The Growing Importance of Sound with Jamie Bradley

Participant #1:
Hey, it's David Ciccarelli, the CEO and founder of Voices. Today on the show, we have Jamie Bradley, head of creative enablement for VidMob. Jamie and I are going to be talking about the creative process, how sound is used in online advertising, and how to deliver actionable insights. But first, let me introduce Jamie. Jamie is based in New York City, and in her role at VidMob, she oversees the teams responsible for the health and expansion of a global creative network, as well as maintaining and up leveling Vid Bob's expertise across a multitude of capabilities to drive the highest quality creative. Now, Jamie joined Vid Bob early on as employee 35, originally in project management, and since she's managed across multiple functions in order to help scale up services and deliverables. Now, Jamie's personal and professional histories rooted in creativity, and she's deeply motivated by nurturing creativity in others and using diversity of thought to drive an incredible impact. So welcome to the show, Jamie. Wow, David, thank you. Awesome. We were just chatting about how we're using creativity, I think, to use your term, because we're dressed in black this morning, I think we're going to be talking a lot about creativity and maybe one just to kind of get things rolling. It might be a philosophical question here for you, but in your view, can creativity be taught? Is it a matter of skill that can be learned and honed over time or one of those things where you kind of either have it or you don't? I love this question, David, because it's one that I have personally grappled with in my personal life and in my professional career. So I think that there are some people that literally need to be creating or else they drop dead. Singers and painters and animators, you name it. I've met these people in my life that have to go home and make something. I'm not one of those people, frankly, and I've always been jealous of them and jealous of their ability to just create. So, yeah, I truly believe that you can do almost any job and use creativity to do it right. So, like, new, bold ideas when you break the mold of what's normal, when you're trying something new, all of those are forms of creativity. And so working with creative people that remind me to think differently, that push me, that inspire me, I think that's what I found to be my sweet spot. And honestly, it took a lot of pressure off of me to become the next Picasso. That's certainly never going to happen. So to answer your question, I kind of wonder if the question is less about if you can learn to be creative and more about how do we help people to unlock the creativity that they have already within them. Yeah, I was just going to respond with that as it's almost like whether you almost need to discover it for yourself, your version of how you express creativity. Sometimes it's pulling things apart. Sometimes it's putting them back together. It's mixing or mashing up other people's creative work, getting inspiration from those sources. But definitely there's a cohort or contingency of people who have the notebook, the moleskin notebook, where you always got to be jotting an idea down. And I think, irrespective of how you express it, I think that's a really good practice to do, because sometimes ideas strike when you least expect them. Either you're inspired by the world around you, or maybe you see a new shape or the sun hit something just differently. And you're like, I've walked by here 100 times, and I kind of didn't really think of it this way. And whether that's maybe is there a personal story there as well, where you had a moment in life, if you will, where it did kind of inspire an idea for either a new campaign or even a pitch to a client where something happened in life and experience they might be willing to share. Yes. It's funny. I think you're dead on that creativity is really dynamic. Right. So if you're surrounded by creative thinking or creative people, your creativity elevates. And it makes me think of maybe a couple of years ago now, somebody posted in one of our channels for VidMob and was like, freaking out because AI artificial intelligence had started to figure out it was an example of how AI could make design furniture without a person. So the example, it was wild. So the example was an Avocado chair and a I just created all of these different variations of what an Avocado chair could look like. And so there is no person involved. It was truly just artificial intelligence coming up with all of these ideas that normally, like, a furniture designer would come up with. Everybody was freaking out. Everybody was like, oh, my God, did AI just put a furniture designer out of business? And so we were all thinking about this because at VIDMO, we utilize AI. Right? So we have this marriage of AI and human creativity, and normally that causes a lot of friction, right? It's kind of like a battle versus human versus machine. And our whole business model is how do we marry these two things together? And so