These are the most popular sonic logos of 2021

In our world of streaming, sonic logos are becoming more and more important for brands. From Netflix's opening 'dun-dun' to Apple's startup 'duuuhn' (okay, sonic logos are hard to describe in words), there are plenty you'll have heard before. And now, for the first time ever, an in-depth study has revealed most popular audio idents in the US and UK.  

Created by sonic branding specialist SoundOut, the index brings together over 135 brands and draws from the responses of over 30,000 consumer participants, and it features several from our own pick of the best sonic logos.

To determine the top 100, SoundOut's study considers effectiveness (the "intrinsic quality of the logo excluding any brand association"), market penetration (measuring how familiar consumers are with each logo) and strength of personality, reflecting how strongly the sonic logo matches the 14 core attributes of SoundOut's 'BrandMatch' algorithm.

In the US (below), the winning sonic logo belongs to Disney, followed closely by 20th Century Studios, Goldfish and Warner Brothers. In the UK, meanwhile (above), the top five are Just Eat, AO, GoCompare and Moonpig. It's curious to note that the US favourites are more cinematic, whereas the UK winners are lighter offerings from the worlds of TV and online advertising.

"While more and more brands have been investing in sonic branding as the power of music’s impact on the subconscious becomes better understood, there has been little objective analysis and measurement of the effectiveness of sonic logos," explains SoundOut CEO David Courtier-Dutton. "The SoundOut Index changes that. We are proud to be the first to establish which sonic logos have built a powerful emotional connection with consumers."

You can read the entire comprehensive study on SoundOut's website. And if you're inspired to create a sonic logo of your own, check out the best audio editing software in 2021.

Read more:

• Apple's new privacy ad is perfect (and Facebook will hate it)
• Google's new 3D video call tech is both terrifying and impressive
• This incredible optical illusion is blowing minds on TikTok