Our tone of voice and the words we use are an important part of creating meaningful and engaging Novo Nordisk brand experiences across our touch points.
We always use UK English. Please go to the Corporate writing style guide to learn more about how we write in Novo Nordisk.
Besides remembering to always have your target audience in mind, our overall guidance is to align with our brand experience drivers:
Analogous to our visual identity we have created our own unique Novo Nordisk sound identity:
A proprietary system of distinct audible brand assets created with a cohesive sonic expression designed to convey our unique brand personality and amplify the Novo Nordisk brand experience.
With the development of our own sound identity we make use of sound and music’s special ability as a strong carrier of identity and emotional meaning that adds perspective and depth to our brand communication in other ways than words, images and video can.
With this strategic use of sound and music we are taking another significant step towards stronger brand recognition in securing a coherent and recognisable sonic profile across touchpoints.
This guide introduces the central ideas behind our sound identity
and key elements such as the Novo Nordisk sonic logo and Novo Nordisk
brand music – and how to make best use hereof.
All audible assets made available as part of the sound identity can be used freely in all media by Novo Nordisk without IP limitations or restrictions.
The sonic logo combined with the Novo Nordisk logo can be used across all Novo Nordisk platforms and communication, but the music can’t be used in connection with the mentioning of specific clinical trials and product brands.
Just as our three brand experience drivers are essential for how we design our visual assets the brand drivers are also central to how our brand is translated into sound and music: Into what we call the audible brand experience.
All melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and sonic elements and flavours defining the Novo Nordisk audible experience are carefully chosen to strike a balanced sound world that points towards a human, empathetic, genuine, optimistic and hopeful expression - infused with a passionate, curious, bold and innovative edge.
Using our three experience drivers to balance the expression of
our sound and music we’ve made sure that it is aligned with
everything else we do and reflects our heritage, strategy and
culture.
Always intend to engage our audience with audible or musical ideas, never afraid to evoke emotions, and always staying away from staged and deceitful use of sound and music in an effort to induce or force a certain reaction.
Focus and clarity in musical ideas and intentional use of musical space and contrast makes structure, progressions and developments easy to follow and comprehend. Always prioritising room to reflect over more sounds or instruments for effect.
With our distinct Novo Nordisk melodic theme, our focus on a unique
sound world balancing hand-played and electronic instruments and the
stylistic and compositional hierarchy and principles put forward in
our sound identity assets we stand out and build recognisability that
is unique to us and which other sound approaches and music cannot
provide.
Just as all of our communication is rooted in the overarching brand concept of 'Driving change…' our sound identity is created to support and reflect exactly that.
And due to the fact that sound and music exist and happen over time it is perfectly suited to add an audible dimension to telling that story.
In the section of our sonic logo it’s described in further detail how Driving change... is translated into sound. From an overall musical perspective it can be reflected by aiming at the musical concept of balance. A key concept in the experience of melody, harmony, rhythm and musical structure. And an essential dimension of what we want to achieve to fulfil our purpose. Driving change for our patients to achieve balance:
Balance in health
Balance in blood sugar
Balance in
life
Balance for the environment
“Driving change - towards a state of balance” - conveyed through our sonic logo, brand music and all other sound identity assets.
A sound world can be described as the arrangement of sounds that create the instrumental portion of a piece of music.
The composition of the sound world is pivotal for a sound or piece of music being memorable and distinctive - and plays a crucial part in building recognition among our brand audience.
In the music industry a sound world is often referred to as an artist's 'sound' - the profile from which you distinguish one artist from another. Examples could be The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Both unique rock groups from the same era, but with different aesthetic approaches to a shared genre and way of writing songs.
The Novo Nordisk sound world is created as a bespoke sound world that draws on instruments, timbres and sounds from both the hand-played and electronic realm. A unique combination of audible impressions that draws on stylistic traits from both orchestral, acoustic, electric and electronic forms of music.
Although there’s no one style of music that can be mentioned to adequately explain the Novo Nordisk sound world - there is one instrument that comes before all others in carrying the Novo Nordisk melodic theme; the cello.
The cello has been chosen for being:
- one of the most versatile instruments in existence crossing over most genres and styles.
- as contemporary as it is classic.
- the closest instrument to the audible range of the human voice.
- the heart and balance of the string ensemble.
- relatable and recognisable across cultures as a common instrument in popular music.
The design of the sonic logo draws on the visual traits and symbolic representation of our values from our visual logo to create an audiovisual symbiosis when experienced together.
The Novo Nordisk sonic logo is a distinctive piece of short form sound with musical traits. It can be seen as the audible equivalent to a visual logo and is a strong tool for effective brand communication by heightening attribution.
The Novo Nordisk sound signature is the core element of our sound identity and is designed as an audible reflection of the Novo Nordisk brand. It should be used as our signature sound mark whenever appropriate and possible.
The sonic logo is made available in combination with our logo animation in order to make sure sound and visuals are always in correct sync.
- Use the sonic logo consistently across touchpoints.
- Don’t fade or cut the sound - always allow the full asset to play without interruption.
- Make sure that volume is aligned to the volume of any other music or VO.
- Do not alter, modify, or play music, VO or SFX under it.
- Use the sonic
logo as a reference when considering choice of music outside the
sonic identity for best connection with instrumentation, key, tempo
and transition from underscore.
The Novo Nordisk sonic logo is built around our sound creative
concept of Driving change - towards a state of balance.
The sonic logo consists of a unique sound design and a distinctive three note melodic theme. The sonic logo and melodic theme is the core musical DNA of our sound world and is used as the defining creative element from which all of our sound identity elements are inspired and created.
The animations below explain how we have chosen the notes for the melodic theme and how the sonic logo supports the concept of Driving change...
Just like we use images and our motion and film language we use music to tell stories, convey messages and evoke emotions.
As part of our sound identity we’ve created a range of brand music tracks - musical brand moods to cover a range of on-brand music expressions that can be used across our communication platforms and media productions.
The Novo Nordisk brand moods further defines our sound world aesthetically and expressionally and should be used to the widest extent possible.
The brand moods are composed and produced in different lengths for easy use in film, presentations, events and other contexts where music should be used.
Creatively the music is also inspired from our 'Three levels of scale' that is defined for our style of photography and video thus covering the same expressional range as our visuals.
The brand moods are available in the Novo Nordisk music toolbox
which offers both fixed edits and lengths as well as flexible musical
building blocks to create your own bespoke structure or arrangement of
the music.
With the Novo Nordisk brand music we gain the benefits from:
- Custom-made distinct music always on-brand
- Easy choice and availability of music and fast production
- Consistency across media and touchpoints
- Synergy in use of music
- Easily expandable music collection to increase the
toolbox over time
Listen to examples of the different brand moods below.
The music toolbox is a collection of custom-made music pieces and
musical building blocks, adapted to our needs and created to match the
expression and appearance of our brand.
The toolbox
contains both fixed length versions called NN music editions and
flexible musical building blocks called NN music elements.
You can find an in-depth written description of and guide to the use of the Novo Nordisk music toolbox in Veeva.
For an easy introduction to the music toolbox system and guide of use you can watch the music toolbox guide videos below.