this example came up and we were like, stumped for a second of, oh, my God, did we just put this furniture designer out of business? And then we realized, actually, no, what we did is we didn't do it. But what AI did was it actually raised the floor. So it's giving that furniture designer all of these ideas abacado chair, and then that furniture designer gets to elevate their creativity and do what only a human can do, which is to take it to the next level. Yeah. Refine it, if you will. Actually, maybe you didn't think of that before, but I could see how I might make that even better. That's just the starting line now, which is wild. Right. So it's really exciting to think about how our creativity as people is going to continue to evolve as we raise the floor with other technologies. Well, let's talk about that creative process at VidMob you mentioned. Does it actually start with AI or is it a number of people in a room brainstorming, maybe just kind of unpack that because each firm, each group are going to have maybe a different creative process. What is it like for you and the team at VidMob? Yeah. So VidMob, in an overall sense, was really created to reduce creative friction for marketers. So I'm proud to say that the creative process is very simple. I think creative, especially creating video content historically has been really cumbersome. Right. When the world shifted from static works to know we need video, marketers were stopped. Right. They were like, how are we supposed to create new, fresh content every couple of days, right. Usually that's what we make for the Super Bowl. So thanks to our data and analytics, we're really experts in every platform, every ad unit, creative technique. So really what we just need to know from a client is like what they want to create. And from there we really do the heavy lifting. So we use that data again to raise the floor. Right. So we're not guessing. We're not starting from nothing. We know historically these are kind of the creative decisions that have worked or haven't worked for your brand. So we can start there, and then we overlay human creativity, creative direction, design, animation in order to actually bring those things to life. And then clients are doing all of this through our platform to actually get their creative made. And so the deliverable would be a collection of videos, not just one. It sounds like that's definitely what we would recommend. We do everything from stills to video to creative automation. But the name of the game is definitely test and learn, right. It's putting out iterations and different little tweaks and variations and seeing what works for your audiences and utilizing the data and analytics to tell you more. Yeah. I mean, you bring up a really important point, which is around this notion of the need for a new video every couple of days in a lot of situations because we've all been there. You're scrolling through a social media feed, and if you've seen the ad before, you've seen the video, it might be interesting the first time, but afterwards you're like, I've seen this before and to the point where increasingly, I admittedly find myself reporting as, like, seeing this ad too often where I'm just like, interesting, I got it. I might have even clicked through. So I'm probably on some remarketing list somewhere. However, I don't need to see it again. Almost this desire to kind of show me something new. Is there this understanding amongst brand advertisers that the shelf life is almost like that one view per person, and hence, therefore, you really need a lot of variations. It might be the same theme, but it's like theme and variation pulling from my piano lesson days. Is that what advertisers are starting to recognize and really what you're championing? Yeah. So it's a combination of shelf life and then grabbing attention. Right. So not only are you likely to see an ad and then kind of lose interest after you've seen it, but also even within that one ad, you're likely to lose interest after a few seconds. Right. So it's just compounding all of that into, like, literally the first 6 seconds. Really? We say 3 seconds. We should have some sort of, like, really gripping moment. But what you're talking about, David, is ad decay. Right. And it's kind of been the one guarantee in advertising is you will experience ad decay, and there's still value in repetitively showing an ad. Right. It's kind of that top of mind sometimes because I'm in this industry, sometimes I'm like, I know what you're doing, and it still gets me. I'm like, yeah, but I think what we're trying to do is something that advertising, I don't think I ever thought would be possible, which is literally remove this idea of ad decay. So as your ad performs, we're learning every step of the way, not based on just performance data, which has been accessible for a while, but based on creative data. What elements in the creative are working or working against you? And we can take that add back to the drawing board and constantly update it by swapping scenes, by changing messaging, all these little