How Audio Branding Transforms Marketing: A Conversation with David Courtier-Dutton – Part 2

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 so hold great value. Welcome to Audio Branding, the hidden gem of marketing. Sound plays a more important role in human behavior and our decision making than you may realize. In this podcast, I'll help you understand the art and science of sound so you can better influence others in business and your life. I'm your host, Jodie Kregel. Let's delve a little deeper. Here's the second part of my conversation with David Cortier-Dutton. So were there any brands in your study that particularly surprised you as to where they ended up in your study? Yeah, and I'm not sure that this is, I mean, I don't like talking about negatives, but there was some industries. I'm hoping this is more positive than a negative. But yeah, well, there was some industries that really are kind of personality vacuums. And so that's banking insurance. The one thing that I've noticed about insurance and maybe you have too is that the more boring the industry, the more outlandish their ads are. 100% and that's why insurance and they do it across the US, they do it across the UK. They create characters. Exactly. Because they don't have one themselves. I guess so. I guess they realize that they are a, I can't my brain a blog. I called them mother-in-law brands. You have a relationship with them because you have to, not because you want to. So, insurance is a perfect example. Yeah, it's the same for banks. You're right about that too. Yeah, exactly. So you're absolutely right. They have to create a personality and they do that to a character. They do it throughout landage branding. But yeah, and it works very well. But if we look at two in particular, so if we look at credit cards, so Visa and Mastercard, Visa, did it renew to its suddenly branding, I think about three or four years ago. Mastercard famously did it probably gosh, I don't know, eight or nine years ago. Now I don't know the exact date. And they put a huge amount of strategy and thought and money and effort into creating a personality with their, with their Sonnet logo. But we found in the report that while I think Mastercard had about 20% claimed attribution and Visa had about 31% I think claimed attribution, actual attribution was zero. No one could name the brand. Now it's only an example of 200 for each. So this is after listening to their Sonic branding. It's after listening to their Sonnet logo in isolation with no brand association. 20% and 31% respectively said, yeah, we could know, 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 actual brand was. Now I don't blame Visa or Mastercard for being bad at branding. And I think that is, it's just an indication of the size of the mountain they have to climb as a, as an inverter comm is boring financial services company trying to create some sort of personality with consumers. So for me, I was, I was really surprised because Mastercard is particularly as iconic. I mean, we all know anyone in, anyone in Sonnet branding knows it. And they weren't really hard. And I take my hat off to the way they strategically weaved it through everything right from, you know, creating independent albums with different artists and play it at the Super Bowl and get it in independent artist releases and then playing it at checkout on when you check out with your Mastercard, some of the terminals play the logo, but just hasn't cut through. And it may just be that it, it won't ever be for Visa or Mastercard or a financial services brand. While on the one hand, it's both admirable and, and probably advisable to try and create a Sonnet brand, the reality is just doesn't kind of work in that industry. That's really interesting. Yeah. And I know that Mastercard did make such a huge effort to get their audio brand out there. But you know, I think this is going to sound weird and maybe I shouldn't be saying this on a show like this, but I think it's a problem of the sounding different from everyone else. I don't think it sounds different enough. I mean, it's, it, it has a tune and I get that, but it's just a tune. Like I, there's nothing else to it that I can really attribute to the specific personality of Mastercard. You know what I mean? Like it just, exactly, but also when you, when I think of Mastercard or Visa or American Express, whatever, I, what I think is, I think trustworthy, boring, reliable, dull, you know, conservative, apart from trust, trust, trust, apart from trustworthy, no brand wants to be seen as any of those things, but that's what they are. So it's very hard to come up with a distinctive, like if you come out with something outlandish, there would be distinctive, but it would be so far removed from the brand personality that it would be, it would break a cardinal rule of branding. So it kind of stuck because their brand attributes are on, on not ones that translate well to music, and if you do translate into music, it's not very interesting. Yeah, it's unfortunate. I think, yeah, like you were saying, these brands that, you know, we conceive of as boring, you know, they have to work doubly hard to make sure that they're memorable. Yeah. I mean, they're exciting. Yeah, and they're giving me wrong. They're incredible. They're amazing brands, but unfortunately, they, yeah, they're not exciting or engaging. Yeah, that's, yeah, yeah, that's the tough part. I know TD just redid their branding, their audio branding as well through Ceezyam songs. So they just did something that they're doing all over Canada, and I'm hearing their sonic logo all over the place now, and I'm hearing it at their machines, which is actually really interesting too. So, and I remember it, like I'm actually starting to remember it because they have some really fun advertising that basically has someone sitting in a