A new study has ranked creative effectiveness for some of Australia’s biggest radio advertisers, based on the impact of their brand audio logos.

The Audio Logo Index study was compiled by radio network Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and audio intelligence platform Veritonic, who also undertake the study in the US and UK.

Machine listening algorithms and a human sample of over 2,000 people ranked 26 audio logos against multiple attributes including authenticity, brand familiarity and recall.

Audio Logo Index Top 10:

1. Bunnings

2. Victoria Bitter

3. Toyota

4. McDonald’s

5. Telstra

6. Coles

7. Intel

8. AAMI

9. Woolworths

10. Harvey Norman

Bunnings’ sonic brand had winning scores across almost every indicator including recall, correct identification of brand and industry, and emotional attributes including trust, authenticity, happiness, and likeability.

Victoria Bitter, the number two brand on the Index, matched Bunnings for emotional attributes including authenticity, likeability and uniqueness; qualities that map directly to high recall.

“Familiarity, which also obviously influences recall, is another strong driver of a high-scoring audio brand. Each of these businesses is both long-established and among the brands spending the most on marketing in Australia. In fact, all of the top-10-scoring brands on the Index - which claimed an average recall score of 97 - are heavy ad spenders,” SCA National Head of Creativity, Matt Dickson, said.

Further afield, audio logos from Liberty Mutual and State Farm took top honours in the US. In the UK, McDonald’s and Haribo logos tied for first place.

Liberty Mutual

State Farm

McDonald's

Haribo

The findings across all markets suggested that including a melody in the audio logo increased memorability and brand association.

Read more about the Australian study.