things, changing the voice over, the way it reads, like, whatever we're doing. So actually, your ad has the potential to perform better over time, which is like, mind blowing for advertisers because they just expect that ad decay. So we're really changing the game in that way. No, that's awesome. You have a stat on your website, I think, to this effect, you mentioned that 70% of campaign results are actually driven by the creativity. So I think this is what you're referring to is like we're swapping out elements of that creativity. It might be almost like the same base ad, but as you mentioned, the capability of swapping out a particular scene, maybe the call to action at the end of it. Are we on the right same path here? Yeah. So all of our creative is very results driven. So it's one of the first things we ask our clients is, what is your KPI? What does success look like? So whether it's brand awareness, consideration, conversion, once we have that information, we can build the creative around that desired outcome. So, for example, a direct response video will and should look very different than an awareness ad. Right. So in that case, you need to lead with branding in the first frame. The entire creative shouldn't run more than 10 seconds. That's why we need to know the CTA right out of the gate, because it helps inform all of our creative decisions. And I would imagine after producing so many, you almost develop these, dare I say, best practices, these predictable, successful formats. That's how you're able to probably accelerate the process from the get go. So the format then is likely to drive and the KPI is likely to drive these actionable insights. So this is a term that I'm guessing is proprietary to Vid Bob, or maybe something you came up with yourself. What are actionable insights? I love this question. You can. So you've heard me kind of mentioning creative analytics a few times now, and it's the data and analytics that allows us to identify what the actual insight is. So AI technology is incredible, as I mentioned, the Avocado chair, and it's giving us the ability to identify what's working and what's not working in a piece of creative literally frame by frame so it can tell us how colors, objects, sounds, everything impact creative performance. And so it uncovers data like an example might be. This is made up, but overlaying a voiceover track on top of your music track will increase click through by 70% for that ad, rather than just music alone. So that's a data point that we can pull. And so the insights take that data to the next level. So if we keep going with this example based on the data, the next step would be doing, like, if we were just like, okay, 70% increase when there's Vo. Great. So obviously the next step is to add Vo to all of my ads moving forward, that feels very like data. Boom. That's what I should do. But when we dig deeper into that data point of why is it increasing 70% when we add Vo, maybe we uncover actually, it's the Vo when you're giving a testimonial of the product, and that's when it's performing really well. Right. Versus more of an explainer type thing. So when someone's saying, I used this, I am validating that it's an amazing product. I loved it. Maybe that's the Vo that's actually driving performance. So that digging deeper into the data point is what actually gives us the actionable insight, which tells us, okay, you need more VR, and you need it centered around this messaging and so that we can infuse into your ads, and it will boost performance like crazy. So those insights are really fun. And that's the perfect example of the marriage right now between data and humans. We use the data and they're the breadcrumbs, and then the humans go in and really find that strategic opportunity to action on it's such an important distinction because it's not just collecting data. I mean, the world is awash with data. The challenging part is, what do we do with it? Right. The so what? And then what are the implications of that? It's an insight, but then there's an action that comes out from that. I love that we're on this theme around Vo or Sound, how it could potentially impact the campaign. How important is the Sonic element? Obviously, if it's a video, it's all about the image. Sound often plays a supporting role. But do your creative teams think about audio from the get go? Or is it more like let's map out the storyboard and then go back and figure. Does it need a script? Does it not? Does it need a Vo or is music sufficient? Yeah, it's a great question. So sound is blowing up. A few years ago I would have answered this very differently. A few years ago, Sound was a nice to have, right? I think it was something around the 70% Mark of social media users would scroll through with sound off. Yeah. So it was like build for sound off delight with sound on. That was kind of the paradigm originally. Years ago we would just really focus on the visuals and then maybe tack on an audio track at the end or like a little swipe up Vo. And now it's like crazy to think that way because in the past two