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Jodi@VoiceoversAndVocals.com

audio branding

Making The World Go Round

February 24, 2021 by Jodi Krangle

It’s been just about a year now since the coronavirus pandemic first started, and sometimes it’s felt like the whole world’s closed for business. More and more of us are working from home, and most of our business meetings, not to mention our daily lives, take place over Zoom these days. Life seems to be much more homebound lately, but with new vaccines being approved and the Tokyo Olympics just around the corner, the world’s starting to open again. And one sector that’ll play a pivotal role in it is the tourist industry.

In 2019 the Costa Rica Tourism Board, or ICT, won the International Sound Award for Audio Branding with “The Sounds of Costa Rica,” a new musical brand that subtly emphasizes the letter C, for Costa Rica. It does this by making a simple but powerful six-note mnemonic out of the circle of fifths, a diagram often used in music. It starts with a C note and uses such instruments as the marimba, tuba and ocarina to play halfway through the circle.

This might sound pretty technical, but the melody, combined with the instruments and festive, colorful imagery that accompanies it, works to create an almost instinctive sense of warmth and inclusion. Like most music, all that work is just to create exactly the right mood for the listener, without anyone even noticing it.

If you’d like to hear it, and to see how it complements the new ICT logo, check out this link to the award video:

https://www.international-sound-awards.com/media/ISA2019/2019-1017_ICT-TheSoundsOfCostaRica_CaseFilm.mp4

When we think about travel, we usually think of it as imagery: bright tropical beaches, flashing city lights or lush green forests. But audio branding’s starting to play a much larger role in the tourism industry lately, creating a sense of excitement, familiarity, even nostalgia using sound. The international resort chain Bahia Principe (bye-ee-ah preen-seh-pay) has made its theme song, complete with band and lyrics, the foundation of its brand. The melody’s used everywhere from its commercials to its phone system, from corporate videos to lobby music, all to create a consistently recognizable audio logo that will instantly engage their customers.

Curious about the song? There’s a link to it here:

But a lot has changed, even since 2019. Tourist boards and travel companies need to talk about the pandemic, expressing empathy for customers who are understandably reluctant to go on a vacation these days and adjusting their brand to a very different world than just a few years ago. Hotels.com quickly updated its Captain Obvious commercials last spring, previously featuring its mascot aboard a crowded airplane, to show support for social distancing and staying at home, and then again a few months later with a more lighthearted reference to Covid-19’s impact. Visit Las Vegas also started its #OnlyYou ad campaign in March of 2020 and has updated its message several times as well, encouraging visitors to wear masks and practice social distancing once the city’s reopened.

You can find links to both of their ads here:

These commercials have to strike a delicate balance between brand promotion, encouraging visitors to take precautions and showing solidarity with tourists who aren’t yet ready to travel.

Other travel companies are working to change their marketing approach altogether and find creative new ways to brand themselves in a post-pandemic world. Expedia, for instance, has relied on audio branding in the past, such as its Sound Travels ad campaign in 2018, and has more recently started its “Work From Here” campaign, replacing its more traditional vacation outings with packages meant for remote workers looking for a change in scenery.

It could still take a while before things get back to normal. The International Air Transport Association estimates that, even with a vaccine, air travel might not reach 2019 levels again until 2024, while the demand for hotels could take as long as 2023 to recover. And when it does, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what normal’s going to look like. But even while we’re all still stuck waiting inside, marketing and audio branding can help keep the tourist industry emotionally engaged with its customers, and all the more ready to recover and help make the world go round again.

Would you consider reviewing the Audio Branding Podcast? If so, here’s the Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/audio-branding/id1489042453 And if you like what you hear (and read!) – please do share it with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much!

And if you’re interested in crafting an audio brand for your business, why not check out my FREE download – 5 Tips For Implementing An Intentional Audio Strategy at https://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/

Filed Under: Audio Branding, Travel Tagged With: advertising, audio branding, commercials, COVID-19, expedia, hotels.com, las vegas, marketing, sonic branding, sonic logo, tourism, tourist boards, travel, travel companies

Interview with Hamburg/Berlin Based Sound Agency, WESOUND – Dr. Cornelius Ringe & Lars Ohlendorf – Part 2

January 27, 2021 by Jodi Krangle

This is the second part of my interview with Dr. Cornelius Ringe and Lars Ohlendorf. The first half of this conversation was so enlightening, especially hearing about how sound and audio branding looks in different parts of the world and the history of audio branding. In this part, we really dive into more about where audio branding came from and where it’s going!

