TikTok’s Trojan Horse Strategy

Summary

Planet Money: “TikTok’s Trojan Horse Strategy”

Podcast: Planet Money
Host: NPR (Kenny Malone, with guest Dallas Taylor of 20,000 Hz)
Air Date: October 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the backstory behind TikTok’s instantly recognizable “boom bling” sonic logo, exploring its creation, the psychology and craft of sonic branding, and the covert marketing tactics that made it one of the fastest-recognized sounds on the Internet. Co-produced with Dallas Taylor from the sound design podcast 20,000 Hz, the episode highlights how the TikTok sonic logo became a guerrilla branding tool and a Trojan horse—embedding itself into the ecosystem of social media platforms far beyond TikTok.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: The Power of Sonic Branding (00:16–05:41)

• Opening Game: Kenny Malone and Dallas Taylor play a game sharing viral internet videos featuring unexpected voice actors. Both videos, sourced from different platforms, end with the same sound—the TikTok sonic logo—demonstrating TikTok’s brand reach.
• Setting the Scene: The episode’s premise: how TikTok’s sound, designed to travel the Internet, serves as a branding tool across platforms where its content is shared or re-posted.

Notable Quote

“The TikTok Sonic logo...the backstory to this audio logo is what today's episode is about. Because not very long ago, TikTok had an interesting problem: its users were making videos that went viral on TikTok, but also spread to Instagram and Reddit.”
— Kenny Malone (03:15)

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2. What is a Sonic Logo? (05:36–07:03)

• Definition: Dallas Taylor explains the “sonic logo”—a short, memorable sound snippet tied to a brand (like McDonald’s “ba-da-ba-ba-ba”).
• Purpose: Effective sonic logos are earworms, often becoming as recognizable as visual logos.

Notable Quote

“It's super important that you're going to have a sonic logo that really can become an earworm. Easily remembered, potentially even sung or hummed.”
— Afrik Lennon (05:41)

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3. The Birth of the TikTok Sonic Logo (06:42–11:41)

• Genesis: In 2020, TikTok engaged Massive Music (Afrik Lennon and Roscoe Williamson) to craft a ‘sonic identity’ to broaden TikTok’s appeal beyond Gen Z.

• Design Requirements:

  • Must not skew “too young”
  • Must express joy, safety, and welcoming
  • Must withstand heavy repetition and not annoy users
  • Should feel ‘remixable’ and open to community engagement

• Iterative Process:

  • Thousands of logo ideas
  • Early concepts focused on the literal “Tik-Tok” onomatopoeia, experimenting with everyday sounds, UGC (user-generated content), and even different instrument timbres

Notable Quotes

“We wanted to create something that could become more known, loved and embraced and even remixed by the community.”
— Afrik Lennon (08:12)

“It's gotta be in the 2000 plus.”
— Roscoe Williamson, on the number of versions created (08:26)

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4. The Anatomy of TikTok’s Sound (“Boom Bling”) (11:41–15:44)

• Development: Sound refined over countless iterations; core elements:
  • Starting with a powerful 808 kick drum (emphasizing TikTok’s music roots and acting as a divider between video/music content and branding)
  • Ascending melody/chord evoking joy and “the last sunny corner of the Internet”
  • Marimba and sine wave layers for warmth and clarity
  • E major 7th chord (a richer, more emotionally nuanced sound than a simple major chord), selected over objections after consumer testing revealed it made the brand feel more mature and memorable
  • Accidental inclusion of a hyper-processed dog bark—a serendipitous sound that became integral to the final logo

Notable Quotes

“We have the tick, the first beat, which is this iconic sub bass sound, which for us is a nod to the musicality of the platform.”
— Afrik Lennon (12:12)

“The TikTok sonic logo is the most rapidly recognized sonic logo of all time.”
— Roscoe Williamson (22:26)

“That is a mistake. That is something that we left in by accident...when we took it out, the logo just didn’t have the character.”
— Roscoe Williamson, about the dog bark (16:18)

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5. The Trojan Horse Marketing Strategy (17:05–20:29)

• Secret Seeding: Prior to the official launch, Massive Music and TikTok covertly released “sonic stickers”—short sound bites derived from the new logo—under the alias Sonic Collective. Creators organically picked up these sounds, unknowingly embedding TikTok’s new identity in their content.
• Outcome: By the time the sonic logo officially launched, it was already familiar on the platform, making the brand’s transition seamless and sticky.