years, with the rise of frankly, I think Work from home had a big impact on this. The rise, obviously, of Tik Tok the rise of user generated content. All of these things have changed the impact of sound dramatically. So we're seeing how powerful sound is in keeping an audience engaged. And that's harder and harder to do these days. Right. And so it impacts every single desired action from view through to click through to download now for sure. Amazing. It's actually also a really good observation that people need to be in the right environment to have the sound on. If you're sitting at home, you're on kind of like this lean back experience. The horizontal time, I call it where you're taking a rest and you're looking at the phone in the Privacy and comfort of your own home. Of course, you're more likely to have sound on in that situation versus walking down the street or being waiting for, unless you have, of course, earbuds on. But I think there's a certain contextual element here that's probably driving an increased desire for sound. Is there something to be said about that? The location where people might even be consuming the ad? Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think how people are interacting. That's why, again, work from home is such a big thing. Right. You might have been in your office sneaking through reels and now you're on your couch doing it and it's a lot more casual and you're able to have your sound on. I also think there's this element of FOMO. There's a higher fear of missing out now on the content and on how funny it is or how impactful it is now. Because sound just plays a more dominant role. Right. So when you're scrolling, you're much more used to sound making a big impact, and so you don't want to miss anything. So even like when I'm riding the subway, people are just much more likely to crank up the sound, even if it's bothering people. Oh, really? Oh, that's funny. Yeah. I don't have headphones on sometimes happens in our home, but where there's like multiple audio tracks playing at the same time, that kind of stuff kind of drives me crazy. But I'm just like, can we have one soundtrack of our life going on right now? Just classic New Yorkers. They don't think anybody. Right. Yeah. So that's originally designing for Sound Off. So is it fair to say then that now it's designing for sound on thinking about an audio first experience, like, yes, it's visual, but it's almost on equal footing, if you will. Yeah. I think traditionally when we think about designing for Sound Off, it meant that a viewer can grasp the key takeaway of the ad without needing to watch it with sound. Right. So there were eye catching visuals, on screen copy, clear and concise messaging. But now it's not good enough to just delight with Sound on. Right. So for your earlier point, we need to be thinking about the impact of sound from the first frame, from the beginning of the idea. Right. Because sound can affect the tone of the brand, it affects the narrative arc, it affects visual pacing, all of which dramatically impacts creative performance. No, that's super helpful. I'm going to call them more organic posts and content where there's like the sticker, if you will, that's like turn this out on because it's almost like people have to be encouraged condition, really, because it's so foreign. Yeah, yeah. No, that's really interesting. So you'd mentioned social media as well, too, as being another venue for brand marketers to think about leveraging sound in their campaigns. What have you seen that's been effective? Is it really augmenting the video, or is there kind of an audio only experience on either Instagram and TikTok just to kind of call those two out? Yeah. So I think platforms like TikTok and Instagram are really ahead of the game because they're constantly innovating how we can use sound to capture attention. And I frankly think we're at the humble beginnings. So there are some classic creative techniques that use sound. I mentioned pacing, which is about syncing the visuals to the beat of the music to drive a brand story forward. And I think TikTok actually took that to the next level by introducing new forms of pacing. Right. So they slow videos way down. They timelapse, they do reversals. So that introduces a whole new way to think about how the sound kind of complements that. So it's an entirely new way for brands to play with them. And then, of course, there's user generated content, which is absolutely booming, which often leans into speaking directly to audience. Right. So everything from humor to statistics education to actually build brand recognition and credibility. And then lastly, one of the most innovative ways that I'm excited about that's still I think it's so interesting is like ASMR, which is autonomous sensory Meridian response. I don't know if it's like one of your guilty pleasures, but I catch people just listening to our listeners. What is this? Because this came up in conversation just yesterday about topic. Yeah. Soundtracks that people actually listen to while they're working. I don't know