big green chair watching things go by, like they're an observer, you know, like it's interesting. They're doing some good thing. So I think it's, yeah, quirky. Yeah. And I think you can get away with that with like a bank or a visa or a master card and I think you can be quirky and still be reliable and, you know, a staple of this certain industry. I think you can still do that. But yeah, it's tricky. Like you said, I don't know if maybe they need to break some brand rules. Well, I mean, maybe that just needs to happen. I mean, what you just said is interesting because I don't know TD is brand well at all, but if the brand, as I said earlier, Sonic never leads always follows in branding. So if the TD brand itself is quirky and that is the brand strategy, that's fine. You can go in with a Sonic that reflects that. But if you're sitting here, I don't think they were always. Okay. They weren't always. It stands for Toronto Dominion. Okay. And TD is actually Toronto Dominion is all over Canada, but TD bank is also in the US. So so now it's it's being rolled out. But I think what they were trying to do in the visual logo was that they were presenting things as this green chair because their logo is green is a comforting place to be and you can rely on, you know, you're welcome into our bank and you can sit in this green chair and be comfortable. Basically the kind of idea, right? Yeah. So so now they've followed through with all of that in their branding and their ads and such like that with the visuals on the screen, but they're also following through with an audio logo that sounds comforting and friendly and slightly quirky. Yeah. So so I think it it like you said, probably it doesn't lead. The audio doesn't lead, but it can more closely define what the brand is. By adding that little twist on it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I just give it a little bit of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure that's the yeah. For a lot of we've worked on a few banks. worldwide and unfortunately most of them the brands are very stayed because they can't be come across as unreliable or sort of flirty or fun or whatever because it's a serious thing money and they want you to give them your money and to do that yeah you risk a lot by not being that sensible uncle who who who is giving you could advice. Very true I guess yeah yeah so you mentioned in your in your study that Maybeline and Pillsbury are doing really well. Yep and that's made music right? Yes yeah yeah so John Tate has actually been on this podcast. Oh okay so yeah so we had a discussion about some of this stuff not Maybeline or Pillsbury specifically but they've done a lot of really good stuff so it's it's fun to hear and good to hear that they're doing well with what you're putting out there. Well I think I mean both Maybeline and Pillsbury are sort of historic logos that were retired for a long time and you just cannot you cannot underestimate the power of bringing back an old style. Yeah well updating it and it's it's I don't know I'd say it's an easy win but it is because those neural pathways are absolutely locked in I mean we did in the UK is funny I think I've told the story before to people in America and they look at me blankly but we have a brand called Branson Pickle which is pickle that goes on tree sandwiches effectively that had iconic advertising back in the 70s and 80s with with the tagline bring out the Branson with a ba ba ba ba and and really impactful and everyone loved it and everyone could sing it and whenever it was taken out of the cupboard all over the UK in households people would say bring out the Branson rather than pass the tomatoes or so whatever so it became a and we worked on that year or two ago and they brought that back very successfully there's another one in the UK called direct line which is a red telephone insurance business again they killed that off 15 20 years ago and they've just brought that back and and again hugely successful everyone loves the red telephone bounce here across the desk with the direct loan logo and a couple of others we worked on as well but it's yeah if you've got one if you've got one down the back of the sofa that got traction when there were only three TV stations and your hand from a radio stations then every one of that era will know because you couldn't avoid it we didn't have the internet we didn't have anything apart from three TV channels and some radio stations say anyone with the jingle it became embedded in the in the national psyche are you enjoying this podcast if so it would really help me out if you'd give it a review the best place to do that in written format is at the bottom of the audio branding podcast dot com page and if you want to do that in voice format there's a link in the ending paragraph at the top of that same page I would so appreciate that it helps me to know what you'd like to hear more of and why you're listening in the first place as podcasters we rarely know who's actually listening so it helps me to know that I'm not just speaking into the void thanks for that and now back to the show and jingles are so powerful that way too yeah certainly maybe in the bills very like I'm familiar with a lot of them do it's like yeah but I mean I I want to kind of bring up the elephant in the room and and that is AI because we all talk about AI at this point how do you think that's going to transform sonic branding at this point or will it it will I mean I was useful to stretch beyond just sunny logos and think about the use of music and advertising marketing up until about six months ago we were we were seeing very little of it there are some other there's some obvious concerns around legalities and with suno and udo being still suede at the moment on the basis that they've trained their music AI music creation models on copyrighted content