When it comes to crafting a sonic identity, no one person is bigger than the brand. Not the CMO, not the customer or client, not you, and especially not me. One of the great things about sonic branding is the opportunity to create without your ego in tow. You’re not expressing yourself. You’re expressing the…
Building an Audio Logo: Loyalist College
Loyalist College recently did a huge overhaul of their visual identity as well as reassessed their position in the market. The time was right for an audio identity. This was very exciting because in their 50+ year history, Loyalist had never developed any audio strategy or assets. Fortunately when I entered the picture, most of…
The Importance of Sounding Authentic
I don’t know if people are sick of talking about COVID, but it was/is a crisis that taught us a lot, and there’s still lots more to unpack. Several months ago we talked about crisis-proofing your brand and building emotional depth through the use of sound. Something that I don’t think has been discussed enough…
5 Reasons Your Audio Ads Are Underperforming
The average person will tell you there are a lot of bad ads out there. A professional will tell you there are a lot of ineffective ads out there. From local mom-and-pop shops to multi-billion dollar corporations, so many businesses are throwing money into the ether and the airwaves without knowing why or if it’s…
Male or Female Voice: How About Neither?
Last time we talked about getting away from the male/female binary in voiceover. But the conversation didn’t end there. The blog generated some great comment and discussion which I’d like to address and expand on here. I’d like to start with one of my favourite comments which came from voice actor Mike Tobin. “…many clients…
Male or Female Voice: Does it Even Matter Anymore?
Does this sound familiar? We need a voiceover. Should it be a male or female voice? Female. OK. Next item. There are a couple of problems here. First of all, the voiceover is not an afterthought. It is the emotional core of your project, and it sets the tone for everything else. Quite often visuals…
Podcast Music: Getting it Right the First Time
If you’re starting a podcast, or even if you’re a veteran podcaster, selecting or creating theme music can be a pretty daunting task. The simplest option is to source stock tracks. Back in the day, stock music was trash. It was elevator music. You were embarrassed to use it. Today there’s more music being made…
3 YouTuber Habits That Won’t Go Away
We’re far from the pioneering days of YouTube, yet there are a number of habits – many of which are vestiges of the old school broadcasting world – that are still prevalent among modern YouTubers. We’re going to look at three of them. 1: The Mass Greeting It feels like every YouTube video starts with…
Anatomy of a Brand Anthem: Northern Latitudes
This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. We’re going to take a brand theme (also known as a brand anthem) and see what’s going on under the hood. We’ll look at the concept, the methodology, instrumentation, as well as the textures and timbres, and how they all culminate to the audio logo….
Audio Branding: 8 Best Practices to Get Started
Some folks are skeptical of sonic branding when they’re first introduced to the subject. They want to know what kind of ROI is involved. They want some sort of magic number saying that a sound strategy will increase revenue by __%. Of course it’s not that simple. After all, what sort of ROI do you…