Heinrich Paravicini

101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior

Heinrich Paravicini, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Mutabor

During his studies of graphic design at Muthesius Academy of Design and Fine Arts in Kiel, Germany, Paravicini met his friend and business partner Johannes Plass. Joint projects for clients in Munich and Hamburg led to the launch of the design agency Mutabor in 1998, which specializes in brand identity, environmental and interface/motion design. With a client roster of brands such as Adidas, BMW, and Bundesliga, Mutabor is among the top 3 design agencies in Germany.

To date, Mutabor has won more than 380 national and international design awards, including the honorary title of ‘Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2013.’ Paravicini has been part of national and international design juries and holds lectures on brand design at international congresses, events and art schools.

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“In today’s very diverse and fractionized media, music can help brands succeed.”

— HEINRICH PARAVICINI, FOUNDER & CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, MUTABOR

Reese: Mutabor – I’m going to change. It‘s an interesting concept. How did you come up with it? Where does that motto come from?

Paravicini: It’s the actual translation of the Latin word “mutabor,” but there’s more to it than just that translation. It’s a state of mind. It’s something we want to be challenged by when we work together with our clients. We want to help them change.

Reese: But changing is usually something you do outside your comfort zone.

Paravicini: Well, if you want to change, you can’t stay inside your comfort zone anyway. When you look at our projects and clients: To them, change is really important. Change is a relevant topic in the entire industry these days. We don’t have to persuade our clients of whether change is necessary; they already know it has to be done. It’s not a negative initial discussion. The challenge lies in the fact that change is happening and you as a brand design company have to face it and embrace it every day. You have to challenge yourself, come up with new concepts, keep up to date with what’s happening out there. Change is challenging.

Reese: Your company has grown extremely fast. You‘re certainly good at what you‘re doing. Can you describe why you’re so successful?

Paravicini: It may be because we always stuck to our own mindset, the things we are very determined to do. We founded the company in 1998 and started out as two creatives. That’s unusual to begin with because normally founding teams tend to consist of a consultant and a creative. Designers always strive for the big image, for 360-degree solutions. Initially, that attitude was more or less a handicap, because the market and marketers weren’t thinking in the same way – their thinking was still stuck in silos. But in the last few years, we have seen a shift happening. Clients are more open to holistic processes and new solutions now, solutions that go beyond their own boundaries. The profession of a designer is becoming very similar again to what it used to be like in the 30‘s and 60‘s – where people like Walter Gropius or Mies van der Rohe, both designers and architects, were known for designing everything from the ashtray to the building itself. They just had a completely different status in society in general and also in regards to what they could do for brands. Then came the big success of marketing and advertising of the seventies and eighties, and design was pushed back in relevance. I have the impression it’s coming back now, and maybe that’s why we’re doing so well now.

Reese: How often is audio brand design a part of your conversation with your clients?

Paravicini: It has been several times. Audio is an important piece of brand communication, but you have to really look at your clients, your customers and consider where it is relevant. The German Bundesliga was one of our clients where audio was very important. It wasn’t just about creating some audio logo. Together with our partner Supreme Music, we developed an entire hymn, a composition featuring a big orchestra, with a lot of different derivations and different instrumentations. There now is a new quality of brands and music on the market.

Reese: So you’re seeing a shift in how important music is becoming in advertising?

Paravicini: Definitely. You see, once digital media and all the formats that come with it become more important, the audiovisual identity of a brand becomes a topic. It has always been a topic, but now it’s powered by all these media formats that our target groups consume, which offers our brands a great chance to make their mark. At the same time, look at the somewhat declining music industry. Brands are slowly taking the place of big music labels. They have the power to raise artists and make them famous. Maybe brands are the new record companies.

Reese: The discipline of a brand around its use of audio is linked to its economic success. If you look at the globally most successful brands – Apple, Coca-Cola, Intel… they don’t necessarily all use an audio logo, but they have strict audio style guides that they follow with great discipline. Do you think more brands should do the same?

Paravicini: It depends on the market they’re in. The more a brand uses digital channels like YouTube and so on, the more important their determination in all things audio will become. But the solution can’t be to just have a classic audio logo. It has to be more holistic. It’s important to link a certain style of music to your brand, for example. Telekom is interesting in that respect. They started the Electronic Beats initiative and thereby achieved to create a link between electronic music as whole and their brand. That’s the one thing, but then you can also link artists to your brand – known artists or unknown artists; although, the latter is probably more interesting and more affordable. Imagine hearing a track by a new artist, and immediately thinking of the brand that pushed that artist.

Reese: But the reality is still that in marketing and advertising music is merely an afterthought.

Paravicini: It really depends on the client. Again, our client Bundesliga was very aware of the importance of audio. And they spent quite a lot of money on the composition of this hymn. They know that they happen in all digital formats, on TV, worldwide, and they have contracts in place to strictly implement that music, too. Bundesliga can’t put a visual logo on every piece of communication – very often, you can just see soccer players on a field. So audio is a very important tool for them to coin their brand identity.

Reese: Can you talk about your process a little bit when it comes to jobs like the Bundesliga one?

Paravicini: With Bundesliga, it was clear from day one that it was both, audio and visual branding, and that we would do both sides. The briefing stated, “We have to be international, we will spread it all over the world.“ That also meant there would be less control over implementation, so you have to have a toolkit that does the branding by itself. And, their music is really great. It’s a good example of how brands can succeed in today’s very diverse and fractionalized media. You don’t have to stand behind it like with the visuals, where you have to have guidelines in place, check if the photoshoot is according to standard, and so on…

Music spreads so easily, and if the strategy behind it is good and really linked to the brand, it is the perfect and most effective tool.

And that’s what we executed with Supreme Music. We developed a strategy of what kind of music and what kind of style would be right for the brand. We did a profiling of the brand with sound mood boards. Picking the right music isn’t easy. Your eyes are much more forgiving in that respect. You can look at something and dislike it, but it’s bearable for your eyes. But if you hear a cacophony, and it’s really bad, it threatens you in a way.

Reese: That’s true. Audio is 360° – you can’t close your ears like you can close your eyes. What do you think about audio logos? They’re so easily recognizable, and some of the biggest global brands have their own unique sting. Shouldn’t every brand have one?

Paravicini: It can be great product placement. It will do the job, but it’s all about content marketing these days, and an audio logo isn’t a whole lot of content. It takes more than a logo. If you’re linking two or three music artists to your brand, feature shows, and cooperations with them, that has a lot more potential for you content-wise.

A recent study shows that up to ten percent of young people get to know new music through commercials. That tells you a lot about music in branding.

Reese: Last question. How do you know you’re dealing with a great idea? How do you pick a great concept? You’ve been part of great recipes in the past, so you have that ability. But how do you do it?

Paravicini: As a creative person, as a designer, I carry around a lot of thoughts and ideas in my head. And what I always try is to link those bits together to create something new. Then I look at something – if I’m judging something as part of a jury, for example – and realize, “Hey. Somebody managed to put together all those pieces that I had in my head – and he did it brilliantly.” There are lots of cues just sleeping in my mind that I can rediscover in a great concept.

Note: The interview took place in Hamburg on the 20th of February 2015.

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