Notable Quotes

“We launched them under an alias, which was Sonic Collective...kind of like Incognito.”
— Afrik Lennon (19:36)

“In other words, they used these stickers as kind of a Trojan horse to introduce people to these new branded sounds.”
— Dallas Taylor (19:40)

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6. Viral Branding: Sonic Logo as Internet Watermark (20:38–22:37)

• Watermarking Content: Whenever TikTok users download or repost videos, TikTok attaches its sonic logo at the end—effectively branding content across Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, etc., serving as a sonic “watermark.”
• Immediate Results: Within just 3 months, research showed over 50% of people could recognize TikTok’s logo sound unaided—an unprecedented rate for a sonic brand.

Notable Quotes

“When I hear the boom bling on another app, I feel like I'm consuming TikTok content. It's almost like TikTok embedded a mini version of their app inside their competitors.”
— Dallas Taylor (21:18)

“Over 50%—so one in two—were able to recognize the sound...pretty astronomical for a new sound logo.”
— Afrik Lennon (22:06)

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7. Reflections: Sonic Branding as Science & Art (22:52–23:26)

• Blending Disciplines: Both Roscoe and Afrik reveal backgrounds in science (chemistry & neuroscience of music) and the arts—underscoring that effective sonic branding is a careful mix of psychology, musicality, and marketing.

Notable Quotes

“Sonic branding, it really is that blend of science and art that excites me and gets me up in the morning.”
— Afrik Lennon (23:03)

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8. Coda: The Competition Catches On (23:30–24:29)

• Instagram Copies the Move: Kenny Malone notes that Instagram, two years later, quietly introduced its own sonic logo attached to downloaded Reels—a testament to TikTok’s innovation in sound branding.

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Notable/Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• Uncle Phil as Shredder Realization (01:16):
  “It's Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel Air is Shredder.” – Kenny Malone

• Earworm Philosophy (05:41):
  “It's super important...that can become an earworm.” – Afrik Lennon

• Science vs. Art (23:03):
  "Sonic branding, it really is that blend of science and art that excites me and gets me up in the morning." – Afrik Lennon

• Dog Bark Inclusion (16:11):
  “It is actually the dog bark.” – Roscoe Williamson
  “That is a mistake. That is something that we left in by accident...” – (16:18)

• Rapid Recognition Data (22:06):
  “Over 50%—so one in two—were able to recognize the sound...” – Afrik Lennon

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Important Timestamps

• 00:16 – Introduction and viral videos game
• 03:15 – Identification of TikTok sonic logo as recurring sound
• 05:36 – Explanation of sonic logos
• 06:42 – TikTok’s brief and Massive Music engagement
• 08:21 – Community engagement as sonic logo design goal
• 12:21 – Structure of the final sonic logo
• 14:17 – The E major vs. E major 7th debate
• 16:11 – Dog bark discovery
• 17:05 – Start of the Trojan horse/sonic sticker rollout
• 20:38 – Sonic logo as watermark, cross-platform effect
• 22:06 – Study on sound recognition rates
• 23:03 – The intersection of science and art
• 24:29 – Instagram’s sonic logo debut

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Conclusion

This episode of Planet Money offers a fascinating glimpse into the strategic creation and deployment of the TikTok sonic logo. It’s a story not just about catchy sounds, but about sonic psychology, viral branding, competitive edge, and the science of how earworms fuel brand dominance in the digital era. For anyone interested in marketing, design, technology, or music’s impact on behavior, this episode is a masterclass in “hearing” the economy at work.

Transcript

[Afrik Lennon]

This is planet money from NPR.

[Kenny Malone]

Dallas Taylor, host of one of my favorite podcasts, 20,000 Hz. Would you like to say hello?

[Dallas Taylor]

Hey, Kenny.

[Kenny Malone]

Dallas's show, if you're not familiar, covers all things sound and sound design.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's right.

[Kenny Malone]

And he and I are gonna play a little game here. In part to prove a point, we have agreed to surprise one another with a video that we're currently very into from the Internet. And, Dallas, since you're the guest here, you want to go first on this?

[Dallas Taylor]

I would love that.

[Kenny Malone]

Any setup that we need to know.

