1-9-90

Maybe I am the last to know about it but the number sequence above seems to be pretty famous, particularly among social media connoisseurs.

Never one to avoid lifting a concept from somewhere and seeing how it applies to sonic branding, I have been thinking about where sonic branding is on the 1-9-90 scale.

To explain where this number sequence comes from...it was first applied to the web in which it is a general rule that 1% of people contribute content, 9% edit, amend or add to the content and 90% of people simply consumer content without contributing. So how can this apply to sonic branding?

Well, I am constantly trying to work out where my industry sits in terms of maturity. It has to be said, I mainly do this when I am preparing financial forecasts. Where are we today, what will demand look like tomorrow?

When I started out in sonic branding, I was the '1'. This was not a pleasant experience. Lots of mistakes made, no real model to follow, all the pressure to create the rules as I went along. I think it took about 10 years for the industry to move properly into the '9'. and that is where I believe we are today: there are a number of very experienced practitioners, all contributing to the global understanding of the industry and doing interesting work.

For some time I have been likening the current maturity level of sonic branding to that of visual branding c. 1960 when I would say it was going through its '9' period. A few smart people had the experience of creating logos and though it was still broadly speaking a cottage industry full of artisans and practitioners of IP arbitrage, it was a growth industry - albeit relatively slow growth.

Today, visual branding is a science and is measured and accounted. It is a mature industry with 100s of experienced and competitive practitioners. The maturation took place in the 1980s and early 1990s when branding became something that the whole world knew about. It emphatically entered it '90' phase. It took visual branding 25 or so years. Will it take sonic branding that long?

My bank hopes it will happen more quickly than that - and I remember when I first met Julian Treasure in 2003 (a fellow member of the gang of '9') he said that sonic branding would be 'massive in 10 years'. I am starting to believe he may be right. The speed of change and growth at the moment is astonishing and the next 3 years may well see the industry boom. If it does, those of us in the '9' (and it is not too late to join, I think) will have had the honour of having creating a new branding paradigm and even if this industry never creates a sonic branding billionaire, at least we'll have contributed.

My conclusion on the 1-9-90? Best not to be the 1, better to be the 9, fingers crossed that the other 90 show up!