Audio Branding

“Also, because nobody listened to these sounds, even the nurse that should be paying attention. They really, they got used to this kind of droning sensation." "You have to tune it out." "Yes, yes, and imagine the mental load to do that, to tune out these kinds of sounds, and, of course, imagine the poor people that are in the hospital as a patient as well." -- Andrea Cera   This episode’s the...

“I don't know if in Canada or in the States the sounds are different, but here, Toyota, for instance, is very abstract, high-pitched, it's a bike or like 'peeeeee,' like this, for instance. The Renault is more reassuring, more warm, it's welcoming, it's a little bit more, you know, it's less cold than other sounds." "Sure, yeah. Well, I guess maybe if it doesn't focus specifically on the sound of...

“My now retired business partner, who was the head composer for this company for years and years and years, he put that perfectly, and he said, I remember he talked to a young composer. He said, ‘Look, at the end of the day, it’s the difference between art and craft,’ said, ‘when you’re making your own music and you’re doing your own thing, it’s art, it’s art for you. You’re the artist and you’re...

“I would just play these crazy ‘80s drum beats and then I’d play on top of it and it was like the coolest thing ever. So it always became this really important thing to me too, and I couldn’t describe it in any way professionally at all. I mean, I was just a kid. But I was thinking about this like, I don’t know. I assumed some kids were, like, super into BMX bikes or something. Like, this was like...

“But if it’s a narrator, which it is, like, 90% of the time, why would you need to know their gender as long as they’re getting the message across? You wouldn’t be wondering what color shirt they’re wearing, why do you need to know what gender they are? So I’m really pleased that the industry is heading in this direction, and I’m even more pleased that clients have so far been very receptive to it...

“Loyalist College, they have their own marketing people, they had just done a visual rebrand, so it was the perfect time for a sonic – not even a rebrand, they never had any kind of sonic strategy. So that was very exciting. And they had this new young marketing team too, and they were really receptive to new ideas, and they had this agency on board that had done their visual rebrand and their ove...

“One of my clients said, you know, he literally stopped doing gigs for free or for a low pay because he was able to just stand in his body and realize that some part of his inner body was saying to him ‘you're worth more than this.’ And so he was able to hear that within himself, and it helped really shift that mindset, and so now, he said, ‘I'm doing way better gigs and I'm always saying ‘this is...

“It’s part of it, but the deeper part is truthful, authentic, safe, safe to express yourself, and I think that’s the biggest problem in this, you know, one of the biggest problems in the world. [It’s] that people don’t feel free to express themselves, to truly express who they are or what they want to say.” -- Danielle Soccio   This episode’s guest is an accomplished singer and performing art...

“I feel like people are just becoming more and more repelled by that and so I think the days of companies being more personal and accessible, and ‘I want to hear what you sound like, I want to know who you are before I sign a contract with you, before I do business with you,’ I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think, if anything, it’s going to deepen. I think people think about branded podcasts...

“It just feels better to listen to somebody who sounds good. It just does, you know? And there’s all kinds of articles you can read about the psychology: you sound smarter when you sound better, you sound more trustworthy when you sound better. So it’s not about manipulating people.” -- Molly Ruland   My next guest is the CEO and founder of Heartcast Media, a digital content agency focused on...

“You know, 'do you have any advice for me?' And I say, 'Yeah go write one hundred bad songs. Go finish them. Because that's going to do way more for your career, even though you think they're like really bad songs.' I'm like, 'yep, you got to get through those to write the one that's going to actually start a fire for you. I'm not saying you have to put them out, you know. Just go write them. Go g...

“I just want to try to take a more thoughtful, mindful approach to helping artists think for themselves and become self-sustaining. Because the industry is going to change. The things we’re talking about right now are going to be either way more relevant or way less relevant ten years from now.  But I want you to be able to gain the tools and frameworks for kind of going through and saying ‘H...

“So a lot of times they feel like they have to pack this thing with so much dense information. I'm like, dude, you have 30 minutes and you have three of those to hook somebody and you still need to leave a little bit for Q&A. You still need to leave a little bit for engagement. So if you're not going to answer everybody's question about something highly technical in the span of a podcast or th...

