Kaspersky developed its audio branding back in 2015, focusing on the experience of such big companies as BMW, Audi, McDonald’s and Intel. The first set of audio assets was created together with the REEF studio, and the company used it for five years. In 2019, Kaspersky held a total rebranding and there appeared a new brand platform, followed by a change in the visual style. We had to update the audio branding according to this new style: to reconsider the approach to rhythm and timbre content, to create more relevant sounds, and at the same time to maintain continuity with the available developments.
A person perceives sounds on the instinctive and emotional levels and decodes them figuratively and intonationally. We believe that this understanding should be also used in branding. In order to accurately seize the character of the brand in sound, we explored some territories and especially the territory of innovation. We looked for something that would be interpreted by a listener as the sound of future. In the process we managed to combine digital, analogue, modular synthesis in order to find grey areas which haven’t yet become the mainstream and can be perceived as futuristic sound.
Besides progressiveness and manufacturability, it was important for us to emphasize humanity in the brand philosophy. We looked for the optimal balance between synthetic and acoustic to achieve empathy while listening. We used digital sound synthesis in order to accurately match the tones, and we got the most extensive control over the harmonic characteristics of the sound. Analogue synthesis in its turn helped us to obtain custom timbres that are processed in post-production in the digital environment afterwards. We chose the sound of an electric guitar as a live sound, and due to processing through the digital environment it turned out to be nice and muted. This sound fits well in the overall picture and works nicely with the main synthetic construction.
We used the most recognizable move from the available brand's audio DNA in order to maintain continuity. Applying modular synthesis and resampling, we connected its normal version to its played backwards expanded version. Our concept envisaged space-sounding, that’s why we worked out the drum section in such a way to make it serve as a nice accompaniment to all the other chosen timbres, rather than be interrupted by dynamic range. The rhythm section turned out to be minimalistic and modern, thus reminding us of the brand's manufacturability.
Kaspersky holds about sixty events every year and during these events it actively uses assets developed by our team. The main reason for this is that they are suitable for completely different tasks. For example, music tracks can be easily looped for an indefinite time and this allows you to use them as loaders which is highly demanded at events.