Visual marketing is only 1 of the 5 senses. I discuss how so much opportunity is sitting at the table with developing a sonic marketing strategy. AI, AR, voice activated technology, and podcasts are king and the voice frontier is only going to get louder. Break through the noise with your own sonic marketing strategy.

When you hear a sound or a song, your mind creates a visual representation.  You hear a car honk, you visualize a car; maybe even a scenario of an angry motorist stuck in traffic honking at the guy in front of him.  You hear a baby cry in a crowd. You may not see the baby but you’re picturing one. You hear a song from your past and it brings you back to a specific time and place.

Patrick Givens, Vice President and Head of VaynerSmart, and I discussed all things sound marketing in this latest episode of Sound In Marketing.  There was so much good information, I decided to split the interview into 2 parts. This is Part 1 of my interview with Patrick Givens.

Patrick and I discussed the importance of being mindful of a brand’s safety when it comes to using these emerging technologies; calculating the risks and the investment expectations up front to investigate the best practices and paths at present while planning for the future.

Matty Staudt former Vice President of Podcast Programming at iHeartRadio.  He took his passion for podcasting full time devoting his full efforts to his company Jam Street Media a podcast production company for brands. 

Part two of my interview with Matty Staudt, former VP of Podcast Programming at iHeartRadio and current CEO and founder of Jam Street Media a podcast production company for brands.  

Discussion of Vertonic as an audio effectiveness and measurement platform and more.

Part 2 discussion of Vertonic as an audio effectiveness and measurement platform and more.

Discussion on the progression of voice technology and more.

We talked about Sonic Signatures and what they do, the importance of considering what platform you are using before creating your campaign, the education of brands and agencies on new best practices in this new era of audio marketing, and how important it is to designate music and sound as part of your branding; not just an afterthought.

Pandora has been doing some incredibly interesting re-invention lately with new programming in "Pandora stories."

We talked about establishing an audio DNA for a brand, merging sonic branding within user experience audio, and forecasts of what the sound marketing landscape will look like in the future.

Music and sound influences healing. Which impacts emotion. If sound can heal, then sound can influence marketing decisions in an incredibly powerful way.

Sound is something that has been ever-present in our lives. All of our lives. It is all around us telling us what to do.

In this day and age no one wants to be sold to. They want to make up their own mind without being pressured. I was listening to a podcast the other day called Brand Builder where Dave Gerhardt VP of Marketing at Drift shares some huge knowledge bombs.

How sound can be used as a universal language and can drive marketing effectively and efficiently.  

Jingles are fun but if they are not relevant to your brand then they won’t serve their original intent; recall.  Without your consumer being able to recall who put that funny or emotional jingle together, then you’ve spent your money on nothing.

Advertising in the sound universe.  Although there are a bunch of platforms that advertise through sound and music, I decided to do a focus on the two that were most noteworthy to me in present day; Pandora and Spotify. 

Voice Technology.  How the world is using it, seeing it, and what we expect from it already.

A recap of what we’ve learned and who we’ve heard from thus far.

Interview with Women In Voice founder Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek.  We discussed her company as well as the state of women in the voice industry in general. This diversity that we spoke of is not reserved only for women; it’s for anyone who may not have been given (or given themselves) the opportunity to...speak up.

Part two of our conversation with Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek of Women In Voice.  We talked about how we should recognize and support voices that needed “amplification”, allyship and what that means, voice conferences (the good and the bad), hardware and software companies realizing the importance of the voice experience, representation of different people and cultures in the data, the interactivity of words, and the opportunity to be on the build side of rapidly changing human computer interaction.

A conversation with Pete Erickson, founder of Modev, Voice Summit, and the Inside Voice Podcast.  We talked about how these companies came about as well as their missions, the evolution of a new market, how Apple played a major role in how this voice first world came about, how all industries are included in sound marketing and its possibilities, and community builders in sound marketing. 

Invertview with Alexander Wodrich of Why Do Birds about audio branding, the origin of their name Why Do Birds, and one of two examples of their work with companies.  The time and thought that goes into their creation is absolutely wonderful.

Interview with Alexander Wodrich of Why Do Birds about audio branding, the origin of their name Why Do Birds, and one of two examples of their work with companies.  The time and thought that goes into their creation is absolutely wonderful.