[Dallas Taylor]

Yeah. Yes. So I got this video from Instagram from a friend of mine, and I'm a child of the 80s.

[Kenny Malone]

I am, too. Yes.

[Dallas Taylor]

And the point of it is to connect the dots between the voice of.

[Kenny Malone]

Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[Dallas Taylor]

From the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the voice of a very popular actor from a really popular sitcom. So what I'd like for you to do is, while you're listening to it, try to figure out who this voice is, and then we'll take it from there. All right? Three, two, one.

[Voice Actor (Shredder/Uncle Phil)]

I must congratulate you.

[Kenny Malone]

So that is the voice of Shredder. I recognize it. But you're saying this is a famous person I should know?

[Dallas Taylor]

Yes. So. So I'll play a little bit more.

[Voice Actor (Shredder/Uncle Phil)]

Passed your test with flying colors. Do you know how.

[Dallas Taylor]

So here it is from the show that you should know him from to.

[Voice Actor (Shredder/Uncle Phil)]

Have a son who can't swim.

[Kenny Malone]

Wait, is it Uncle Phil?

[Dallas Taylor]

It's Uncle Phil.

[Kenny Malone]

It's Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel Air is Shredder.

[Dallas Taylor]

The voice of Shredder is Uncle Phil out of here.

[Voice Actor (Shredder/Uncle Phil)]

I will destroy my enemies, the Turtles, and then the world will tremble before the shredder.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Okay.

[Voice Actor (Shredder/Uncle Phil)]

$100 a ball.

[Kenny Malone]

Did you not know this either?

[Dallas Taylor]

No.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dallas Taylor]

And I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan.

[Kenny Malone]

This is very cool.

[Dallas Taylor]

And a huge Fresh Prince of Bel Air fan. Never put two and two together.

[Kenny Malone]

That's. That's a very good one. Okay, so for mine, this is something that I found on Reddit and just a little bit of background. So there's a popular trend where people will post videos of themselves at potlucks. You know, I'm Kenny, and I. I brought seven layer bean dip. Cut to. I'm Dallas, and I brought ambrosia salad. Right. Like, this is. Okay, so what I have is a video by a content creator named Shay, who acts like a judge in what they call the potluck courtroom. So Shay cuts themselves into those other Potluck videos rendering judgment on each dish. Okay.

[Dallas Taylor]

Ready? Yes.

[Afrik Lennon]

Thanks, Celeste.

[Kenny Malone]

And I brought cheesecake croissants from Costco.

[Shay (Content Creator)]

You didn't make that. 25 years in the hole. No parole for you and your lawyer.

[Afrik Lennon]

Next.

[Kenny Malone]

My name is Rudy and I brought root beer floats.

[Shay (Content Creator)]

You about to float with the fishes cuz we about to give you the pirates burial. Walk the plank. And who's that? Add her too. Give her the thumb screw just because.

[Afrik Lennon]

Good night.

[Kenny Malone]

The thumb screw, Dallas, it is a real punishment, apparently. Like a real 17th century torture thing.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Wow.

[Kenny Malone]

So yeah. Now part of this was to share what we're interested in, but I think astute listeners will perhaps notice that even though, Dallas, you found your thing through Instagram, Correct, I found my thing through Reddit. They both shared the same sound at the very end of our videos, which is this.

[Dallas Taylor]

The TikTok Sonic logo.

[Kenny Malone]

The TikTok Sonic logo and the backstory to this audio logo is what today's episode is about. Because not very long ago, TikTok found itself with an interesting problem. Its users were making videos that were going viral on TikTok, but then also spreading to other places like Instagram and Reddit. And if you are TikTok, you're thinking like, wait, no fair. Our users made this content.

[Dallas Taylor]

We need a solution, right? So basically what they were trying to do is how do we effectively place an ad on other platforms to let people know that, hey, you should come over to our platform because this stuff is really fresh.

[Kenny Malone]

And Dallas, you are a professional sound designer. In addition to hosting 20,000 hertz, you did not make the TikTok sonic logo, but you have made these in the past for other companies. And I'm curious, in your opinion, how effective has the TikTok, like, boom, bling sound thing been?

[Dallas Taylor]

I would say that this is the most effective sonic logo of the past 10 years, for sure.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, cue the music. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone.

[Dallas Taylor]

And I'm Dallas Taylor.

