Activate your space with sonic branding
Creating the right atmosphere
Hospitality operators strive to deliver the right atmosphere: it’s a core aim. Whether hotel lobby, bar, restaurant or club, you want your guests to feel comfortable and relaxed. You want them to want to be there, and to want to stay. And afterwards you want them to tell everyone how good it was, and to come back again.
That right atmosphere is a harmonious balance of influences: for the customer, it’s about how you are treated, what you can sense around you and how it makes you feel. Operators put heart and soul into interior design, create outstanding menus and install comfortable lighting to deliver that all-important ambiance. But there is one key element in our enjoyment of any space that is often little more than a tacked-on afterthought – and that’s the sound system.
The benefits of a sound strategy
Why is it so important? Simply, because the sound around us can make or break an experience. We feel sound at a fundamental level. If poor acoustics mean that the babble of others’ chatter intrudes on a customer’s conversation with their companion across the table, or if the music is too loud or distorted, they’ll feel uncomfortable. In which case, they probably won’t stay for long, or hurry back.
Competition to engage and retain customers is stronger than ever, and great sound should not be considered a luxury, but a necessity. It should rank alongside fabulous cuisine, stylish décor and impeccable service in delivering a profitable hospitality environment, in maximising dwell time and repeat custom. Today’s high-end nightclubs, bars or hotel lobbies, often required to be versatile, multi-use spaces with needs changing according to time of day, should be enjoyable, comfortable and relaxing destinations – whatever the need. Without great sound, that’s not going to happen.
Psychoacoustics: The impact of sound
How do our minds and bodies react to sound? Research into psychoacoustics shows that sound has a huge influence on our mood and our physiology. As creative artists have long understood, sound impacts our emotions. It also affects our energy, stress levels, blood pressure and even body temperature. Hearing music we like (and hearing it well) triggers the production of dopamine – the happy hormone. Listening to slower tempo music makes us more relaxed – and therefore more content to wait or to stay. Syncopated or complex rhythms make us feel more energized.
Sound is not just crucial to how we feel, and how we interact and communicate, but to how we comprehend our physical environment. Our senses are finely attuned to detecting tiny variations in reverberation. Anyone entering an anechoic chamber quickly discovers that sound gives us our comfort, our balance, our sense of place. It’s vital to harness that power correctly as part of your hospitality atmosphere.
A large part of our emotional and physical response to sound depends on whether it makes sense to our brains: are we familiar with the sound, and do we know where it’s coming from? Hearing is key to our brain’s constant preoccupation with whether we should relax or be on our guard. Sound of a type and level that we’re comfortable with, that matches our visual sense of our surroundings, is a prerequisite for a positive physical reaction. If the acoustic is wrong, your brain will keep you on alert. You will not be able to relax.
Sound can be a subliminal, often intangible influence. Customers may not recognise the source of their discomfort, but poor sound is often the culprit. In the design of a space, the consideration of acoustics is vital.
Electroacoustics: delivering the sound
Working successfully with psychoacoustics requires a deep understanding of electroacoustic engineering: the mechanics of how sound is delivered. For d&b, that means creating the actual hardware – the loudspeakers that create the physical soundwaves – to play back the sound to its very best.
Over decades of continuous research and innovation, d&b has created a sound signature, an optimal loudspeaker tuning, with minimal distortion, high intelligibility and the best achievable sonic imaging – with perfectly matched power sources. This approach has defined a standard of performance which is consistently applied to all d&b’s loudspeaker ranges. What’s more, its proprietary software tools enable powerful optimisation and control. The d&b sound signature can be relied upon, from the largest stadiums to the most intimate of hospitality settings.
The recent rise of ‘immersive’ sound technology is another area in which d&b has led the field. Its d&b Soundscape system is scientifically designed to deliver sound in precisely the way that the human ear naturally receives it, bringing a new level of listening experience for the customer, and previously impossible, total control of sound environments for the operator.
Soundscape’s processing offers a powerful 64 x 64 matrix with level and delay adjustment at every crosspoint, enabling the accurate ‘positioning’ of sound sources within an environment. It can align our aural and visual perception (making sense to our brains), either realistically – delivering a true, natural sound – or creatively. Furthermore, it can modify or create acoustic signatures, enabling unprecedented control over the atmosphere of a space, depending on the time of day and the needs of the activity.