or whether that amounts to fair use or not fair use that overhangs it so brands won't want to use music created by AI in case it is actually breaching copyright that will get sorted in the next six months or so I think I think there will be a settlement and it will be a traditional music industry settlement whereby they take a shed load of money PC money off you know in udo they are handed a chunk of equity and they spin it just like they spun Spotify and DAPSTER and every iteration before news can stream will get their sticky fingers deep into the pot and the artists pay the price yeah the price but do I see your question AI music is going to be a endemic across use advertising brands whatever they say and I don't think they even say it brands couldn't care about the music the artist they only care about cost and effectiveness and if they can get a a song that's just as effective for next to nothing rather than paying artists 20 thousand dollars for usage in a campaign why wouldn't they I mean yeah I guess it may be you know maybe cynical but unfortunately it's true it's going to it's going to be catastrophic for artists worldwide so a large chunk of commercial music can come into the industry is going to disappear and we're we're now seeing it we're now getting projects where we're testing maybe on long form music at the moment where we're testing AI music for brands for campaigns not a lot but it's coming so the other thing of course that's happening is the capability of AI is doubling every 5.7 months at the moment so it is exponential it means in two years it will be 10 times more powerful the quality of the of the music coming out of Sinoa Nudio now and the others is phenomenal and we get into a point now where you can automatically create music in sync to an advert or a movie or whatever with emotional matching of where the music moves with in terms of the vocals have any vocals reinforcing the story arc etc so no more searching through 10,000 tracks to get a song where the lyrics are reinforcing the the storyline of the campaign you know you'll just create the perfect song the perfect lyrics and I say it's sad it's a death of creativity on many levels but it's happening yes it's happening music by my god it's happening if you're a software programmer if you if you basically do any knowledge work in front of a computer you are going to be impacted or a large percentage of people are going to be acted and then you look at the new the new model from open AI tragedy with T so are two I don't know if you play with it in the US but this is this is text to video you just I'm actually in Canada so you know I think you can get sorry to encounter yeah yeah came out about a month five weeks ago absolutely mind-blowing text to video of cinematic quality you could you could put any character in there yourself the imaginary character any film star currently generating 15 seconds by this time next year it will be whole movies with with sound with audio and it'll write the script it'll be it'll lit when when you talk about movies on demand this will really be an individual movie on demand made for you to your brief so is there anything that creatives can do to combat this or to remain relevant I think they always will be relevant so obviously live is always going to be great human connection is the only thing that will differentiate AI from people and from from 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 I think the ability of artists to break through and and and make a living out of it is going to get a lot harder but I was sick of music you can any art as a as a sort of parallel process where they see a joint. moment in the creation and there's the enjoyment in the consumption and maybe consumption will go down a lot. But as long as that is that personal, that personal connection with the artist, then, then there will still be a career, but it's, it's going to be smaller. And as soon as the music industry get their clammy hands into the money part of AI music creation. If that's where the money is going to be made, that's where the industry will go. Yeah, yeah. I can see what you mean. And yeah, I saw the whole Napster thing go down, so I am very aware of how that can happen. Yeah, exactly. It's actually. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. But, you know, I'd rather end this discussion on an up note. And ask you why you think it's important for marketers to consider audio branding at this point. Oh, um, I mean, we kind of discussed the whole deal here, but yeah, why wouldn't they? So, absolutely. Yeah, so I suppose couple of weeks sent. Number one, I can't believe they, well, I can't believe, of course I can't believe, but I'm amazed that more marketers don't understand the value of music, even though intuitively they must because they all listen to music and they know how it is mood changing and how powerful. Sound in general. Yeah, exactly. Not just music. So why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? I mean, they all use it in advertising as well, but why wouldn't you use it to actually build the brand? And I think the answer to that is, as I touched on earlier, there's this massive tension between branding and marketing. Brand is about long term value creation and brand equity and the ability to charge more than your competitor for your product because your brand is perceived to be better. Marketing is about selling more stuff and marketing is measured in weeks and sometimes months in terms of campaigns branding is measured in years. And marketing is most creative content is created by agencies who are more interested in getting a gone at can and more rightly so and more obsessed with complete creative control and choosing the right music for their beautiful marketing creation. So the branding side doesn't get nearly close enough to the marketing side to do