APM Music has become a key player in the thriving sports entertainment industry — even though its success is rooted deeper than other consumer-facing products.
As its website states, APM Music is the world’s leading creative music house and production library that offers its clients a robust package of music services that include everything from music replacement to custom scoring and/or helping discover the best tracks to suit their clients’ needs.
Simply put, if you watched TV, a movie, or even a clip on social media, chances are you may have come across some of the company’s work today without even realizing it.
APM has an enormous presence in the entertainment space. So, how is that connected to the sports industry? Daniel Litwin summed it up best in his Sports & Entertainment podcast for MarketScale featuring the company.
“In visual media, often times we focus on just that: the visual. But we can forget one of the most — if not the most — important piece of visual media, and that’s sound,” Litwin said. “The power music and sound design have over the tone, feeling and effect of a video or visual can’t be understated, and nowhere is that more important than the sports world.”
Music and sound are a crucial part of any sort of visual media, and when it comes to crafting a compelling sports experience, that extends practically everywhere. Think about it: sports rely on the visual, which is what teams and leagues use to drive the story. Yet without the right audio to go along with it, that visual can be left toothless.
“Think about it; all the different ways teams and sports rely on visuals and video to shape the fan experience,” APM Senior Account Director of Sports & Entertainment Matthew Gutknecht said. “Well, that gives an idea of all the different ways sports use music, too. Hype videos, promos, social, boards throughout the stadium…”
None of those assets are nearly as powerful without the right sound.
APM Music is a valuable resource for players, teams, and leagues in effectively crafting the brand and telling its story. Gutknecht explained that “APM’s Sports Division works with teams and leagues to define what they want the sound of their brand or particular message to be,” offering everything from custom scoring to a catalog of ready-made music and audio to choose from.
Unlike video and visual branding, “hearing something like a jingle or beat that links to a team is much more of a subconscious feeling,” Gutknecht stated. “That element of sonic branding that acts almost as a ‘brand extension’ musically, and resonates and sticks with fans in an entirely different way.”
Sound can create a powerful vibe, feeling, and even brand identity. Gutknecht discussed how players, teams, and leagues use APM’s various services to build hype pre-game, design engaging game-day experiences, and deepen the connection between players or teams and their fan-base, among other things, yet that only scratches the surface.
The area most ripe for continued growth, experimentation, and exploration into how sports can use music most effectively is social media. Players, teams, and leagues continue to find new ways to tell stories, which as we’ve now been reminded, are far less potent without both visual and audio.
“That’s been the biggest transformation with lots of growth and change. Digital. It hasn’t necessarily evolved, but more-so diversified,” Gutknecht noted. That entails everything from video boards in the venue to make the in-stadium experience more compelling to the online and broadcast experiences teams and leagues work so hard to create.
There are new and different ways to create an experience and tell a brand’s story emerging almost every day, of which sports has been at the crux. Yet one thing’s for sure: No matter what the format may be, music is crucial to creating the brand perception or effect that players, teams, and leagues desire.
