CLEAN ID™
Sonic Branding by Squeak E. Clean
Your brand already has a look.
It deserves a sound.
Clean ID™ is how we design sonic brand identities that are intentional, emotional, and unmistakably you.
This is sonic branding for brands that care about how they show up in the world.
let’s be clear
Clean ID™ is the audible expression of your brand across every place your audience hears you:
film · digital · product · retail · culture
We don’t sell tracks.
It’s not a jingle.
We build Clean ID™ systems.
That means creating a sound your brand can own, extend, and live with - for years, not just one campaign.
The Building Blocks of a Clean ID™
Sonic Logo
A short, ownable sound that lands instantly and sticks.
Brand Theme or Anthem
The emotional core — adaptable, scalable, unmistakably yours.
Sonic Language
Tempo, texture, tone, harmony, attitude.
The rules that keep your brand sounding like itself.
Sound-On Experiences
Audio for apps, products, retail spaces, interfaces, and moments that matter.
Sonic Brand Guidelines
We provide a real-world playbook — not a PDF that lives in a drawer.
The Clean ID™ Process
Creative instinct, backed by science.
Every Clean ID™ we build follows a data-driven development process — balancing intuition, strategy, and human response.
This is how sound becomes own-able, scalable, and effective.
01 — Strategic Review
We align on brand, ambition, and objective.
No sound until the brief is sharp.
02 — Competitive Analysis
We listen to the category.
Then we design something that doesn’t blend in.
03 — Exploratory Demos
Once aligned creatively, we explore.
Original demos built to test emotional range and brand fit.
04 — Neuroscience Review
Sound is felt before it’s understood.
We apply neuroscience to evaluate what’s resonating — and why.
Working with our academic partner Dr. Bradley Vines (former Neuroscience Director at Nielsen), we conduct auditory perception research to identify the specific sonic triggers that align with your brand's target demographic and desired emotional outcomes.
05 — Refine & Select
Insight meets instinct.
We refine, pressure-test, and identify the strongest Clean ID™ territory.
06 — Finalize & Deliver
A hero asset, plus a flexible toolkit —
designed for launch, scale, and real-world use.
Meet the experts
Dr. Bradley Vines
Dr. Vines brings invaluable experience from his time as Neuroscience Director at Nielsen researching advertising effectiveness and brand strategy in audio. His work investigates the contribution of auditory and visual perception to the communication of emotion in music and overlapping brain systems for music and language, with clients including Coca-Cola, LinkedIn, Unilever, and Google.
Alexa Hilal Calabro
Alexa is a branding and creative specialist based in San Francisco, CA who has over two decade’s worth of experience helping to shape global brand strategy for some of the biggest agency and brand clients out there, including Sony, Mars, Levi’s and many others. We love working with Alexa because she helps synthesize competitive data sets with universal human insights that inform how we all approach a brief.
Let’s Make Something You Can Own
If you’re building a brand — or rebuilding one — sound shouldn’t be an afterthought.
It should be designed.
It should be a Clean ID™.
FAQs
What IS Sonic Branding
1
Sonic branding, also known as audio branding, is the expression of your brand through sound. A short, instantly recognisable piece of music or sound that customers link to your brand.
Just as visual branding relies on logos, colors, and typography, sonic branding uses music, sound design, voice, and audio cues to create emotional connections and improve brand recall. Effective sonic branding helps brands become instantly recognizable across advertising, digital experiences, podcasts, social media, events, apps, and broadcast media.
Popular examples include McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It,” Netflix startup sound, Taco Bell’s “ding” and more iconic sounds you’d recognise in three seconds or less. These ‘audio logos’ are just the beginning of what sonic branding can achieve.
What industries benefit from sonic branding?
2
Virtually every industry can benefit from a strategic audio identity. We work with brands in entertainment, technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer products, hospitality, automotive, sports, and retail. Any organization seeking stronger brand recognition, emotional connection, and consistency across customer touch-points can benefit from a thoughtful sonic branding strategy.
Bottom Line Up Front: Ads containing sonic brand cues test 8.53 times more effective than those with only visual assets. Your brand's auditory equity is measurable, scalable, and directly correlated to business outcomes.
Clean ID™ is for brands that:
Are tired of sounding like everyone else
Care about consistency and distinctiveness
Understand that sound is strategy — not seasoning
Why work with us?
3
Squeak E. Clean Studios brings together decades of experience in sonic branding, music production, sound design, and post-production. We operate where brand thinking, culture, music, and sound design intersect.
With 5 studios across the USA and Australia, Squeak E. Clean’s global team of award-winning composers, producers, sound designers, and engineers offers seamless, real-time collaboration across time zones.
Our sonic branding process combines sonic impulse with compositional excellence to create high-fidelity audio triggers that maximise memorability. We begin by understanding a brand's positioning, audience, values, and objectives. From there, we create a distinctive sonic language that aligns with the brand's personality and can be implemented consistently across advertising, content, digital products, experiential activations, and emerging media platforms.
We are:
Deeply experienced with major brands
Fluent in advertising, product, and entertainment
Comfortable in boardrooms and the studio
Obsessed with craft.
We help brands move beyond generic music choices to create proprietary sonic assets that build recognition, consistency, and long-term brand value.
Why is sonic branding important for modern brands?
4
Consumers interact with brands across more audio touchpoints than ever before. From streaming platforms and social media to podcasts, connected devices, and video content, sound has become a critical part of the customer experience. A well-developed sonic identity helps brands increase recognition, strengthen emotional engagement, improve memorability, and create consistency across every audience touchpoint.
7
How is sonic branding measured?
5
Sonic branding effectiveness can be evaluated through brand recall, recognition, audience engagement, emotional response, consistency across channels, and long-term brand equity.
Research consistently shows that distinctive audio assets can improve memorability and strengthen consumer perception when integrated strategically into broader brand systems.
How do I get in touch?
As AI, voice interfaces, streaming platforms, immersive media, and connected devices continue to expand, sound will play an increasingly important role in brand communication.
Organizations that invest in sonic identity today are positioning themselves to create stronger audience relationships and maintain consistency across rapidly evolving digital experiences.
Reach out to mg@squeakeclean.com to hear more about our Clean ID service and how we can help you find your sound.
What is the future of sonic branding?
6
The Work
Holistic music and sound solutions — from strategy through execution — delivered globally.
Marriott Bonvoy — Reimagining a Portfolio Identity
Key Deliverable: A new audio mnemonic and first-generation Clean ID™.
Budweiser — “Yours to Take” (Global Campaign)
Produced 60 unique music edits, layered with bespoke sound design and mixing.