Jeanna Isham, Sound Branding at Dreamr Productions

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Mark Stinson, host: [: 00:00:00

But today we're gonna focus on a very unique. Part of branding and that's sonic branding, the Power of Sound to compliment and to build your brand. And we have an expert in this area. Jeanna Isham. Jeanna, welcome to the show.

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Hi Mark. Thanks so much for having

Mark Stinson, host: me. You know , we travel around the world talking to creative practitioners, Jeanna, and we're just so happy to be stamping our creative passport in your hometown of Sacramento, California.

Great to talk to.

hink that sonic branding and [: 00:01:00

It is, it's just a little bit of a slightly. Thought process. Yeah. But once you get there, it's just, it's like this Pandora's box of creativity and like blowing your mind of what you can possibly do with sound. It's incredible.

Mark Stinson, host: Yeah. And so many more instances or interactions with sound than we can even talk about, but we're gonna delve into it and we'll cover as much as we can.

Maybe even just a little bit of definition of terms when we say sonic branding , how do you define it and what are some of the elements you think. .

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Sure. And thanks for saying how do I define it? Because there's a lot of definitions for it. And through my research and my understanding, I come at this as a composer lover of marketing, but I did start in sound and music design.

nt to focus on because sonic [: 00:02:00

And when you open up that Pandora's box, you realize, Wow, this is a lot bigger than I thought it was. Like, yes, it's a niche industry, but it affects so many as asset assets and nuances of your business and your marketing and your life in general. We all can connect to sound. Even the deaf can con connect to sound because sound is vibration.

k it was the Ninth Symphony, [: 00:03:00

So even as pretty much a deaf man, obviously he had the context of music, but as a deaf man, he could still make music. He could still understand. .

Mark Stinson, host: Oh, that's so good. And as a foundation, this idea of vibration and sound and Jeanna, your work at your own company, dreamer Productions you look at all those things that you were just talking about.

It could be music and soundscapes, it could be jingles, it could be but the things you're talking about that even go to, transactional confirmations, app sounds, and buttons and vibrations, it really covers the gamut. .

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: It sure does. It absolutely does. And the thing that I've really got on board with lately that I know that we're gonna discuss is the small and medium sized companies, the businesses out there.

nies like the MasterCard and [: 00:04:00

This is not something that is a luxury that only the six, seven figure companies can attain. This could be as simple as you have a clothing store and you mindfully and purposefully choose the playlist that plays over. rather than just picking some random top 40 station, you could actually curate and go.

My customers tend to like classical music. My customers like jazz and just focus on that. The cool thing about, so branding is it's also just the sound in your marketing. So you don't necessarily have to go about creating a sonic logo or anything like that. It's just the sound that's incorporated in your branding.

ron Maiden, that needs to be [: 00:05:00

Mark Stinson, host: This is terrific. Let's take off there because I do think that often, even when we wade into sonic branding and use some of these well-known examples, so people know that sound when you sign into Netflix, they know the sound when you've used your credit card.

They know the sound when they've tuned into CBS or n NBC or what have you. But I do think that they're missing the opportunity. even at a small business level. , to create that, whether it's in advertising or as you said, in-store experiences or, app development and so forth. Let's drill down on that a little bit.

You've got some interesting research and statistics on how this could help even a small business. .

. There's a study by Ipsos in: 2020

Visuals were ranked as only three times as likely, and this is the kicker, right? , only 8% of marketing assets even included sonic cues and or music. With that much effectiveness, eight times more likely, that's five times more likely than visual, which we all focus on, and only 8% of the marketers used these assets.

we are behind . Yes. We are so

Mark Stinson, host: behind. And if you're trying to use, data driven marketing and you say, I could be one in 10 of my competitors using Sonic branding, Uhhuh, , and it would be eight and a half times more effective. . There's some data at least to try to experiment with.

ylist idea. Maybe you have . [: 00:07:00

Say you sell electric toothbrush. and you find out that your want it to vibrate at a certain rhythm or something like that, or maybe the vibration is too much. And by bringing, somehow getting rid of some of the vibration and the motion, you could get more sales. This all applies

Mark Stinson, host: very good.

And you had mentioned in one of your podcasts, which are terrific for people who wanna know more about this topic. But you had even mentioned how dissatisfied people often are literally at the point of sale. , they've picked, you've advertised, you brought 'em into the store, you brought 'em into your shop.

They've looked around, they've found that great thing and. yet we're leaving them with a feeling of disappointment at the cash register. Wow. Isn't that incredible? How do you address that?