[Kenny Malone]

Today on the show, in conjunction with the sound design podcast 20,000 Hz, the backstory to one of the most successful audio branding campaigns in recent history. It is a tale of guerrilla marketing and the power of sonic suggestion. Also, it is the story of how sound designers even come up with a sound like this. Stay tuned. There is a hidden animal in that sound effect. Also, it is not enough for companies to just have an amazing logo anymore. The McDonald's golden arches, for example. Iconic, of course. But I'm willing to bet that you can also easily identify McDonald's from this. It is going to take weeks to get this out of my head. Dallas, I resent you for having me play this.

[Dallas Taylor]

Well, that's the intent, and this is what the industry refers to as a sonic logo.

[Afrik Lennon]

It's super important that you're going to have a sonic logo that really can become an earworm. Easily remembered, potentially even sung or hummed.

[Kenny Malone]

This is Afrik Lennon, who spent almost a decade at a company called Massive Music. She worked there alongside Roscoe Williamson, and the two of them helped design this kind of sonic branding.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Sonic branding has become more and more popular in the last sort of decade. I would say from smart speakers. The rise of streaming, the rise of podcasting.

[Afrik Lennon]

This is Planet Money from npr.

[Kenny Malone]

Hey, wait a second. I know that sound. Do you have notes on it, Dallas?

[Dallas Taylor]

Oh, notes on your sonic logo. I'm glad that you don't use the very obvious cash register from the 1930s Cha Ching Sound. So thank you for not doing that.

[Kenny Malone]

You're welcome. So that's a little bit of background about sonic branding, sonic logos, and I'm gonna let Dallas take it from here.

[Dallas Taylor]

Around 2020, TikTok was already huge, with over 700 million users. And one of the things that made TikTok so popular was how easy it was to add music to your videos. It was, but they didn't have a sonic identity at the time. Massive Music was already consulting with TikTok. So when TikTok wanted the sonic logo, Africa and Roscoe wanted that job, it.

[Afrik Lennon]

Was actually a six month pitch process, pretty grueling, I have to say, culminating with the final pitch right after Christmas. So it meant a lot of the team working through the Christmas holidays. But, yeah, we were pretty proud of the pitch that we did and we won the project fair and square.

[Dallas Taylor]

TikTok knew that they had already captured the Gen Z market, but they wanted to broaden their appeal.

[Roscoe Williamson]

They didn't want to skew too young in terms of how this Sonic logo should appeal to people, because at the time there was a big drive to engage older users.

[Dallas Taylor]

They also wanted this sound to be as joyful and inviting as possible.

[Afrik Lennon]

In our stakeholder interviews with the brand, somebody described TikTok as the last sunny corner of the Internet, as the last place where you can really express that joy and creativity. And so for TikTok, it was really important that the sound expressed this kind of welcoming nature and the sense of almost safety on the platform.

[Dallas Taylor]

But of course, there's a fine line between sunny and irritating.

[Afrik Lennon]

We also needed it to be a sound that could Survive a huge amount of exposure and not tire and not become annoying or jarring.

[Dallas Taylor]

Finally, they wanted a sound that TikTokers could engage with themselves.

[Afrik Lennon]

We wanted to create something that could become more known, loved and embraced and even remixed by the community.

[Dallas Taylor]

To meet all of that criteria, Roscoe and Afrik went through thousands of iterations.

[Roscoe Williamson]

It's gotta be in the 2000 plus.

[Dallas Taylor]

Early on, they focused on the onomatopoeia of the name TikTok.

[Afrik Lennon]

It felt natural to think about the sound logo as this kind of two beat structure.

[Roscoe Williamson]

So we did some really early experiments with like looking at what we could use around the house, in the office, everyday objects that might give you that tick tock sound. I mean, even with your mouth you.

[Dallas Taylor]

Can kind of go, here's an early version.

[Roscoe Williamson]

And again, so there's a tick on the front which is this percussive sound, and on the back, this is where we were going through a phase where we were trying to integrate UGC sounds.

[Dallas Taylor]

UGC stands for user Generated content. In this case, it was sounds from people's TikTok videos that they cleared for use. To me, this one sounds a bit like someone saying ow, ow. And that led them to an idea that was even more out there. A logo that would actually change depending on where and when you heard it.