In this second part, we discuss:

  • The best money saving tips for audio branding
  • Giving yourself time to let your own DIY attempts sink in before starting over
  • Making decisions based on your business model
  • Where audio branding is going from here
  • Podcasting’s role in audio branding
  • The requirements for different brands when it comes to audio branding
  • How Netflix’s sound logo has become synonymous with the pandemic
  • How jingles have moved to sound logos
  • Technology’s role moving into the need for more sound logos
  • Design as a function
  • The change of the approach to music in ads and filling emptiness
  • What WESOUND does
  • What ISA does
  • The criteria for awards within ISA 
  • The evolution of the ISA awards 
  • The impact of the different projects submitted for the ISA awards
  • The relationship between sound and the physical product it represents

 

If you would like to find out more information, you can do so here:

www.wesound.de

And you can find out more information about the Audio Branding Academy and their awards here: https://www.international-sound-awards.com/ 

 

This episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco (http://www.humbertofranco.com/).

 

Would you consider reviewing the Audio Branding Podcast?  If so, here’s the Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/audio-branding/id1489042453  And if you like what you hear (and read!) – please do share it with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much!

 

And if you’re interested in crafting an audio brand for your business, why not check out my FREE download – 5 Tips For Implementing An Intentional Audio Strategy at https://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/

Filed Under: Audio Branding Tagged With: advertising, audio branding, branding, business model, ISA, jingles, pandemic, podcasting, sound, sound design, sound logo, technology, WESOUND

Interview with Hamburg/Berlin Based Sound Agency, WESOUND – Dr. Cornelius Ringe & Lars Ohlendorf – Part 1

January 20, 2021 by Jodi Krangle

In this interview, I am joined by two guests who are taking the audio branding world by storm. Dr. Cornelius Ringe and Lars Ohlendorf are partners in the company, WESOUND and Dr. Ringe is the founder of the Audio Branding Academy. We dive into so many great aspects of audio branding in this interview and it’s great to have another perspective on where audio branding is going from here.

We discuss:

  • What life looks like in Hamburg, Germany and how they’re both dealing with COVID lockdowns
  • The shift to home office work with audio
  • Musicians’ takes on working from home and doing streaming concerts
  • Experiencing online performances and speeches 
  • Adjusting to the lack of audience interaction
  • Zoom’s impact on musical sound
  • How Zoom has upped their game when it comes to sound
  • WESOUND and where it came from
  • Audio branding’s role in the creation of WESOUND
  • The difference between Audio Branding Society and the Audio Branding Academy
  • The growth of audio branding 
  • Breaking down the difference between sound and audio branding 
  • Europe’s role in audio branding
  • NBC’s accidental audio branding in the very beginning 
  • Radio’s initial sounds and where they came from
  • Advertising and how everything’s transitioned over the years
  • How we are wired to pay attention to sound
  • Finding the right methods and approaches to creating the right sound
  • Audio branding isn’t all about science
  • Methodology changes from client to client when creating audio branding 
  • If science does play a role, it’s probably more about psychology than anything else
  • The importance of design over finding the right calculations 
  • Ongoing work on the brand
  • Different companies’ take on the importance of audio branding for their company

If you would like to find out more information, you can do so here:

www.wesound.de

And you can find out more information about the Audio Branding Academy and their awards here: https://www.international-sound-awards.com/ 

 

This episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco (http://www.humbertofranco.com/).

Would you consider reviewing the Audio Branding Podcast?  If so, here’s the Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/audio-branding/id1489042453  And if you like what you hear (and read!) – please do share it with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much!

And if you’re interested in crafting an audio brand for your business, why not check out my FREE download – 5 Tips For Implementing An Intentional Audio Strategy at https://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/

Filed Under: Audio Branding Tagged With: audio branding, Audio Branding Academy, Audio Branding Society, COVID-19, methodology, online performances, sound, sound design, streaming concerts, WESOUND

Jingles All The Way

December 23, 2020 by Jodi Krangle

The holidays are just around the corner, and we all know what that means: Christmas songs on the radio and holiday jingles in just about every store. But there’s one kind of traditional jingle we aren’t as likely to hear these days: the commercial jingle. If you used to wish you were an Oscar Mayer wiener, if the best part of waking up was Folgers in your cup, if you were ever stuck on Band-Aid brands because Band-Aid’s stuck on you, then you probably grew up in the heyday of advertising jingles. So, whatever happened to those jingles? Do they still have a place in audio branding, or have the Toys R Us kids all grown up?

In many ways, jingles were the first step in the history of audio branding, and they’re much older than you might think. If you know the Muffin Man or can sing along to Hot Cross Buns, then you’re already familiar with the jingles of the colonial era. Those rhymes started with vendors in the Middle Ages who had to find ways to make their street cries stand out and get people’s attention. That meant short, simple phrases often set to music, and the fact that we can still recite some of those rhymes today shows just how well they worked.

