Audio Branding

“To your point, like it can make or break campaigns, can make or break TV and film. I mean, you know, there’s mumblegate that’s happening, like with all the streamers where I can’t understand half the things that are being spoken... And in the interview, he was like, ‘Well, it’s just not important to me.’ I’m like, what?” – David GielanThis week’s guest is a six-time founder and creative strategist who knows the power of sound in shaping stories that stick. As founder of Dominant Creative, a global agency and production company, he helps brands harness audio to spark connection and inspire change. His name is David Gielan, and in this episode, he shares how sound influences branding, fuels emotion, and helps organizations stand out in a noisy world. If you care about where audio is headed, you’ll want to hear this one.As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.(00:00) – David’s Journey from Music to MarketingAs our conversation starts, David recalls his early memories of sound and how he’s passing on the lessons he learned to his own children. “Being even two or three years old,” he says, “I have these memories of dancing to records in my home and, you know, I just try to impart that on my kids too when they were very young.” He tells us more about his experience in marketing and ad production, and how having a background in music can sometimes be a mixed blessing. “I am not a person who can go to live music events as just an appreciator of music,” David explains. “It makes it absolutely impossible for me…. I’m just going to be sitting there in my head trying to pick it apart, not in a negative way, but just in a way of trying to understand how it was all put together.”(08:15) – Mumblegate and Audio ClarityThe discussion continues as David tells us more about the role sound plays in his approach to branding. “ I also have always been the kind of director and creative who is considering sound at each stage of the process,” he tells us. “And so I’m also doing the edit in my head and I’m doing the sound design in my head while we’re filming, while we’re working on it, and so it just gives me a greater level of control, but also creative inspiration as I’m working.” Our conversation turns to “mumblegate,” the sound editing trend that’s making streaming audio harder to hear than ever, and how it can work against a marketing campaign. “I think for a lot of people,” he adds, “sound is usually an afterthought, especially because advertising a lot of time is a very visual medium… The creatives that I love working with most are the ones who come from post before they started getting into the director’s chair, because they understand how something incredibly simple can make such a massive impact.”(22:35) – The Role of Sound DesignAs the first half of our conversation closes, the topic turns to how David puts sound to use in his own marketing work, such as an ad campaign he created for Yonex. “It was a very dark and emotive and impactful round of spots that were mainly driven by sound design,” he recalls. “It was just the visuals of a racket spinning. But it really came to life when, you know, when those moments were accented by key sound effects.” Our discussion returns to his insights on mumblegate, and how often it comes down to a struggle between sound editors and producers. “I’ve worked with a number of rerecording mixers over the years that bury dialogue because they’re forced to do so, not because they want to. They’re like, ‘No, I want to bring clarity to this project and so people can follow the story and understand what’s going on.’ And then they’re, you know, shouted down by the folks at the top.”Episode SummaryDavid talks about his career journey and personal experiences with sound.Why audio clarity seems to be less of a focus in today’s media.David shares the impact of sound design in his advertising campaigns.Tune in for next week’s episode as we talk about the human creativity premium that the AI rush is helping to create, how David’s balancing automation and his personal approach to building a campaign, and why he feels that sound is an untapped resource when it comes to branding.Connect with the Audio Branding Podcast:Book your project with Voice Overs and Vocals by visiting https://voiceoversandvocals.comConnect with me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jodikrangle/Watch the Audio Branding Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/JodiKrangleVOConnect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodikrangle/Leave the Audio Branding Podcast a review at https://lovethepodcast.com/audiobranding (Thank you!)Share your passion effectively with these Tips for Sounding Your Best as a Podcast Guest!https://voiceoversandvocals.com/tips-for-sounding-your-best-as-a-podcast-guest/Get my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategyhttps://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/Editing/Production by Humberto Franco - https://humbertofranco.com/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