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: I just, I find it so fascinating that I followed a study that Sesh decision Science did I believe it was a year ago, maybe two.

what was happening, and. The [: 00:08:00

the last, thi the last point of interaction with your customer is the most crucial. That's the one that they will remember, and that is the part that people are just going, okay, I'll let this app take care of it. And whether or not this app has sounds or not, it's totally separate from what the company is doing.

I just find that baffling and the study showed. The sound, whatever the sound may be, it did make a difference whether it had sound or it did not. And for me, that seems like such a simple thing to remedy. Let's add some sound. Maybe it's right, maybe it's not, but let's try something cuz you never know until you try and then you try something else.

. And now is the [: 00:09:00

So they somehow, without an actual license, somehow licensed the sound of the pop fizz to represent their brand. So even if Pepsi or Sprite or Dr. Pepper did it, the first initial, like wriggling of your mind, if you grew up in the eighties and nineties with all of the commercials, Coca-Cola doesn't matter because they've already claimed that territory.

ese other places do. Chimes. [: 00:10:00

Mark Stinson, host: else, it's they were obviously trying to copy or catch up.

Exactly. Or, know, echo that. Exactly

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: right on the coattails.

Mark Stinson, host: In, in my branding work, we talk about at least six elements, but I there's a likability factor even. People engage with brands, they. . And so we talk about jingles, we talk about even licensed music.

, um, a few episodes back, I talked with one of my pharma advertising colleagues just about the jingles that are used in pharmaceutical ads. They're bringing up all the oldies and all the songs to make you think dire Straits and Fleetwood Mac, like this drug Uhhuh . So must be good enough for me.

But I there is a likability factor isn't there? Or familiarity that we're trying to create with Sonic.

ds us, human to human is our [: 00:11:00

You're giving it a humanity. And so when you do that, it sounds so esoteric, but the more senses that you can attribute to your brand or at least relate in one way or another through another sense the more human you become and the more people can relate to you and with sound. Sound is so brilliant because.

And this statistic is floating around everywhere, but we now have the attention span of less than a goldfish, right? Mm-hmm. . . We can't keep our mind on anything. I have so many tabs on my screen and sometimes I just have to close them all because it's just too much and I don't get anything done.

So when our attention span is less than eight seconds, it's probably five. I don't know. Do you need something that gets in there? and sound. Does that sound gets in there? Arguably, I can't find the word, but you know what I'm saying.

Mark Stinson, host: It's a sonic brand. Arguably. Yeah,

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: arguably.

know if that is the word. . [: 00:12:00

. So it's just such an effective way of marketing. And like the n NBC chimes, again, that's three notes you hear. And you don't even need the three notes at this point. Jaws two notes for like at least 10 bars before he does anything else creative and your daughter, you know exactly what it is.

When we have such a short attention span and so many platforms and digital spaces and electronics and chaos that's going on in our. , we gotta get in there fast. And the fact about sound is it gets in there fast, but it stays too. When you think about a sound like NBC chimes, it brings you to a moment.

s all you had to do was find [: 00:13:00

Mark Stinson, host: Yeah, I love that. While we have your attention, since we've been talking about attention span listeners, I'm talking with Jeanna Isham, a Sonic strategist at Dreamer Productions.

And so if you look her up, it's dreamer without that last E, so D R E A M R productions. . Now, Jeanna, we've been talking about the client side or the business side of Sonic branding. , I'd like to turn the page and talk a little bit about you and your background and how you got into this thing.

You have really embraced audio and sonic branding in a big way. What was your background and how did you come to this part of the. .

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: You're the first podcaster that switched it up like that. I love it. . . It really changes.

Mark Stinson, host: We've gotta talk about unlocking creativity. Yeah. And I kinda, I can't assume that one day you said, you know what, Sonic Brandon is my game here.

nd. Yeah. No, it wasn't even [: 00:14:00

And so I went to school and I got a degree in composition, and then I wanted to be John. and that was really hard because there's five guys that do it and it's really hard to break in there. Although women are getting out there, respect for that. And then I did a lot of dabbling in production music, which was frustrating because you never actually get to talk to the client about anything.

It's just like toddlers and tiaras or Duck Dynasty or what does that mean? I don't get it. . So I did that for a little while and then after after a about of that, I came across marketing. My husband and I have an audio video production company and so I was merging them together when we got married.

I just started to dive into [: 00:15:00

And so I just started to dig a little bit and then a person reached out online to me just randomly and he said, I'm looking for this, three seconds of music to play for a startup for my piece of hardware. And he gave me the specs for it. And I was like, okay. And so I went back and I wrote some drafts and I sent him three drafts and I was like, which one do you like?

'm talking, cl client facing [: 00:16:00

One email a week, like every now and then every now and then of this article that sort of talked about it, but not really. So what I discovered was the people that were working in sonic branding were too busy to actually talk about it because it was such a small group of people. They were busy, they were doing these things.