[Roscoe Williamson]

We did think at one stage of this kind of like ever evolving sonic.

[Afrik Lennon]

Logo, I think we called it Never the Same Twice. And it was this idea that how were we going to define the sound of a brand that's constantly leaning into changing trends and musical trends? And that was why we landed on that.

[Dallas Taylor]

Each version of the logo would use a different user generated sound.

[Roscoe Williamson]

But as long as there was a tick and there was a tock, you would always know it's tick tock.

[Dallas Taylor]

For the initial tick sound, they liked the idea of using a kick drum from the iconic 808 drum machine.

[Roscoe Williamson]

It's a homage to a lot of the hip hop music and bass music that became synonymous with the platform early on.

[Dallas Taylor]

In this never the same twice idea, the 808 would stay fixed, but on.

[Roscoe Williamson]

The back end you have different UGC sounds coming through and changing.

[Dallas Taylor]

For instance, maybe something like this.

[Roscoe Williamson]

But quite quickly we realized that we needed something a little bit more consistent.

[Afrik Lennon]

What TikTok really needed was something that could really be more of a fixed asset and become this iconic association with the brand.

[Dallas Taylor]

So the idea of a constantly changing logo was cut, but they kept rolling with the 808 kick drum. Here's another early version.

[Roscoe Williamson]

This is a very blown out 808 on the front and then sounds like another UGC on the back end, which probably didn't make the cut.

[Afrik Lennon]

I think it might be like a hyper processed ugc. Dog bark.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Oh, yeah, the dog bark from what?

[Afrik Lennon]

Yeah, from what I remember.

[Dallas Taylor]

If it sounds like they're being a little coy right now, just don't forget that dog bark. After hundreds of iterations, they started to hone in on something a bit more melodic.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Getting closer. So you probably recognize the motif, the melody on the back end, but it's a different timbre. Right? So that sounds like a toy piano Tombra. And the front hit. I think that might even be like an 8.8 reverse. But for whatever reason, we just don't feel like that had the right cut through on the front end and the back end wasn't bright enough.

[Dallas Taylor]

Remember, these are only a few of the thousands of sounds that African Roscoe went through. Each of these examples represents hundreds of slight variations on the same logo.

[Roscoe Williamson]

There's a point in this process where you're literally going insane because you know you're just listening to two second clips of audio and you know your mind is kind of coming out of your ears. There was this point and we're in this sort of pit of despair, like, are we ever gonna find the right sound? And then suddenly it just kind of popped out and it was like, everybody on that call from our side was like, hey, let's listen to that again.

[Dallas Taylor]

That version featured a monstrous, overblown 808 kick.

[Afrik Lennon]

We have the tick, the first beat, which is this iconic sub bass sound, which for us is a nod to the musicality of the platform.

[Roscoe Williamson]

But it also functionally acts as a divider between music on content. Right. What we found when we were stress testing this, which is when we're putting it at the end of lots of different content with lots of different music, is it really nicely acts as this kind of divider between whatever music precedes it and then the chord at the end.

[Dallas Taylor]

After that 808 kick, there's a bright ascending chord. This tied back to the idea of the last sunny corner on the Internet.

[Afrik Lennon]

The second half of the sound logo. We wanted to instill this sense of joy, which is where this kind of ascending corner melody came from.

[Roscoe Williamson]

The tomba. The sound is a layered sine wave. And a marimba. Layered.

[Dallas Taylor]

Now, a marimba isn't a shocking choice because for the past couple of decades, brands have been in love with them.

[Roscoe Williamson]

We all know the marimba from music and Media and commercials. It's very successful, but for good reason. It's warm.

[Dallas Taylor]

It cuts through.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Right.

[Afrik Lennon]

Alexa, play a lullaby.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Okay.

[Dallas Taylor]

The chord they chose was also very intentional.

[Roscoe Williamson]

The chord is the E major seventh chord.

[Dallas Taylor]

A major seven chord is made up of the root, A major third, perfect fifth, and a major seventh.

[Roscoe Williamson]

The seventh note, it adds that unusual flavor to the chord. It's kind of used in jazz and R and B and sometimes in hip hop and pop. Tell me that you're coming through. It just gives that texture to the chord. That kind of is a sense of wonder.

[Dallas Taylor]

Afric and Roscoe were convinced The E major 7 was the perfect chord, but they got some pushback.