if people listen to it while they're working or if it's just again, to fall asleep. But what is this for those who might be unfamiliar with the concept? Yeah. So in its totality, it's any sound that actually elicits, like a physical sensory response. So it totally depends on you as the individual. So it might be the sound of somebody crinkling Saran wrapped quietly into a microphone or somebody just whispering really quietly. And so people are just kind of experimenting and playing with sound. And when you find a sound that resonates with you, it literally creates a physical, like, tingling sensation in your body. And so people are really attracted to it and want to incorporate it as, like almost a method of meditation, a method of calm. And it's weird, right? That's really weird. Is it meant to be pleasurable or is it meant to evoke, like a clear thought or what's the purpose, might I ask? Yeah, it's definitely meant to evoke a sense of calm. And surely that's why I kind of equate it to meditation, right? It's definitely meant to be pleasurable, for sure. And so I would argue that advertisers have just begun, if not haven't even really considered how this can play into their creative. But imagine the power that a brand could have to literally elicit a positive physical response, literally a giggling sensation in your audience from the sound in your ad campaign. Yeah. That certainly would be powerful. More than just kind of. Oh, it resonates with my heart, actually. I physically respond to it now. I would imagine it's almost like having your favorite color. It's almost like your favorite sound or your favorite sound effect. And you respond to it positively. I think we're going, is there any risk because it is such a new concept? Is there any risk in an Advertiser picking a sound or incorporating a sound that half the audience likes and the other half the audience like cringes. And they're just like, oh, no, that's like fingernails on chalkboard. That has the opposite effect. Yeah. That's actually really interesting. I think that is a risk. Right. I think there's also some people that just find it creepy. So I think that right now it's still kind of living in that niche. And that's probably one of the reasons that marketers have been hesitant to adopt it because it's not one size fits. All. Right. So it's tricky because even if you have an audience by demographic or geographic, that doesn't translate to how a sound resonates in an individual body. Right. So it's a trickier way to target an audience for sure. Well, I first came across that acronym on a YouTube playlist, and all it was was just somebody whispering, almost like gibberish. I didn't really even understand what it was. So thank you for leveling me up on that one, because I was unaware not only of the purpose and the response that someone might have, but also a potential opportunity for advertisers to think yet a new way to incorporate sound beyond ads themselves, though. How else are you seeing clients, as they say, incorporate sound into their overall branding? Are they thinking about a Sonic logo? How can I place this on other mediums, maybe even as primitive as a phone system or a contact center? Like maybe just to get the juices flowing or some other ways that you're seeing that brands are using sound? Yeah, I think the smartest brands are using sound to differentiate themselves and to create an immediate recognition with their audience. Right. Just like the power of a logo or a color palette. You can Google look up, see brands by color, and you'll be like, oh, that's not good. No, no, that's terrible. You'll just know. And it's crazy because it's almost subconscious. So the smartest brands are definitely using sound to create a similar response. So I think the most recognizable sound clients have used sound over the last 50 decades. The most familiar one is jingles. So I think about, like, we are farmers. I still to this day know the Empire carpet installation phone number by heart. It's 1805 eight, 2300 Empire today. There you go. Right. Think about I cannot remember my friend's birthday, but I know the entire, like, I can wrap all of them, and then you lose yourself. There's something about sound and the power of sound that links to memory. So it would be a huge miss if brands weren't taking advantage of sound. And so the nature of the jingle, though, has definitely creatively evolved from long form broadcast spots. And that could again be an entire song versus now you literally just have a few notes because you only have, like 6 seconds on social. Right, right. And so you have to do it in just a few Chinese. But it's kind of similar to playing the game of these two colors make you think of a brand, you've won something, you've hit gold if two little chimes people know. Oh, that's State Farm. Right, right. Well, originally it was that's intel or on a Mac. Oh, that's the Mac Chime. Yeah. Probably the most popular one in our household. There's the Netflix chime when you boost and then you're like, all right, it's Showtime. We know something's happening around here.

