The first song scientifically tested to make babies happy.

There are certain sounds that make babies laugh, but why? Our idea was not only to find out, but then use the knowledge to create a branded song for parents to listen to and share.

We worked with baby and music psychologists from London Goldsmiths University, alongside Grammy award-winning musician Imogen Heap.

Designing the process as an experiment, we initially sourced over 2,000 sounds which parents said made babies happy. We analysed these before Imogen took the sounds and data to create a range of test tracks exploring tempo, pitch, pattern, rhythm, performance cues and instrumentation. Everything was tested with fifty babies at our ‘Infant Lab’ at Goldsmiths, and by monitoring the results – including facial expressions, heart rate and vocalisations – the team were able to isolate the positive sounds for babies.

From this research, our Happy Song was born.

Over three months from inception to launch, we worked with parents to create the 2’42 song based on the results of our studies.

The song was released on 17th October with the ambition of reaching a new audience of parents on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud and Youtube. We partnered with Spotify and created a hub where we housed the song, ‘Making of’, a ‘Happy Playlist’ generator making personalised playlists for different occasions (such as Wake Up Time or Bath Time), and extra content including light-hearted outtakes from the project. In order to amplify our reach, parent influencers got involved with their babies in the testing phase and released the song on their own channels.

Our PR strategy targeted science, music and parent titles.

The Happy Song reached number 1 in the UK children’s iTunes chart in just 24 hours, overtaking Toy Story’s ‘You’ve got a friend in me’. It has now been played over 3 million times. The press jumped on the story. It was covered by The Daily Mail Online, I Fucking Love Science, BBC Radio 5 Live and Radio 4. The UK release gained global traction with coverage on CBS, India Today, BBC World, Corriera della Sera and the New Zealand Herald, Fox News and Time. The campaign has had an audience reach of 734 million and the song has now been streamed in over 59 countries.

The campaign has resulted in C&G Baby Club’s brand awareness increasing by 4% and a positive shift in key equity measures including ‘Brand I trust’, ‘Brand I love’.