This study seeks to find ways to enhance brand leadership in Seoul, a global city, by using the concept
of 'soundscape,' which is a sound management strategy suitable for regional characteristics.
Since there is no research on soundscape and city branding, we selected Tokyo that has an urban
environment similar to Seoul. A total of two sets of comparative studies were conducted on the two cities
subway stations which represent their public transportation systems. In the first stage of research, we
identified the soundscape environment of subway lines 1 through 9 in Seoul and classified them into two
components: ‘voice language’ and ‘music language.’ Then each component was subdivided into 'recording
voice,' 'On-Air voice,' 'advertisement,' 'environmental sound,' 'effect sound,' and 'theme sound.' In the second
stage of research, we sought to derive meaningful results in constructing urban brand leadership by
comparing and analyzing the soundscape of Seoul and Tokyo's subway stations based on the classification
of soundscape derived from the first research.
As a result of the research, we found Seoul's soundscape was mainly composed by a unified form of
'recording voice' and 'effect sound.' On the other hand, in Tokyo, 'recording voice' and 'on-air voice' were
appropriately used while male and female voices were used alternately to announce important information in
order to avoid confusion.
Since previous researches focused on soundscape were limited to studies on noise management, there
was no scientific and systematic analysis regarding enhancement of city brand leadership. Therefore, this
study will give a new direction of multidisciplinary fusion research which integrates music, social science,
psychology, organizational behavior, and etcetera.