We conclude our interview with Alex Wodrich from Why Do Birds.  We talked about his experience building the sounds of the Hyundai Pavilion for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, implementation of that sound as well as previous sound work they’d done with the brand, and how it’s actually more important to implement sound in your marketing strategy if you’re a smaller brand rather than a bigger one.

All about Seinfeld and how Jonathan Wolff created that iconic sound that will forever live on in the memory of that show.

We continue talking Seinfeld with Jonathan Wolff, creator of the Seinfeld score and theme song.  We explore how it helped get him out of “the pile” and create a unique name for himself which led to other iconic shows like Will and Grace.

I interviewed  Vijay Iyer from Amp Sound Branding.  Vijay brought up an excellent example to close this episode.  We shouldn’t be looking at fitting our brand to music, we should be fitting the music to the brand.  Check back next week for the conclusion to our chat.

Interview with Vijay Iyer of Amp Sound Branding.  Vijay and I discussed the importance of putting real thought into what your brand sounds like.  All music and sound should be looked at not as does your brand fit to that sound, but does that sound fit to your brand.

I spoke with Roger Sho Gehrmann of Pandora.  We talked about his functions at Pandora and how Pandora grew from a production advertising house to a creative agency in Studio Resonate.  

We talked about kids and how they are intuitively curious about this new voice technology and that we have a lot to learn from them.  Also, we spoke about how the Pandora data and analytics is the most inclusive amount of data in the world.  They are working hard to use that to position advertising appropriately and effectively.  Now is the time to explore that hugely valuable data in our marketing strategy.

I spoke with Ilarna Nche of Matchbox.io.  We spoke about pioneering voice experience technology, her experience working as a developer for Matchbox.io, the importance of brands incorporating voice applications into their marketing strategy and budgets, and the inevitable future of smart speakers and voice assistants.

I concluded my conversation with Ilarna Nche of Matchbox.io.  We discussed the trends in the creative of voice first apps, how voice is not a replacement to marketing but an enhancement, best practice of building an app, and how content is key.

I spoke with Andrew Bellavia of Knowles Corp. and Charles Balderstein of What Sounds Design.  We talked about cohesive audio experiences, accessibility options through hearables and hearing aids, audio augmented reality, audio ethics, gaming sound experience, and ambient pass through.

I conclude my interview with Andrew Bellavia of Knowles Corp. and Charles Balderstein of What Sounds Design.  We talked about augmented reality, personal audio experience, audio etiquette, advertising evolvement, and multi modalism.

We talked about how AI and human operator diversity is key and that the lack of representation of people with disabilities in the machine learning workplace needs to be more fully explored.

We talked about audio ethics as well as the idea of an open source society of voice first technology, limitations between platform accessibility, and a huge opportunity for more access to your content simply by having an intention for accessibility at the beginning.

I talked with Amazon Alexa’s Chief Evangelist Dave Isbitski.  We covered a lot of ground in this episode and the next exploring lots of real world usages for smart speakers in both personal and business use.  

I concluded my talk with Amazon Alexa’s Chief Evangelist Dave Isbitski.  We covered a lot of ground exploring lots of different nuances of smart speaker capabilities both for personal and business use. 

I spoke with Joe Pompei of Holosonics about directional sound.  With only $2000 seed capital, Holosonics was created to commercialize directional sound technology.  Holosonics is now the world leader in providing highly directional sound products, with thousands of installations worldwide.

We concluded our talk about directional sound with Holosonics’ Joe Pompei.  A lot of exciting examples of what is happening in the world of directional sound as well as a lot of future thoughts.

I spoke with Keri Roberts about inclusion and representation as well as how the voice community is advancing as a whole. 

Keri Roberts and I talk about sonic branding and how to better understand it and how to “get started” creating your brand sound.  We also talked directly to the voice community about being mindful of accessibility as well as simplifying our marketing to the non voice community.

I spoke with Valentin Fleur of Sixième Son about sonic territory and DNA for a company or brand.  Audio touchpoints are not only increasing but they are becoming smaller and smaller pockets of expression.  If you have sonic territory understanding and a sonic DNA in place, you can then start building your “sonic device intimac.”