Activating your space: sonic branding
Today’s top-end hospitality facilities are often a destination in their own right. A first-class hotel lobby gives a foretaste of the city itself – the buzz of New York, the glamour of Paris, the futuristic luxury of Dubai. The decision-makers behind these environments choose that world-class d&b sonic signature to create the atmosphere, the ambience, that they need in order to succeed. They activate their space through what we call ‘sonic branding’.
In every aspect of the environment you present, you’re telling your customer about what kind of company – what kind of brand – you are. Guest areas should convey an immediate sense of that brand and the experience it promises. It’s about making that first impression count – and ensuring it’s one of relaxation, comfort and enjoyment. Painstakingly designed interiors and perfect customer service pay a large part in that of course, but all of it can be undermined by poor acoustics.
Happily, the message is being heard and more operators are realising the importance of sound. Our sound systems are found in high-end facilities around the world – in hotels, beach resorts, casinos, clubs and restaurants – in iconic destinations like Pacha and Ushuaia in Ibiza, in restaurants like Zuma in London, Antika in Beirut and Josette in Dubai – and in hotels like the Rocco Forte in Abu Dhabi and Hard Rock Cafés in locations around the world.
Aesthetics: sound that looks good
Of course, it’s not all about how it sounds: great sound needs to complement the environment, not intrude upon it. That carefully crafted aesthetic, those meticulously styled details and clean, uncluttered sightlines, all remain important. With aesthetics in mind, d&b’s product range provides two major advantages.
Firstly, its loudspeakers are designed with optimum size-to-performance ratio. Cabinets that are both compact and powerful, as well as directional, can be used more sparingly. At the same time, sub-bass or low frequency cabinets – so essential where a fuller, deeper sound is required – can be cleverly concealed within furniture and fittings. Visual impact is reduced significantly.
Secondly, custom finishes can make these already discreet loudspeakers even less visually intrusive. With colour-matching to any international standard – and even completely bespoke paint finishes where required – a d&b loudspeaker system can blend seamlessly into any surroundings, minimising intrusion and optimising sightlines.
d&b’s custom solutions also include protection from the elements, essential to reliable performance in beach clubs, pool sides or any other area where weather can take its toll on hardware, come rain or shine.
d&b: the world-leading solutions provider
d&b audiotechnik is one of the world’s leading experts in the playback of sound. It’s been busy fine-tuning listening experiences for 40 years, and today works with some of the biggest performing artists in the world – including Coldplay, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. In 2023, six of the top 10 world tours used d&b sound systems.
d&b sound solutions are also found in many of the world’s most iconic performing arts venues, including Sydney Opera House, Dubai Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall and the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York. Around 90% of theatre productions in London’s West End use d&b systems. It’s a brand that is ubiquitous across the top end of performing arts, globally.
Of course, it’s not just theatres and concerts. What started with a passion for live music has developed into all areas of leisure, culture and hospitality. In all these environments, good sound is key to an optimal experience. The core ethos – that everyone should hear the same, and what they hear should be the best it can be – has driven d&b’s existence, and that long-proven capability is increasingly delivering advantages to hospitality environments.
Operators want that artist-trusted sound signature as one of the building blocks of their own brand. And importantly, with the need for multi-use environments on the rise, they know it’s a system capable of the highest flexibility, from soft background music to high-energy DJ sets. In hospitality, good sound should be an essential part of the winning mix.
What can you achieve?
Increasingly, decision makers are bringing that same sonic signature, the standard that characterises the cream of live performance worldwide, into their carefully crafted environments. They have control at their fingertips, and their customers are feeling the benefit.
About d&b audiotechnik
d&b audiotechnik provides professional audio technology and solutions to accurately transfer passions through high-end quality speech and music reproduction. d&b audiotechnik is internationally regarded as a leading company for sound reinforcement systems in installed and mobile applications, with a reputation for quality of construction, standard of service, system integration principles, and pioneering technological development.
Founded in Germany in 1981, d&b audiotechnik headquarters are located in Backnang, near Stuttgart, where research, development and production take place. With sales offices in major cities around the world, the d&b audiotechnik team numbers more than 600 co-workers.
d&b audiotechnik is part of d&b group which provides professional audio technology and AVLM solutions to create memorable, multisensorial experiences.
Michael Kinzel
Global Segment Development Manager Hospitality
+4915157150853