With the invention of radio came the modern jingle. Now vendors had to grab and hold the attention of millions of people, and General Mills did just that in 1926 with a barbershop song called “Have you Tried Wheaties.” That one commercial turned Wheaties sales completely around in the Twin Cities market, and when the company aired the song nationwide the following year, Wheaties went from a failing brand to a household name.

Want to hear the jingle that started it all? Here’s a link to the original ad:

Other companies quickly caught on and started coming up with their own musical numbers, and the jingle era was born. From radio to television to the internet, jingles became pretty much synonymous with audio branding. Promoting a brand meant giving it a jingle, whether it’s the Chiquita banana song, the singing Meow Mix cats or Coca Cola teaching the world to sing. But things began to change around the turn of the millennium. Those catchy earworm jingles started to disappear. In 1998, 12% of television ads featured jingles; by 2011 it was just 2.5%. But if commercials weren’t using jingles, what were they using?

For the most part, they were now using licensed songs. This wasn’t a completely new development; those medieval street cries were often set to popular folk songs of the era, and the “Have You Tried Wheaties” jingle borrowed its tune from the 1919 song “Jazz Baby.” Michael Jackson ushered in a whole new era of melding pop music and advertising with his “Pepsi Generation” commercials set to the tune of “Billy Jean,” and ten years later Microsoft borrowed the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” as its anthem for Windows 95.

What did change is that advertisers were no longer relying on famous musicians and recognizable songs. More and more often, the commercials featured smaller artists and songs that many viewers hadn’t heard before. With DVR and streaming content rendering the old 30-second TV spots obsolete, the focus shifted to simply engaging the viewers and convincing them to keep watching the ad. Without a captive TV audience, advertisers needed those viewers to like and share their commercials. One way to do that is by promoting new music that might get people talking and, more importantly, watching.

For a great discussion of the rise and fall of jingles, check out this Cheddar Explains video “The Unexpected Death of the Ad Jingle”:

But as new media continues to evolve, jingles are making a surprising comeback. Online ads, often just a few seconds long, have allowed companies to create musical brands that immediately stand out despite their length. Just think of McDonald’s and its wildly successful “I’m Lovin’ It” theme, or how State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbor” jingle has returned as the bumper for each commercial. Unlike past jingles, these songs aren’t trying to tell the listener about the product so much as they’re trying to create an instant connection with the brand. As audio branding continues to expand, moving out of the traditional TV and radio spots and into our daily lives, that sort of connection is becoming more important than ever.

Would you consider reviewing the Audio Branding Podcast? If so, here’s the Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/audio-branding/id1489042453 And if you like what you hear (and read!) – please do share it with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much!

And if you’re interested in crafting an audio brand for your business, why not check out my FREE download – 5 Tips For Implementing An Intentional Audio Strategy at https://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/

Filed Under: Advertising, Audio Branding Tagged With: advertising, audio branding, jingles, music, nursery rhymes, sonic branding

Interview with Audio Producer & Voice Talent, Macha Gruber – Part 1

November 18, 2020 by Jodi Krangle

I’m so excited to chat with Macha Grueber. She’s done some amazing things in the audio world and I have to tell you –  I’ve been looking forward to hearing her perspective on the current status of the audio branding world. Macha is a professional voice actor and has spent the better part of 15 years in the audio industry, doing everything from voice acting to now being part of the elite creative team at iHeartRadio. This is quite the interview and we had so much fun chatting!

Tune in to hear Macha and I discuss:

  • Macha’s take on COVID-19
  • How helpful having a home studio has been
  • Her first introduction to audio- being part of a pirate radio studio
  • Going to college to be a chiropractic doctor
  • How she transitioned away from chiropractors to being a radio show host
  • Her first take at doing her own audio imaging
  • How making promos led to her going to broadcasting school
  • Transitioning away from being ON air into creating audio imaging 
  • Where imaging for radio came from
  • The background on radio station imaging and how it affects ratings 
  • What’s changed now- length of promos and what promos sound like
  • The places radio shows up now versus 20 years ago
  • Listening to radio stations at home on smart speakers
  • Transition into iHeartRadio
  • Being kicked out after her first internship 
  • Her first gig with Clear Channel
  • The in between time- working in the real world and doing audio imaging on her own
  • Her experience creating demos and doing voice over
  • Trends Macha has seen in commercials- both visual and audio
  • The effects of the millennial craze
  • What makes good audio branding 
  • The impact of writing on a good commercial 
  • How audio recordings happen in the commercial world
  • The importance of theater of the mind for commercials versus a voice over
  • How sound design affects the entire commercial
  • Turn around time for commercials 

 

If you’d like to get in contact with Macha Gruber, you can find her:
Website: www. machacreative.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/machacreative or www.instagram.com/machagruber
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missmacha

 

This episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco (http://www.humbertofranco.com/).

