.
What do you need from us?
Links to anything with sound in it: ads, social cuts, brand films, podcast intros, event openers, app sounds, the hold music on your phone line. No briefing document, no brand book required. If you have a brand book, send it along, because we compare the sound against how the brand looks.
Is the audit different for a museum or cultural organisation?
The method is the same. What changes is the benchmark: we compare against other cultural institutions rather than consumer brands, and we check whether the sound suits the subject matter, because a memorial site and a summer festival can’t share a musical language. See sonic branding for cultural institutions.