Participant #1:
What I'm hearing is how they're being used. It's almost like part of the behavior itself. Like, we're starting to engage with either a physical product and that's the time to use it. Kind of a booting up sequence or even kind of a winding down sequence would be one option. I'll use another one of my favorite examples because it gives me comfort when I call American Express and I hear again to use the term chime or jingle at the beginning, I know that I've called the right place. It's almost like reassuring that I didn't hit the wrong number. And I know I'm going to be kind of put through the call in good order. So I think there's a time and a place for it where inserting it randomly and maybe in conflict with other Sonic elements. It probably is going to lose its impact, but having it as a standalone piece during the experience of engaging with your product or service seems like a good place to fit it in. Any other funny examples that you wanted to share around kind of sound and campaigns? Well, I was going to say it's kind of a tragedy because I think some more digitally native brands that started out online and kind of in this new age, I think some of them are really missing out on sound based branding opportunity. Right. Like, they have some of them are still just really leaned into just throwing on an audio track and getting kind of direct response ads out there. I think the way that they're approaching it is different and that they're really leaning into the user generated content. Right. So they have kind of those slogans that people are saying over and over again and that starts to resonate with an audience. Or they have brand ambassadors. They have like the same person representing their brand. And so they're using and that's very common. Right. Characters like Flow from Progressive or Geico, the Gecko from Geico. So you start to associate their voices with that brand. And for your point, like, they give you that sense of comfort and familiarity. And then there's brands that have those mascots, those characters, those ambassadors that actually don't speak, which I actually find that very surprising. And obviously it's purposely done. It's kind of like when you go to Disney, none of the characters in the costumes, the actors in the costumes, they're told not to speak because people have this voice of what they actually sound like pretty embedded because of all the videos and movies that they've seen. However, you think of the Energizer Bunny or Ronald McDonald, again, probably an older example that not used, but there's many others where you even have the mascot. And why would you encourage me to kind of further personify it? Right. And then kind of lend it a bit more of another dimension to the character itself? Totally agree. Well, what's next for you and the team at VidMob? I'd love to hear if there's anything on deck and maybe something that, again, the listeners might be curious about how to engage with you. But what's next for you and the team? Yes. So the big thing that we're really focused on right now is actually user generated content. So we've talked about it quite a bit. And there's a reason for that. Right. It's the place to be for advertisers right now. It's relating to an audience on their level as peers. It's creating this sense of aspirational longing for products and services. And so it's something that we're really excited about tackling. And it's definitely in our wheelhouse. And it's also introducing fun new ways for us to kind of push ourselves creatively. That's the big thing that mob our kind of tagline is evolving creativity for the better. So the day that we ever say that we've nailed creative is the day that we're dead in the water. Right. So we're always, always pushing our own boundaries. And obviously, again, we have these data analytics to help us raise the floor. Right. So we're ingesting that now about user generated content. And so we can understand what works, what doesn't. And then imagine the power of being able to go to that influencer and say, hey, listen, it actually works better when you are wearing a white shirt, when you're standing outside, and when you sound really excited and oh, my God. Right. We just saved ourselves 50 reshoots, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars for that client there's just through the power of data and analytics. Right. So we're really excited about what we can kind of bring and drive within the user generated content space. And then the other one that we're really excited about, too, is augmented reality. So again, the minute that video is our bread and butter and so we're like, cool, now what? And augmented reality, again, like new ways to engage with an audience in real time and have them interact with elements of your brand. It's a really exciting development and kind of putting things within their world. So those are two spaces that we're really excited to just continue. Jamie, what it sounds like is working with your clients, those advertisers, to not merely produce content and push it out and refine it. But that next level is engaging with people so that they respond. Either the content that they're producing, they're almost like co-creating the campaign, and then that might be in the home and then out there in the world having this augmented reality overlays of what they see and feel and experience around them. That's really exciting. Well, for those that might want to get in touch with you and the team experiment with their ad campaigns, what's the best way that they can reach you? Yeah, absolutely. Well, you can literally shoot me an email at Jamie, [email protected], and then go to Vidmob.com as well. And there's a lot of resources and ways to connect through our website. Oh, credible. Well, thank you, Jamie, for joining me today. I thought this was really fascinating and we had such a great conversation. Well, until next time I'm David Ciccarelli, the founder and CEO of voices and you've been listening to voice branding. Thanks so much, David.