“Live is always going to be great. Human connection is the only thing that will differentiate AI from people and from artists. And that is, I think, going to be the key lever that artists have left. So in the same way as you might go and buy a handmade coffee cup for $20 from an artisan stall when you can buy one for a dollar in Walmart, music will still hold great value.” – David Courtier-DuttonThis episode is the second half of my conversation with the founder and CEO of SoundOut, David Courtier-Dutton, as we discuss the catch-22 financial companies can face when it comes to making a sonic impression, how some companies are reaching old and new customers alike by reviving the radio jingles of years past, and the role of audio branding in an increasingly AI-driven world.As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.(00:00) – Surprising Trends in Sonic BrandingThe second half of our conversation starts as David shares more of SoundOut’s discoveries about the effectiveness of branding, including why Visa and Mastercard’s sonic logos haven’t made the impact they’d hoped. “Listening to their sonic logo in isolation with no brand association,” David explains, “20% and 31% respectively said, yeah, we know the brand. But not one person out of those 400 across the two brands could actually write the brand name when asked what the brand was.” We talk about the old radio jingles and how some companies are finding success in reviving them for a new generation. “Both Maybelline and Pillsbury,” he tells us, “are sort of historic logos that were retired for a long time, and you just cannot underestimate the power of bringing back an old, beloved sonic logo… I wouldn’t say it’s an easy win, but it is, because those neural pathways are absolutely locked in.”(8:45) – The Role of AI in Music and MarketingDavid and I talk about the elephant in the room, AI and its impact on marketing, and the shift he’s seen over the past year. “Up until about six months ago,” he observes, “we were seeing very little of it. There are some obvious concerns around legalities … brands won’t want to use music created by AI in case it is actually breaching copyright. [But[ that will get sorted in the next six months or so, I think.”He shares his thoughts on how search processes are being increasingly handled by AI, and how audio can help brands stand out from the crowd. “The brand will go nowhere near the consumer,” he tells us. “So anything that you can do to make your brand more distinctive when you are advertising online and through music, anything to make a brand more prominent, can only help.”(20:30) – The Power of Authenticity in BrandingAs our discussion comes to a close, David elaborates on his observation that AI is increasingly talking to itself rather than users. “We’re basically talking agents talking to agents,” he explains, “so AI agents talking to AI agents… I would imagine within 12 months it’ll become quite a big thing. And within three years, it’ll be everywhere. Everywhere.” We talk about the role human creativity might still play in a marketplace driven by AI, and one advantage musicians still have over machine-generated content. “It can feign emotion,” he says, “but you’ll never move an AI with a song because it doesn’t do emotion, and it literally, it never will… Emotion and empathy are all that we have as humans to distinguish ourselves from machines. And so music will… music will survive forever.”Episode SummaryThe challenges and surprising innovations in building a distinctive audio brand.How AI audio content has already begun to reshape the digital landscape.David shares his insights on what the growth of AI means for human artists.Connect with the Audio Branding Podcast:Book your project with Voice Overs and Vocals by visiting https://voiceoversandvocals.comConnect with me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jodikrangle/Watch the Audio Branding Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/JodiKrangleVOConnect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodikrangle/Leave the Audio Branding Podcast a review at https://lovethepodcast.com/audiobranding (Thank you!)Share your passion effectively with these Tips for Sounding Your Best as a Podcast Guest!https://voiceoversandvocals.com/tips-for-sounding-your-best-as-a-podcast-guest/Get my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategyhttps://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/Editing/Production by Humberto Franco - https://humbertofranco.com/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

“When you hand it to the composer in sonic branding, at that point, it becomes an art, because the job of the composer, of course, is to translate those desired emotions into music. And it’s not [the] music that the composer feels, it is what it makes the audience feel when they hear it, and that is almost pure art. We have done some science around it, and we know what might help in terms of instrumentation and timbre and pitch and all that sort of stuff, but, at the bottom line, the sonic logo is only going to be as good as the composer. They are the most important person in a sonic branding project, bar none.” – David Courtier-DuttonThis episode’s guest is the founder and CEO of SoundOut, and he’s on a mission to prove that sound isn’t just art – it’s strategy. From building the world’s largest music testing platform to decoding how sonic logos tap straight into our memory and emotions, he’s turned the science of sound into a tool that brands can’t ignore, and he’s worked with such brands as Amazon, TikTok, Netflix, Sky, and Target to help optimize their sonic branding and marketing.His name is David Courtier-Dutton, and we’ll be talking about what makes audio unforgettable, how data reveals our hidden reactions to music, and where the future of audio branding might be headed.As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.