Sound And Music In Presidential Elections

Lluis Mas et al. (2017) analyze the impact of sound and music in the creation of a brand, specifically in the 2016 Presidential election. The study they conduct analyzed six campaign ads and the party conventions from both candidates, looking specifically at how they use sound and music to build their respective brands.

Music is said to be the language of human’s emotions; thus, music can easily be used to create brand associations through emotional experiences. During political campaigns, music is usually employed to create atmospheres and environments around the candidate. The candidate is the flagship of political campaigns, so political branding attributes can be crucially applied to build the candidate-brand. The public will strongly bond with brands through constant interaction and enhancement of each other’s identity. This brand attachment between the political brand and the voter is defined as an affective and emotional bond. Thus, brands are emotional constructs that music can make great contributions to as a powerful emotional tool. …show more content…
campaign to raise emotions and transmit brand values f the candidate brand. In order to support this hypothesis, they needed to look at how different sounds are interpreted. In essence, high-pitched sounds are perceived as exciting and transmit happy emotions, while low-pitched sounds are perceived as calm, sad, and thoughtfull emotions. The type of instruments used can also make a contribution to one's emotional state. Piano is usually an introspective highly emotional instrument, while percussion is dynamic and determines the pace of acton. String instruments create background sounds that have been widely used in movies, that’s why they have a great power to create mental images associated with film