that. But I almost forgot the question actually better, but, but you know, is it going to be more important in the future? Yeah. Yes, I think it is. I think this is all tight. And this isn't a trend. I think this is the ground shift that AI is going to cause. When you look at what is happening to search and shopping and everything that AI is going to bring in, I, you won't go to a store or look online and see a brand you recognize your AI will do that for you. Not this year is beginning, but in two or three years, you would just say, you know, we need some plower and we need some sugar and we need some whatever. Can you just go and sort it and it will go out and it will look at the ingredients and it will work out that the branded one is identical to the non branded one and it's cheaper in in this store rather than that store and you've got next state delivery here and all things considered it will just go and order it. And we'll go nowhere in the other consumer and therefore anything you can do to make your brand more distinctive when you are advertising online music anything to make a brand more prominent. Can only help. I'm not saying everything will go that way with AI, but when the consumer does get to choose a brand. Then being top of mind being the most salient is going to be even more important than it is today. Yeah, yeah, I get it. And music can only help that. Hello, I'm Connor Moore with Seymour Sound and you're listening to the audio branding podcast. This is a great place to learn about how powerful sound can be for your brand. If you want to understand how to harness that power, keep listening. The chat GBT is changing search by the minute. Yes, yeah, they came out of the new search engine 48 hours ago. So yeah, and pretty interesting. Yeah, we don't have it here yet, but since we do, I'll be trying it out. But yeah, but Google will respond to Gemini. Although they're own AI and they'll have their own their own new search that will gather the open AI within three months, I think. Yeah, how long will it be do you think between, you know, before computers are just basically talking to other computers? Maybe it's already happening. Yeah, so yeah, we're basically talking agents talking to agents. So AI agents, so do AI agents very soon, very soon. I mean, it's it's already happening on one level. I think to answer your question, I would imagine within 12 months. It'll become quite a big thing. And within three years it will be it'll be everywhere everywhere. Wow. Okay, well, we're on the cusp of big things here, I guess. Hopefully audio will still hit our human ears and be interesting. Well, the other thing about audio is because it is so, and it's strictly linked with emotion. AI doesn't do a motion. It can fade in emotion or whatever, but you'll never move an AI with with a song because it doesn't do emotion. And it literally it never will until they become become sentient, which may happen. But we'll leave that aside for this point. Yeah, that emotion is exactly emotion is all we have as humans to distinguish us. Yeah, just to wish us out, just to wish us out and empathy and whatever from us and machines and so music will use it will survive forever. Yeah, yeah, we want to reach each other emotionally. And that's the way to do it. Yeah. You know, even voice acting. I mean, like there's a certain amount of human emotion and lived experience that goes on behind the voice over that I provide for clients. Yeah, the simulation could be there of an AI. It sounds pretty good. I'm not saying it's not sounding good. It is really scarily so. But there's no, it's simulating human. It's not an actual human. So it can't turn on a dime emotionally. It can't, you know, and if they spend three, four hours programming this thing to sound, okay, when you could pay a voice actor for 10 minutes of their time and they could get it for you in five. And there, a couple of takes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, so it's right now that's the case. I don't know how long that's going to be. I guess we'll wait and see. Yeah, exactly. No, it's, it's all changed. We're living through astonishing times and I, I, I, I, nine to nine percent of people don't quite understand what's about to hit. But, but, yeah. Well, hopefully, it'll, it'll still all come out good for us in the end. Exactly. Exactly. I still have hope that humanity will survive. Yeah. So this has been a really great conversation, David. And I thank you so much for joining me. How can people reach out to you if they'd like to do that? Emails the best, David, soundout.com. Okay. That's the easiest way. We're always quick, quick on the response here. Okay. And your, your study is available on the sound out website. That's a sound at the www.sandout.com, not only the 25 study, but a whole host of other research academic stuff and, yeah. Loads of stuff. If yes, if you were to boy yourself stupid was Sonic branding. We're all about the Bernie sale here. We're the place to come. Yeah. And there's also actually a, there's a, probably the most popular thing we ever put out was, it's not called the idiot's guide to Sonic branding. But it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, but it's, but it's basically a handbook for brands about how to go about Sonic branding. It tells you how much it's going to cost, who to use pitfalls to avoid. So it's a sort of handbook to take this process that you might not have been through before. Wonderful. Well, thanks for sharing that. And thank you for sharing your expertise. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate it. No problem. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Jody. Thanks. Well, that's the end of this episode. Thanks for listening. And if you like what you heard, why not tell a friend about this podcast. It's available in all the usual locations. Until next time.