IG
IG is a leading trading and investing provider powering the pursuit of financial freedom for ambitious traders and investors across the world. Together with IG and Saffron Brand Consultants, we set out to develop their new audio identity.
IG offers clients an experience that encompasses so much more than trading and investing, from tools, platforms, and immersive content to the customer service they need to invest and trade with confidence. They get fast, flexible access to over 17,000 financial markets – including indices, forex, shares, and commodities. IG is part of the IG Group (LSE: IGG), a global FTSE 250 fintech company, giving stability in an ever-changing sector.
As a leading trading and investing provider, IG have an ambitious strategy for the future. One that has seen their brand evolve from a functionally led brand to one of experience with the help of Saffron Brand Consultants. And more specifically, one that aims to provide an experience designed to give traders and investors the confidence they need to take action.
Part of redesigning their brand for the future was the inclusion of multi-sensory brand assets that would support elevating their brand experience in a digital environment. A key component of this was how they express the brand through sound and music.
“Finance mostly happens in silence – screens, numbers, split-second decisions – yet it runs entirely on trust. Sound is one of the most human ways to build that trust, which is exactly why it belongs in a brand people rely on with something as personal as their money.”
Karsten Kjems
CEO, Founder
Sonic Minds
When working with any brand, it’s always important to establish the brand personality that should be experienced by the customer – that is especially true for brands that want to shift their personality slightly.
Together with IG and Saffron Brand Consultants, we started by establishing the different key attributes that the new personality had to highlight. Through a thorough workshop we ended up with these attributes: Open, Immersive, Intuitive, Aspirational and Energetic.
Easy to remember, easy to use
To ensure the most flexibility for IG, together with Saffron we established the need for and created one main audio logo that had a shorter variant for short form content. We also created 2 distinctive music tracks alongside a suite of UI sounds.
Audio logo
In creating the IG audio logo, we wanted to experiment with incorporating the two letters “I” and “G” into the overall design. We did this in two different ways over the course of the audio logo. Firstly, we used two simple melodic notes to reference “IG” and make it easy to remember. We repeated these notes at the end with bass kicks to reinforce the connection to “IG” and create a strong and confident ending.
Two note layer
Let’s start with the “two note layer,” which consists of two melodic notes and two bass notes representing “IG.”
Percussive layer
The “percussive” layer serves to infuse the logo with energy and a sense of forward momentum.
Bass layer
Similarly, we introduced heavy-hitting bass elements in the audio logo to enhance the same elements as the percussive layers.
Immersive layer
The immersive layer functions as the glue that ties all the other layers together. It has a wide stereo feeling and a comfortable soft sound that is designed to make the other elements stand out more.
Music
We created two different brand tracks for IG called “Confidence” and “Ambient”. They were designed for two different types of emotional scenarios, namely having one for more calm communication and learning, and having the other for communication that had to be upbeat and aspirational.
Confidence
“Confidence” captures aspiration and self-assurance. Built on the core elements of the audio logo, it weaves melodic and harmonic ideas into a modern electronic arrangement, with distinct sections that adapt to different settings and moods.
Ambient
“Ambient” brings out the immersive, open, and intuitive side of the identity. Rooted in the DNA of the IG audio logo, it sets melodic and harmonic elements within a serene electronic framework, its sections shifting to suit different settings and moods.
UI sounds
Every UI sound had to belong to the same family and make sense next to the others. Because the platform’s sounds are modular – users can swap the sound for any action from a predefined list – each one had to work seamlessly alongside the rest while still clearly signalling its action or notification.
To keep sounds from clashing, we assigned each to a “mapping slot” across three groups – Positive, Neutral and Negative – and tied them together with a consistent palette of instruments and a defined set of melodic intervals.
Listen to one of the UI sounds below:
IG embarked on a journey to update their brand and enhance the trading experience for their users through the strategic use of sound and music. By carefully defining key attributes such as Open, Immersive, Intuitive, Aspirational, and Energetic, along with their updated visual identity, IG set out to create an emotive and experience-led brand that inspires confidence in its users.
Through this comprehensive audio branding effort together with Saffron, we strengthened IG’s brand image and its connection with clients. The result is an audio identity that enhances the overall experience, evokes the desired emotions, and inspires confidence in IG’s clients worldwide.
All the visuals and visual branding were done by Saffron Brand Consultants. Learn more about Saffron Brand Consultants and read their case here.
Leigh-Anne Acquisto
Head of Brand and Product Marketing
IG
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