Sonic Branding in Pharma: How Sound is Reshaping Healthcare Communication

By Colleen Fahey, US Managing Director

For years, pharma marketers have focused on every nuance of visual branding and have missed out on branding their audio touchpoints. Given increasingly distracting environments and measurably shorter attention spans, this represents a big lost opportunity.

And these changes affect communication with healthcare providers, patients and caregivers.

How Pharma Audiences Are Turning to Sound?

One result of this trend is the rise of podcasts and audio books, which allow the listener to partake in the content while engaged in another activity. According to Edison Research, 73 percent of the U.S. 12+ population (an estimated 209 million people) have listened to online audio in the last month. As a result, some pharma companies have begun to move into audio-only communications.

In February 2026, AbbVie launched its new podcast called “Persistence” that interviews researchers about innovation in healthcare. This joins Pfizer’s “Science Will Win.” Yet, despite these first steps, sound isn’t being utilized to its full potential for many brands. Especially missing is a branded approach to the sound of their digital and social media.

And these show no sign of slowing down. In fact, they’re speeding up. Today, marketers have turned to ultra short-form content: not just TikTok posts as Pfizer uses, but short highlight reels and even microdramas. E.G., vertically filmed three-minute soap operas. Barely longer than a pharma TV commercial, they show how little time people will commit to sitting still.

With no screens, small phone screens and shorter viewing times, a pharmaceutical brand needs every tool in its arsenal to plant its impressions in its audience’s minds.

Why Sonic Branding Matters in Pharma?

A 2023 peer-reviewed study by Kemp, Kopp, and Bui found that sonic logos specifically help pharma brands reduce negative emotions and build patient trust: two things every pharma brand says it wants. This effect seems to be particularly pronounced in non-compliant patients.

Pharmaceutical brands could be taking advantage of this research both by creating sonic identities and spending in auditory media.

Today, despite digital audio reaching 79% of Americans, pharma brands spend less than 1% of their media dollars on audio.

Sonic Branding in Pharma: Two Brands Leading the Way

The good news is that some pharma brands have been stepping into the sonic branding world, creating bespoke sonic identities that break from the category’s all-too-common light classical arrangements, grand pianos, and human heartbeats.

1. IBS medication / Veritonic case study

A useful pharma example cited in a Veritonic case study of a leading IBS medication that built a memorable mnemonic using creativity and data. In an industry as competitive as pharma, this brand knew it needed to use sound to help secure its position as one of the leading IBS medications on the market. They wanted to create a sonic brand that would drive brand recall and brand loyalty. 

So, the company sought to create an ownable and unique auditory asset. In conjunction with this, they used data and analytics to create their sonic brand, as opposed to making music or sound choices solely based on stakeholder opinions. 

For the creative itself, they needed to ensure the sonic brand embodied a welcoming, likable, and optimistic tone, and that it went with the music in their existing ads. Ultimately, the brand needed to invoke musical characteristics that would resonate emotionally with their target audience. They wanted it to connect easily and to sound uplifting, trustworthy, positive and friendly.

Music can be a powerful ally in conveying your brand’s values and intentions. It can help speed up awareness and lock in memory. Your sonic strategy in pharma should also connect across multiple touchpoints and multiple devices. Sixième Son clients benefit from our deep expertise in the healthcare arena, especially the pharmaceutical space. 

2. Sonic not just for product lines but whole companies: Sanofi steps up

How do you musically translate the intricacies of science and the mental leaps of creativity?

Here, Sanofi leverages the power of sound to convey its values and aspirations even in the tightly regulated pharmaceutical industry.

Sanofi, an innovative global healthcare company, reinforces its global communications strategy with a tailor-made sonic identity: “Miracle Dots.” It followed a rebranding initiative in 2022 that unified the company under one visual identity and a new corporate brand.

The new sonic identity had to express the brand’s purpose: “chasing miracles of science to improve people’s lives” and a new graphic system based on the “dot.” “Miracle Dots” embodies a delicate balance between research and inventiveness, a tightrope between simplicity and complexity. It is an ode to science, expressing Sanofi’s brand personality: human, accessible, curious, direct, and courageous. The sonic identity expressed through the company’s on-hold music, social and digital videos, podcast and events adds extra soul to the brand’s communication worldwide.

From the success of the old Alka-Seltzer’s “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz’ jingle to today’s ubiquitous Skyrizi melody, branded music has long been pulling its weight for prescient healthcare marketers. As screen sizes and attention spans shrink or even disappear, you can still activate big emotional connections by creating and deploying music that captures your brand’s soul.

Ready to make your brand heard? Let’s talk