[Roscoe Williamson]

There was a prominent stakeholder in the project that was like, it's gotta be E major. E major's a bright, happy chord.

[Dallas Taylor]

Here's an E major. The difference between these two chords is the fourth note in the major. That jazzy seventh is swapped out for a higher octave of the root note. Here they are back to E major 7, E major. And here they are in the full E major 7, E major. And again, African Roscoe felt really strongly that The E major 7 was the way to go. To prove it, they did some consumer testing and compared the two versions.

[Afrik Lennon]

We put them into testing in a number of key markets for TikTok, but actually the results were really interesting because that resolved E major came through as actually a little bit more childish, which is something that TikTok was actively trying to kind of move away from. They wanted to age up their brand sound. And so, interestingly, the unresolved. So the E major seventh chord actually came through as more appealing and more recallable.

[Dallas Taylor]

In the end, everyone at TikTok was on board.

[Afrik Lennon]

Having that objective audience data really helped to kind of get it over the line and convince some of the stakeholders.

[Dallas Taylor]

After thousands of iterations, consumer research, and a final debate about a single note, African Roscoe finally had their perfect logo. Behind the scenes, they started calling it the boom bling. It was made up of a bass hit and an ascending chord, but there's actually one other sound in there underneath the chord. It's really easy to miss, but here it is on its own. Does that ring any bells?

[Roscoe Williamson]

It is actually the dog bark.

[Dallas Taylor]

Yep, that's the same dog bark from one of the earlier versions.

[Roscoe Williamson]

That is a mistake. That is something that we left in by accident. You know, 2,000 logos later, your mind's jelly. And so it was baked in there. It wasn't till afterwards. We were like, oh, that's in there. Somehow and then the logo got signed off and we were kind of like, okay, should we take this out? And then when we took it out, the logo just didn't have the character.

[Dallas Taylor]

So they left it in. And that dog bark became the accidental final ingredient. Finally, TikTok had their sound. So that's the end of the story, right? Not even close. Because that logo was just one part of a much larger Sonic strategy, a strategy that involved some highly unusual covert tactics.

[Roscoe Williamson]

We actually started doing this before the launch of the Sonic brand, and we started seeding them onto the platform, kind of like Incognito.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's coming up after the break.

[Kenny Malone]

Now. In 2022 Africa, Lennon and Roscoe Williamson of Massive Music had helped create a sonic logo for TikTok. Yes, that. But before it went out into the world, before TikTok users knew anything about any audio branding, massive music helped TikTok pull off one of the sneakiest, perhaps devious, rollouts I have ever heard of.

[Dallas Taylor]

For that story, you have to know that when a company like TikTok pays for a Sonic brand, they will often get much more than just that little sound logo. They'll get a whole suite of sounds and music that feel like they're part of a holistic identity.

[Roscoe Williamson]

There will be chord progressions, melodies, motifs. There will be bits of sound design. So it's an extension of a sonic brand into music.

[Dallas Taylor]

Oftentimes, a company like Massive Music will take all of those elements and stitch them into a single song for the company.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, here is the blueprint song that they made for TikTok. And this little ditty, this, like, blueprint song, was the key to the very sneaky marketing story that we're about to tell you. And again, I will let Dallas take it from here.

[Dallas Taylor]

Once Massive Music had made this single blueprint song, which is one song containing TikTok's entirely new sound identity, they started to remix it into a batch of short songs that were around 10 to 15 seconds each, which they called Sonic Stickers. This sticker is called Boom. The next sticker is called what? And this one is named Aww. These sonic stickers were added into the library of sounds that TikTokers could add to their videos.

[Roscoe Williamson]

But the idea is that we would start to seed them into the platform itself for creators to work with. We actually started doing this before the launch of the Sonic brand. Kind of like Incognito.

[Afrik Lennon]

Yeah. We launched them under an alias, which was Sonic Collective.

[Dallas Taylor]

In other words, they used these stickers as kind of a Trojan horse to introduce people to these new branded sounds.

[Roscoe Williamson]

And we started to see, like, people start to create content with them and pick them up.

[Dallas Taylor]

And sure enough, people did start to pick them up.

[Afrik Lennon]

Hi, my name is Mike and I'm a tracer. I'm a sucker for graffiti art. Check out what my boy Chris did. He did a painting with my. These are $1.25.