Would you consider reviewing the Audio Branding Podcast?  If so, here’s the Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/audio-branding/id1489042453  And if you like what you hear (and read!) – please do share it with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much!

And if you’re interested in crafting an audio brand for your business, why not check out my FREE download – 5 Tips For Implementing An Intentional Audio Strategy at https://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/

Filed Under: Audio Branding Tagged With: audio branding, audio imaging, broadcasting school, Clear Channel, COVID-19, home studio, iHeartRadio, imaging from radio, radio commercials, radio disc jockey, radio rating, theater of the mind, voice over

Changing the Shape of Music

November 11, 2020 by Jodi Krangle

Music can have a powerful effect on our feelings, our behavior, even how we see the world around us. But what if music itself can react to our feelings?  Weav Run, an award-winning workout app that instantaneously adjusts a song’s tempo to match the listener’s own pace, offers just one example of the fascinating potential of dynamic music.

When it comes to audio branding, music’s usually thought of as the product  – and the audience is just a passive consumer. You can listen to a song and let its melody carry you through the highs and lows, but no matter how many times you listen, those highs and lows aren’t ever going to change. The song is the song, and changing the mood a soundtrack sets usually just means switching to a different song. Dynamic music, however, seeks to reinvent that relationship by enabling a single audio track to evolve and reflect each individual listener, whether it’s by matching your walking pace, or detecting and following the rhythm of your heartbeat or breathing rate, or even measuring changes in your brain activity. Slow and thoughtful, lively and upbeat or quick and energetic, dynamic music allows a song to remain instantly recognizable while engaging us on a surprisingly personal level.

Just check out this video demonstration of Weav Music’s exercise app Weav Run, which won the 2019 International Sound Award for Service and Sound start-ups:

https://www.international-sound-awards.com/media/ISA2019/2019-1014-Weav-Music_presentation_Rasmussen_KB.mp4

As you can see, it’s not just about speeding up or slowing down the music: there’s a very tricky balancing act to consider between the pitch, tempo and even the composition of the song so that it remains appealing – and recognizable – in a variety of forms. Managing those sorts of second-by-second changes, and doing it so quickly that the listener doesn’t even notice it’s happening, is a pretty new development that’s gotten a really big push from smartphones, mobile devices and our always connected, on-the-go world.

Still, the idea of it has been around for quite a while: just think of an opera, where a whole orchestra’s focused on just keeping pace with the action on the stage. But the idea of doing this automatically and in real time, for each and every person, really got its start with early computer games, where programmers had to come up with some very inventive audio techniques to allow the music to seamlessly shift from one situation to the next. Here’s an example of one such technique called vertical re-orchestration that uses hidden bridges to move back and forth between slightly different versions of a single melody:

If you think about it, video games are really all about influencing a person’s behavior and creating an immersive, dynamic environment that draws them into the experience, which is just the sort of engagement that audio branding seeks to create as well. As the intersection between technology, art and lifestyle continues to expand, that sort of approach is becoming more and more relevant, not just in virtual environments but in our everyday lives as well. For instance, Sync Project, a Boston audio startup acquired by Bose in 2018, has been developing technology that adapts music to a listener’s real-time biometric data to help them relax, to fall asleep, even manage chronic pain and other medical conditions:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2127759-start-up-uses-biometrics-to-tailor-music-for-good-nights-sleep/

If you’d like to see how it works, give it a try here:

https://unwind.syncproject.co/#/

Music can have a very real, even medical impact on our brains and bodies. Just listening to a favorite song can trigger the release of endorphins in much the same way exercise does, and releases neurochemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin, promoting a sense of well-being and reward and actually blocking pain receptors to reduce stress. This effect is so potent that music therapy is currently being researched as an alternative to opioid prescriptions. The potential for dynamic music to utilize and finely tune this effect for each listener could have enormous implications for everything from audio marketing to the entertainment industry to healthcare.

Audio technology’s evolving at an unprecedented rate, and in ways we hardly could have considered a decade or two ago. Today we can go jogging with the Weav Run app and, instead of simply keeping up with the music, the music itself keeps up with us, changing and flowing to reflect our own experience in the moment. We’re entering an era in which listeners no longer simply listen to and consume music, but engage with that music on a physical, personal level, weaving it more and more deeply into the fabric of our lives.

Would you consider reviewing the Audio Branding Podcast?  If so, here’s the Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/audio-branding/id1489042453  And if you like what you hear (and read!) – please do share it with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much!

And if you’re interested in crafting an audio brand for your business, why not check out my FREE download – 5 Tips For Implementing An Intentional Audio Strategy at https://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: audio branding, biometrics, dynamic music, dynamic sound, healing music, music composing, music composition, sound healing

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