So that's how I started the podcast. I was like, I want an education on this, and so I'm gonna be selfish. I'm gonna start podcast This for me, really. I wanna learn. And so I would interview these people, these reputable people that were doing the things. They were in the field at the time. And so it was a selfish thing.

d sonic branding and sensory [: 00:17:00

And then just through this whole rabbit hole of things, I discovered that the educational part. is probably the most important part because whenever I talk to somebody and I tell them about sonic branding, by the end of the conversation they're like, oh, okay. And a lot of times I start seeing that, sparkle in their eye.

They're like, Ooh, ooh. And they're thinking of thoughts independently of me oh, it could be this. Oh, I could do that. And I just realized that once people get. , it's just gonna go crazy. Yes. But the e education part of it is not there. And a big stumbling block is that people think that it is only for the MasterCards and visas and people.

on a broadcast television ad [: 00:18:00

Mark Stinson, host: visas. Yes. And those big brands, of course, are the top of the pyramid.

There's o only a billion more, brands and small businesses under that. . Exactly. Thinking about the, the listeners of this podcast who might be. Singer, songwriters composers, even voiceovers. , you've talked about a lot of examples. How could those types of creative practitioners really maybe open up, investigate and explore more of application of their creative craft in sonic branding?

What would you suggest to them? .

example, when I was music I [: 00:19:00

You don't say that. . . You have to pick a lane. I'll do

Mark Stinson, host: whatever gives me to check .

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Yeah. What's gonna pay me? I'll do it. No problem. Skrillex. I'll figure it out. Yeah. No I won't. But anyways, I think with the vo artist as well, it's pick a lane, decide what you're doing and own that sound. What was your other example?

The voiceover artist and musicians. Yeah, musicians, especially with musicians. Don't say you can write everything. Please don't say that. There is a very small number of people that can do that, and even if you do, . If you've got an executive that needs something, five sec, five days ago, which is always, they need to know, okay, this person does this person does this person does this.

know. They're gonna remember [: 00:20:00

That they'll go to you for. And I have so many friends that did that where they made a connection because they were that guy or they were that girl. So pick Elaine and choose it. It may feel like you're letting go certain. aspects like, oh, I'm letting that job go, oh, that job would've been perfect, but really what you're doing is you're just honing in, you're narrowing in, and it's gonna be that much easier for you to market yourself because your elevator speech is simple and simplistic, and you'll be able to go, okay, that person is who I wanna contact.

that person isn't niche enough and then you just weed through all the different lanes. Yes, it, it helps in the long run.

Mark Stinson, host: And let's talk to another type of creative who often listens to this show, and that's maybe the techies, the developers, the coders, they're developing the apps. You've got some great examples on your website of you think this is just.

out there, what should we be [: 00:21:00

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Yeah. I've worked with an app company before and we had a fail

They asked for the kitchen sink and I wrote the kitchen sink. And then when we put in it was a bunch of functional sounds and everything like that. And when we put it into the process that was going on, it was too much. All of us agreed that it was too much, and I feel like it might.

Potentially scared them away because it was just, whoa, this is too much. We need to just, let's back off. Let's go somewhere else. But I learned a lot from that. And what I learned from that was, yes, sound is great. Yes, Sonic branding is great, but it doesn't have to be everywhere and it's not appropriate every time.

he purpose? Is it necessary? [: 00:22:00

Like I said, sonic is sound. I just, I think that's the most important part. What is it that will be functional? What is helpful to. , everything else put to the side for right now. , because a lot of these developers also are trial and erroring as they're figuring out what their app can do that, I think that's the time period that we're in now is I have something, how do we utilize it?

How can we best. provide a service to someone. And so I think that as people use these apps, they also come up with new functionalities for it. So maybe there's a sound that you had to put on the side because it's for this part of your app that's not even there yet.

Mark Stinson, host: Yes. And some of those, in the brand experience in the ux, signing in, adding to the cart, duplicating, removing, all these things you're saying, if you overdo it, that can.

ter from the experience too. [: 00:23:00

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Absolutely. I think that the sounds for carts, I think that those are very helpful because sometimes you don't know if you click to the button all the way . And so you need that extra assurance that something went through. Same with the po o s sounds, the point of sales sounds, I think that's important so that you know that your card got, Accepted or declined or whatever.

But , if you go way too fancy and you've got like a 12 second functional sound saying I've just added something to the cart, that is too much. Best example for that, , my husband is, drives him crazy cuz he's filmmaker. When they run the production companies before a movie and there's usually five or six production companies associated with one movie, especially.