“And I carried that into engineering in college and was going to go into computers, but then kind of got into robotics. But through all of that, I was still doing college radio. And again, that was like backdoor access to, ‘Hey, can I use the studio in the off hours? Can my band record our CD here in the summer when the stations technically shut down?’ And then that got me into, well, I’m on-air t...

“So I think that when people can get that one word that hits them in the heart and in the gut, that’s what makes a good podcaster. When it’s just information, it’s information. And that’s where we often think, well, ‘I’ll just read the blog.’ You know, ‘I’ll go get a book on that.’ ‘I’ll look it up.’ You know, ‘I’ll just do a Google search and find it.’ But if someone is adding something to it tha...

“Most people speak with three different rhythms in a sentence. So if I’m not thinking about it, I have certain parts that are gonna be faster and other parts where maybe I’m thinking about, they’ll be slower, and then something in the middle. That’s what keeps our attention with that melody, that melodic change that’s happening there.” -- Elaine Clark   My next guest is the author of two best...

“And I say this, y'all, if you're actors out there are trying to audition and you're looking, when you meet a casting director, tell them, look them in the eye and say 'hey, you could literally be the person who braced me and I will forever be in debt to you, and I would love to make you a big famous casting director.' I have to be honest, people have said that to me and it works, and they are gig...

“Audio has had exponential growth these last four years. I mean, there’s just this power. It used to be supportive of video, and I think back to, like, Spielberg and Dolby and, like, some of the original advances that happened in the beginning part of my life. It seemed dormant up until these last four. So what a cool time to be in audio.” -- Vinnie Potestivo   This episode’s guest is an Emmy...

“No, it’s true. No, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, it does trigger memories. I remember sitting in my bedroom in my parents’ house hearing certain songs like ‘Double Dutch Bus,’ that song from the early 80s, it triggers a memory instantly. Or Earth, Wind and Fire, playing my parents’ vinyl records, certain songs like instant memory of where I heard that song.” -- George Whittam   This episode...

“And so he told me all about this, he showed me the facility that they have at the school, which was small, but very state-of-the-art digital audio recording technology for 1993. It was very state-of-the-art. And I was like, ‘Ooh, this is cool!’ And so I started realizing this is where I should be, I should be in the recording department. But they didn’t have one. They had a music school. That mea...

“I think there’s a responsibility to know that if you’re emotionally connecting people, if you know that we have the power to persuade, in a way, that is, that wields real results and real people, like let’s not manipulate, you know? Let’s make sure that that’s an authentic thing that needs, that you’re creating and you’re not driving something fake. You’re not driving, because it’s gonna be, it’s...

“Music’s played a major role in my life growing up. It’s always been ingrained in me. So, you know, I remember as a really young kid, like kindergarten, going to my grandparents’ house or great grandparents’ house and mashing the keys on their Wurlitzer organ, right? And then mom and grandma are in the other room going ‘sounds great, hon!’ And I’m like, ‘yeah, it’s great.’ Notice they weren’t in t...

“And it surprised me that it took so long for people to adopt the on-demand aspects of audio. It’s been a very, it’s been kind of a slow adoption curve is what I’ve seen. I think that the on-demand side of video grew much quicker, which I think is an interesting case, even as it applies today as we look at the podcasting space. We’re still, you know, we’re still chipping away at it, as they say.”...

“And it surprised me that it took so long for people to adopt the on-demand aspects of audio. It’s been a very, it’s been kind of a slow adoption curve is what I’ve seen. I think that the on-demand side of video grew much quicker, which I think is an interesting case, even as it applies today as we look at the podcasting space. We’re still, you know, we’re still chipping away at it, as they say.”...

“I think, you know, in terms of quality and even the manufacturing, I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve been seeing from quote-unquote competitors. And as far as competing, I think the Pod Mobile is kind of different in the application and though there’s a lot of overlap and one can choose to, for certain applications, it can choose from multiple options, the packaging and the range of things th...