Virgin Hyperloop, Publicis Media among brands signed up to use the platform at launch

VentureSonic, a joint venture between British startup Music AI and American ‘sonic branding agency’ Made Music Studio, has launched a platform that uses AI to generate music for marketing and advertising.

The platform works by amalgamating musical elements created by artists and producers to create customized tracks, which brands can then license to use in their campaigns.

Users then have control over the mood, genre, instrumentation, tempo, and duration of a song, with 'sonic logos' – like Netflix's opening 'dun-dun' or the Windows startup sound – placed into the track, allowing companies to maintain brand identities through the music they create.

VentureSonic claims its software simplifies music sourcing, editing and licensing, and can cut production time by half and production costs by 95 percent.

“It also eliminates the risk surrounding rights and licenses as 100 percent of the tracks are pre-cleared for use across channels/use cases,” the company said at launch.

Play that funky music

VentureSonic claims it has created the first AI-based music platform specifically built for improving audio branding.

“Brands have historically used unbranded music from stock libraries or produced individual tracks, a time-intensive, expensive, and non-scalable option, increasingly out of step with today's brand needs,” the press release said.

The company suggested that the popularity of podcasts meant increased branded audio opportunities for advertisers.

And as third-party cookies are expected to be a thing of the past by 2022, VentureSonic stressed the importance of contextual content in advertising.

The platform was launched with Virgin Hyperloop, Polaris, and French marketing giant Publicis Media on board as customers.

"We see this platform as a solution to future-proof our clients' audio identity," said Andrew Klein, director of content innovation at Publicis Media agency Spark Foundry.