[Dallas Taylor]

Then once the Sonic brand launched, they announced that these sonic stickers were actually official TikTok sounds.

[Afrik Lennon]

And people didn't realize they were already kind of engaging with the sonic identity until it fully launched.

[Dallas Taylor]

These sonic stickers are still being used today. Can you do it?

[Roscoe Williamson]

I think now we're up to about 30,000 bits of content created using these sonic stickers.

[Afrik Lennon]

So it's very much a living, breathing sonic identity.

[Roscoe Williamson]

With POV being a nerdy tattoo artist, you're done in one click.

[Dallas Taylor]

Normally, it's tough to get people to actually engage with a sonic brand. So this sonic sticker thing is pretty brilliant. But the real slam dunk has to be the way that TikTok has used that boom bling sonic logo and integrated it within the ecosystem of the entire Internet. On TikTok, if a creator allows it, you can download their videos to your phone. And Whenever you do, TikTok will automatically add that sonic logo to the end of the video. The same thing happens when you repost a TikTok video on apps like Instagram or YouTube. So wherever it goes after that, the sonic logo is baked in so people will know where it came from. When I hear the boom bling on another app, I feel like I'm consuming TikTok content. It's almost like TikTok embedded a mini version of their app inside their competitors. Yo, is that what I think it is? A box from Amazon, on John's, on ron Jon, on LeBron, on crayons, on a swan drawn on Spawn, on Milan, on on my lawn. Now, the other social media apps don't have a meaningful Sonic logo. YouTube does. But the only time I hear it is when I open YouTube on my television. But TikTok's strategy has meant that their sound is heard all over the place, especially by people who are not Tiktokers. After the logo launched, the results of that strategy quickly became clear.

[Afrik Lennon]

They did a study about three months post launch, how many people could spontaneously recognize the sound without any context of the brand. And just three months after launch, actually like over 50%. So one in two were able to recognize the sound, which is just pretty astronomical for a new sound logo. Normally it can Take years.

[Roscoe Williamson]

The TikTok sonic logo is the most rapidly recognized sonic logo of all time. And so for us, we were kind of blown away when we heard that. We, we were like, okay, well, we've done our jobs.

[Dallas Taylor]

Looking back, it's hard to believe that TikTok was the first social media platform to add a sonic logo to their videos. It's one of those things that just seems so obvious in hindsight. But that's what happens when you treat sound as both a science and as an art.

[Roscoe Williamson]

I originally studied chemistry at university, and then I got into playing in bands and parents were like, what are you doing with your life? And when I found sonic branding, it was a kind of perfect blend of science and art, really.

[Afrik Lennon]

My background is also scientific. Studied biomedical science and then specialized in neuroscience of music and sound. I'm obsessed with understanding how music impacts the mind and behavior, but I've always been a musician, a singer. So sonic branding, it really is that blend of science and art that excites me and gets me up in the morning.

[Roscoe Williamson]

Foreign.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, Kenny Malone, back again with a very fun update on this because about two years after TikTok released their Sonic ID, Instagram released its own Sonic ID. Now, apparently the Instagram version of this has been around for more than a year, and I will admit I have never heard this, but I promise we tested it and the Instagram Sonic logo does seem to show up at the end of the video when. When you download someone's reel. So, okay, how does it compare? Well, for the 100th time, here is the TikTok Sonic ID. And here, making its Planet Money debut is the Instagram Sonic id. Yeah, here it is again. Love to hear your thoughts on that. Send Those along to planetmoneypr.org for more stories about sound. Be sure to follow 20,000 Hz wherever you get your podcast. And and Dallas, you want to. Why don't you take the credits? Take it away.

[Dallas Taylor]

20,000 Hz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. This episode was written and produced by Nicholas Harder. It was story edited by Casey Emerlin.

[Afrik Lennon]

And Andrew Anderson with help from Grace East.

[Dallas Taylor]

It was sound designed and mixed by Brandon Pratt.

[Kenny Malone]

The Planet Money adaptation of this episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Zhang. Alex Goldmark is playing Planet Money's executive producer. I'm Kenny Malone.

[Dallas Taylor]

I'm Dallas Taylor.

[Kenny Malone]

This is npr.

[Dallas Taylor]

Thanks for listening.