(00:00) – David’s Earliest Memories of SoundOur discussion starts off with a pivotal moment in David’s childhood, and in the years that followed, that taught him the power of sound. “It seared that moment in my brain,” he says, recalling George Harrison’s song “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth), “of all the very few memories you have when you’re six, seven years old. It just stuck with me. And I lost the song for probably about thirty years or so. And then when I heard it again, I was straight back in that little car, absolutely transfixed by the radio at that point.” We talk about his journey from corporate law to sonic branding, and how it coincided with the dramatic changes that MySpace and social media brought to the music industry. “The industry appeared to be facing existential moments,” David recalls. “So I thought, ‘well, wouldn’t it be great, if the industry is going to go away and fans can connect with the bands, why don’t we create a business that enables the fans to invest in the bands themselves and actually finance them?”(15:00) – Understanding the Role of Sonic BrandingDavid shares his observations on audio branding and the mistakes that can derail an agency’s search for the right sonic logo. “They get really attached to the sounds,” he explains, “and they start reading things into the options and the logos that perhaps don’t exist. They forget that this sonic logo will just be pinged out across the airwaves and listened to fleetingly by consumers, and you can really overthink it.” He tells us about SoundOut’s pioneering brand study, its methodology, and what it’s revealed so far about successful sonic branding. “From that historic data,” he says, “the key data point was that if you have your [brand] name in your sonic logo, then people were twice as likely to attribute it to the brand as if it wasn’t in. So that’s powerful. That’s a good argument for putting the name in.”(23:00) – Insights from the SoundOut IndexAs the first half of our conversation wraps up, David offers more insights from the SoudOut study and what they tell us about successful sonic branding. “If you’ve got three seconds or two seconds to create a logo,” he notes, “you’re not going to create something that has a hook as strong as Katy Perry or whatever it may be. It’s always going to be a short snippet of a melody.” We discuss the surprising gap the index revealed between what consumers think they know and what they actually know when it comes to brand recognition, and the advantage sound has over other, more traditional marketing. “People can’t block their ears,” David tells us. “They can look away, they can be doing something else at the same time, but you can’t close off your ears [or] your ability to listen and for those connections to be made. So it’s a very subversive way of marketing, but highly effective.”Episode SummaryDavid shares his journey from a London law firm to music and marketing.How traditional branding can lead agencies astray when it comes to sonic logos.David discusses SoundOut’s five-year study of audio branding and recognition.Tune in for next week’s episode as we talk about the unique audio branding challenge companies like Visa and Mastercard face, what role human creatives might play in a market that’s increasingly giving way to AI, and how audio branding can help companies rise above the algorithmic noise.Connect with the Audio Branding Podcast:Book your project with Voice Overs and Vocals by visiting https://voiceoversandvocals.comConnect with me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jodikrangle/Watch the Audio Branding Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/JodiKrangleVOConnect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodikrangle/Leave the Audio Branding Podcast a review at https://lovethepodcast.com/audiobranding (Thank you!)Share your passion effectively with these Tips for Sounding Your Best as a Podcast Guest!https://voiceoversandvocals.com/tips-for-sounding-your-best-as-a-podcast-guest/Get my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategyhttps://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/Editing/Production by Humberto Franco - https://humbertofranco.com/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