The big movies and stuff, and he gets so frustrated because some of them went way too crazy on their logo and it's this animated thing that plays out for 20 seconds and you got the idea before that you don't need to use up all this screen time. , so you don't need to use up their time.

online anyways. All you need [: 00:24:00

Mark Stinson, host: Yes. And you've talked about collaborations, especially maybe with voiceovers and so forth.

I think I was introduced to you from Jodi Kringle, one of my voiceover friends. . And then we met on a clubhouse platform talking about, sonic branding and you're reminding me of the movie discussion that a movie. By its soundtrack sometimes. And just the sound itself.

You could play two notes of jaws. For example, Uhhuh . You could play two notes of Saturday Night Fever and you could play two notes of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And of course all the Oscar-winning films connected to that. So the really, the sonic, strategies have really permeated a lot of medium.

eave their little soundscape [: 00:25:00

What we have to realize is, especially in the world that we're in now, where we can have anything we want, like honestly, we have everything in our fingertips. We have information, we have technology, we have stuff, we have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. , but we wanna be entertained as we're purchasing these things.

It's all about entertainment. It's all about keeping our attention and our interest. So it makes sense that the entertainment industry would bleed into the consumer product services and goods industry. , it's just not as apparent yet, but it will be.

Mark Stinson, host: There you go. When I ask you about the future, but before make sure we know where to connect with you, learn more about your work, how do we find you?

. And there you can find the [: 00:26:00

So there you go. But there is another course on there as well if you're interested. That's also where I share my resource articles that I share on LinkedIn. I publish it once a month over there. And then dreamer productions.com, D r e A M R. It's on the screen right there, productions.com, and that's my main my main site, my main source.

So I do everything from sonic strategy and consultation to sound design and sonic branding.

Mark Stinson, host: Fantastic. We're gonna connect with you in all these places and make sure we keep in touch. Let's look towards the future. A lot of these Sonic brand applications or places, it didn't even exist five years ago.

Or if they did, they were very, fledgling. do you see coming up? What do you have your eye on and what are you looking out for?

t exactly it's going to look [: 00:27:00

Just like being in the The electronics.

Mark Stinson, host: So it's so, it's more than

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: just vr. It's more than vr. I think that really the idea for me, for the metaverse is blending the digital world with the physical world. So if you think about cryptocurrency, which. I'll not go far into that cuz it's confusing, but the fact that you can use crypto online, but it also applies to like, some people will take rent and utilities in crypto.

It might have changed because the valuation went down, but at some point it did. But then it can also be something that we could use in a situation like, Covid, what if the metaverse gave kids a better education option where, there's Zoom and their Google Hangouts. A lot of kids just stepped back from that.

hat in the Robuck and all of [: 00:28:00

The only way I know how to immerse is through senses. And so sound is gonna play a huge part in that. I was thinking of like there, there was a fashion week was actually held in the metaverse last year or the year before. And I'm just thinking of if there's going to be these. Digital shopping malls, like going back to the eighties and nineties when we'd walk through the shopping malls, you were bombarded with.

there's a use for sound there. If for some reason your storefront becomes a digital storefront where you find a place over there, you're gonna need to have it play, sound. What is your customer in there gonna look like? So I think that's really something to be paying attention to and the market to pay attention to is Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

r digital immersive content. [: 00:29:00

Mark Stinson, host: That's great. And we won't have to drive them to the mall. They can just show up. Hey, in the Metaverse Mall. .

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Perfect. Okay. That's good news for my little kids,

Mark Stinson, host: In fact, Jeanna, before we go, I'm gonna be talking to Craig Dobbins.

In a week or two. And he is the composer of all the music for N C I S LA Oh, Hawaii. And a lot of the crossovers. And so what questions would you have for a composer working in the TV space about sonic branding and how they create that work?

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: That's a good question. First off, my in-laws and my parents love N C I S , so that's wonderful.

I would say, how do you keep it interesting? N C I S has been on for a very long time and I know that you have to keep consistency cuz it's a well-oiled machine, but how do you keep it fun for the audience? And how do you keep it fun for you so you don't lose your mind doing something boring? Very

Mark Stinson, host: good. I'll be sure to bring those

. Jean, I can't thank you enough for a wonderful conversation.

It's, thank you. This [: 00:30:00

Jeanna Isham, Sonic Strategist: Absolutely. I love talking about it.

So anybody reach out to me and we'll have a conversation? Yes.

Mark Stinson, host: And all her coordinates are in the show notes. It's Jeanna Isham of Dreamer Productions. So listeners come back again next time. We're gonna continue our creative travels literally all over to continue to unlock your world of creativity. We'll see you soon.