One topic that comes up quite often on Audio Branding is audio technology, and how far it’s come over just the last few years. Whether it’s choosing the right sound equipment, deciding if you should record with noise cancellation turned on (and just for the record, you shouldn’t), or taking advantage of advanced recording options like 3-D audio and Dolby Atmos, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to sound. But you might be surprised to learn that the science of sound optimization is a lot older than surround sound, or stereo recordings, or even audio recordings at all.Sound has been a part of our lives for as long as we’ve been around, and it turns out that we’ve been finding ways to boost sound quality and reshape the acoustic landscape around us for just as long. From ancient Roman amplifiers to prehistoric boulder harmonies, our ancestors explored the possibilities of sound in ways that scientists today are still trying to understand.Creating just the right sound experience can be a big enough challenge for modern-day concerts and movie theaters. How do you do it when you don’t have any microphones or speakers? This was the problem faced by Greek and Roman architects, and the science of archaeoacoustics, of how sound was shaped and used in ancient times, hasn’t entirely unraveled their solution. According to the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, they used “acoustic jars,” or “echea” in Greek, small brass cups built into the walls between each of the seats. He didn’t invent them, though, so we aren’t sure who originally came up with the idea. These echea were believed to resonate and amplify spoken voices, boosting their sound for each listener like a set of personal speakers. They were arranged according to precise mathematical rules that differed depending on the theater’s dimensions.Did they really work? They must have worked well enough, since they were popular not only during antiquity but also in medieval times, with over a hundred cathedrals in France alone putting them to use. But research continues on just how they worked as well as they did. Some studies suggest that they didn’t actually amplify sound, but instead absorbed some of the surrounding frequencies to muffle the background noise: the world’s first noise-cancellation technology, more than two thousand years before headphones. But a 2011 presentation at the Acoustics of Ancient Theatres conference suggested that maybe their resonance effect did amplify sound. The verdict’s still out.If you’d like to hear an echea’s resonance for yourself, here’s a clip of a sound sculpture by Michele Spranghero that puts one to haunting use:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb57mGHy4OERome wasn’t the only ancient civilization to take advantage of sonic resonance. More than a thousand years earlier, and several thousand miles away, lies the Peruvian archaeological site of Chavín de Huántar, once the capital city of the Chavin civilization. Its temples, plazas, and surviving buildings have been studied for many decades, and lately that research has helped uncover the role that sound and harmonic frequencies played in its religious ceremonies.One artifact that’s been consistently found there is the pututu, a wind instrument that’s also known as a conch trumpet since it’s made from the shell of a conch. This may be a little surprising since the ocean’s well over a hundred miles away, but there might be a surprising reason why so many ancient conch trumpets have been recovered from the Chavin temples.A research team from the Acoustical Society of America, accompanied by Stanford researcher Dr. Chris Chafe, investigated the acoustical properties of their chambers and discovered that they’re designed to resonate with the pututu’s distinctively warbling frequencies, not only amplifying them but pulling two or more pututu players into a musical harmony that’s felt as much as it’s heard. This effect can be experienced elsewhere – it comes from the rhythmic “beats” that emerge from its natural interference patterns – but it’s stronger inside the buildings. Some researchers have suggested this resonant harmony was a key part of the city’s religious ceremonies and that the temple’s soundscape was intended to create a profound experience for the musicians and their audience.If you’re curious about what a pututu sounds like, here’s a short clip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5PkUXBo4NIThere are plenty of soundscapes and resonant frequencies all around us, of course, and one of our earliest encounters with them might have been as simple as tripping over a rock. They’re called ringing rocks, or singing stones or sonorous rocks, and their discovery by prehistoric tribes all over the world led to one of the first musical instruments ever made, the rock gong or stone chimes.Ringing rocks are volcanic rocks, such as dolerite or basalt, and even though they aren’t made of metal and they aren’t hollow, they ring like bells when they’re struck. Groups of singing stones can be found throughout the world, from Ringing Rock Park in Pennsylvania and the Bell Rock Range of Australia to sonorous stone fields in Africa and Europe, and the science behind their sound isn’t as simple as you might think. According to a 1965 study by geologist Richard Faas, the rocks actually create a series of inaudibly low, or infrasonic, audio frequencies, but those overlapping frequencies constructively interfere with each other to create sounds that our ears can detect.But where do those low frequencies come from in the first place? Science is still working on that mystery, and some theories suggest it has to do with the rock’s structural tension, making it a kind of stone guitar string that vibrates with a hard tap. And if that isn’t mysterious enough, the Singing Stones of Brittany clearly didn’t come from the place they’re found today, but no one knows when or how they arrived. Did ancient people recognize their acoustic properties and relocate them as oversized musical instruments? Or were the stones, as legend has it, left there by the Devil?Check out this clip of a visitor at Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania using six singing stones, each with its own distinctive note, to play a familiar melody:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKtkbH6ANykSound has connected us to each other and the world around us since the dawn of time, and we’ve been discovering new ways to harness its power for just as long. As we move into the future, learning those lessons could help us reshape the way we experience it in the years to come.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

“I give them a lot of credit because they use that so frequently, and that’s why they have so much success. I mean, it is an iconic melody in and of itself, but it’s that repetition and that usage, you know, whereas I feel like a lot of sound logo projects that come in, we’ll get to the finish line and they’ll be excited to use it, and then a month or two later, they’ll be like, ‘We’re not seeing quite the results that we’d hoped.’ It’s like, A, you’re not going to see it after a month, and B, you’ve got to use it consistently, you know, and potentially in multiple places. State Farm does it right.” – Connor MooreThis episode is the second half of my conversation with founder and creative director of CMoore Sound, Connor Moore, as we talk about where AI voices might be taking sound design, how he became a juror at the International Sound Awards, and how sonic logos are making a comeback.As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.(00:00) – Current Trends in Sound DesignThe second half of our discussion starts as Connor talks about neural voices, the latest breakthrough in AI voice clones, and how popular they’re becoming with clients. “It’s a very interesting space,” he says, “having a customized brain and voice that can constantly adapt, you know, and so we’re seeing a lot more of that come through.” He talks about his work on Google Glass and how he might approach its UX design differently in today’s world, and how he helped reshape the famous State Farm sonic logo. “’Here’s a simple tweak at a foundational level,’” he recalls saying, “’Take away the square wave and use a sine wave at a base level.’ And they were like, ‘Oh.’ And we’re already 65% there.”(10:47) – The Importance of SimplicityWe discuss his work with the International Sound Awards and the insights he’s gained from seeing nominees from all over the world. “Most of the work I’ve reviewed in the last four years has been more kind of traditional sonic branding,” he tells us. “It’s just great to be a part of that community and to hear all the cool work coming, because it’s at a global scale.” He talks about the resurgence of sound logos in today’s market, and the lesson to be learned from State Farm’s branding success. “The iconic nature of that example is the melody,” he says, “the melody that’s been around for so long. But I think that what I would say is just, you know, use it lightly. Be careful with overusing it.”(24:47) – The Future of Sonic BrandingOur conversation wraps up with what he’s working on now, and the trends he’s seeing in branding and audio UX design. “Industries that you might not expect,” Connor explains, “old school industries that are becoming more tech focused, for example... which I think is interesting, because I think sound as a technology [is] starting to touch industries of old that are modernizing.” He tells listeners how they can get in touch, and shares his perspective as someone on the forefront of sonic branding. “I’m working on very emerging technologies,” he says. “I’m working on older industry segments that are stepping into new technology, I’m working in automotive... it’s a good balance that keeps me engaged.”Episode SummaryOur discussion on the rise of wearable technology and voice-driven experiences.Exploring how simplicity impacts sound design and brand perception.Connor’s predictions on the evolution of audio branding and its applications.Connect with the Audio Branding Podcast:Book your project with Voice Overs and Vocals by visiting https://voiceoversandvocals.comConnect with me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jodikrangle/Watch the Audio Branding Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/JodiKrangleVOConnect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodikrangle/Leave the Audio Branding Podcast a review at https://lovethepodcast.com/audiobranding (Thank you!)Share your passion effectively with these Tips for Sounding Your Best as a Podcast Guest!https://voiceoversandvocals.com/tips-for-sounding-your-best-as-a-podcast-guest/Get my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategyhttps://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/Editing/Production by Humberto Franco - https://humbertofranco.com/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy