Building Brand Identity Through Sound

James Lawrence: Welcome back to the Smarter Marketer podcast. I'm joined today by Ramesh Sathiah and Ralph Van Dijk from Resonance Sonic Branding. Guys, welcome to the pod.

Ralph van Dijk: Thanks, James. Nice to be here.

Very interesting topic. The guys are founders and creative directors of Resonance Sonic Branding, which is a Sydney based specialist sonic branding agency that combines music and marketing to create sonic identities for brands. Over the years you guys have worked with household names like CommBank, Woolies, Canva, Toyota, the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Open and many, many more. So I'm going to start with, I guess it's kind of an easy question, but often the easy ones are the hard ones to answer. But, what is Sonic Branding?

Ralph van Dijk: I guess I'll start with the misconception. Um, and it's often thought that sonic branding just means a jingle or a sonic logo only. But for us, it stretches way beyond that. It's sonic. Branding is a more of a holistic approach to the way a brand uses music, sound and voice across Every relevant touch point and with consistency, those assets become brand codes.

Um, the way, you know, much like a colour or a font and they communicate who the brand is and its personality without actually having to say the name of the brand. Um, And then it can influence behaviour in consumers both on the short term because it adds impact and emotion, uh, and brand recognition, but also in the long term, it has this, long term brand effect because it builds those memory structures that, you know, that every marketer , wants to build.

James Lawrence: And you you hear that McDonald's sound and you know it's McDonald's or the bottle opening and you know it's Coca Cola before there's any reference to that. And , if you could just talk about the difference between, , sonic branding and sonic marketing, because I think there's kind of overlap there, but some distinctions as well.

Ralph van Dijk: Sure. Well, sonic marketing really is the use of sound like music and voice, um, in any advertising and no one needs convincing that you need sound in the communication because it adds emotion and then you're communicating information. So voice and all that. But typically in marketing in sonic marketing, What you've created is in service of the narrative of that particular campaign , or ad where sonic branding is a much more consistent, regular use and building those brand codes over a long period of time , and really, , being sort of, yeah, a lot more disciplined in, in what those assets in your ads are.

James Lawrence: Yeah, interesting. And we thought would, , be a little bit different to the normal smarter marketer kind of format, given the nature of the subject matter. And, um, what we were thinking in planning for the pod today was to to actually showcase some of the work, right? I think often where we're dealing with a lot of, , non audio marketing kind of guests we have on the pod.

We thought it'd be fun to actually showcase some of the kind of the work that you guys have done and then talk to it. Talk to each of it to kind of, , illustrate, , the work for listeners. , so, , why don't we start with Woolworths, for instance, and maybe we could talk a little bit about the work that you did, what you, what the essence is there that you're trying to, to kinda get across.

And then we can, , drop in a sample , of that work into the pod and I'd love to hear you guys discuss that. Maybe Ramesh, if you wanna kick off with, with Woolworths.

Ramesh Sathiah: Yeah. Well, Woolworths, I think the essence of that really, you know, it's all about the fresh fruit people, so it's fresh and friendly.

James Lawrence: Let's, uh, let's give it a listen.

James Lawrence: And now we'll go commonwealth bank.

Ralph van Dijk: Yep. We, for that, we were trying to, position ComBank as the guiding light. So, um, that hopefully is what comes across when you hear the audio logo.

Ramesh Sathiah: And Jetstar, energetic fun.

Canva, Empowerment. Empowering the world to design.

Ralph van Dijk: For Budget Direct, the Sonic Essence was all about the cavalry is here to come and help you solve your insurance problems.

Ramesh Sathiah: So ADF, Australian Defence Force, it was all about purpose, so inner purpose.

Ralph van Dijk: And the Australian Open, we really wanted to capture the Aussie spirit that makes the Australian Open unique amongst all the Grand Slams, which is why we got that, um, that chant and that call and response.

James Lawrence: That's awesome, guys. And I think really cool for listeners to actually hear the subject matter, I guess, in the actual podcast itself. Be interesting to hear about, like, how do you go about creating a Sonic identity? Um, yeah, if we could just talk about the process and and what the considerations are.

Ramesh Sathiah: Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, I think our approach is quite different than normal production companies or music companies in a way, like it's more of an agency branding type of process, which I'm sure your listeners would be familiar with. So, so look, our motto really is we think before we play. So what the first part of the process for us is really understanding the brand.

Ramesh Sathiah: So that'll be a whole process of brand analysis. You know, getting to the brand's value, the mission, the target audience. And really importantly for us is really understanding the tone of voice. There's a strong connection between, um, brand voice, tone of voice, and the emotion that you'd want to imbue. So that's probably the, really the major starting point for us.

Ramesh Sathiah: The second part of the process. Equally important is doing a sort of a sonic audit to have a look at the landscape of the brand sonically over the last, , it could be decades essentially, see how they've been using music and sound, see what the trends are, see what's been working. , also to look at what their competitors are doing, because the important thing is we need to sound unique.

Ramesh Sathiah: Essentially, we've got to find that white space where the brand will cut through. Once we sort of absorb that, we have a workshop together, , with the, um, the brand, uh, in the branding agency or creative agency, they're involved as well. And we do a whole lot of processes where we, um, we look at , defining that sonic essence is what we call it.

Ramesh Sathiah: And the sonic essence is where we distill down all those, , brand pillars, all the tone of voice and try to figure out where music and sound can help. And there are certain things music and sound can do brilliantly. Like it could help with Optimism. It can help with energy and fun, or if we want it to be a motive, it can do that.

Ramesh Sathiah: Or one that wants to be empowering is another thing. But there are other parts of the brand like trust, etc. Where that might not be up to us. That might, maybe the voiceover could help. But we wanted to distill that down to maybe three words. We call that our sonic essence. , and the next stage from there is we, we put together a creative brief, , where we, uh, we basically put that all together into a document, which we share back to the clients.

Ramesh Sathiah: Uh, and then we get into the process of making the music and that might be making a brand anthem. It might be, , creating just an audio logo could be creating remixes of the brand anthem. So they have wider assets. It could be help guiding them to choose the right piece of library music, to use on, I'm so it might be just guiding them to find the right piece of music to license for their brand.

Ralph van Dijk: Or brand voice, uh, the brand voiceover. So you've got, , very consistent use of brand voice. So again, that acts as a brand code.

Ramesh Sathiah: Yeah, and then the next step is obviously stress testing that against different assets on then doing.

Ramesh Sathiah: Also, we do testing and research and then the final step is creating sonic guidelines to show how that should be used and help with the government governance of those assets.

James Lawrence: Yeah, interesting. And are you typically being engaged by agencies or by clients direct in like?

It's pretty evenly split, to be honest.

Ralph van Dijk: Um, the so advertising agencies, branding agencies and clients direct that typically the source of the work that comes to us. And, we are very fortunate to have had a lot of referrals from. CMOs talking to their CMO mates and brand agencies, , going, talking about us to all of their clients.

James Lawrence: A lot of what you were saying there, Ramesh, , has a lot of commonality, I guess, with traditional branding and brand guidelines and tone of voice and those kind of assets that, Not even large organizations like smaller organizations will have those things kind of in place, right?

James Lawrence: Would most large businesses have the same with sonic branding or like, are we talking about this is a more recent field or, is this kind of something that smaller businesses generally don't have the most big. Businesses do have it.

Speaker 4: Like Sonic,

James Lawrence: using Sonic branding? Yeah, and just having like all those kind of, , reference points signed off and having a guideline and actually having a Sonic logo and having a voiceover that you, that's your go to sound.

James Lawrence: Is that, or is it a bit more ad hoc in the Sonic space compared to traditional branding?

Ramesh Sathiah: But we've been surprised, actually, that the variety of clients you've been interested in. We, like, we obviously thought the biggest clients would be, but for us, there have been, , different sorts of business than we expected.

Ramesh Sathiah: For example, we just did work for Engineers Australia, um, which, , which is the Society for Engineers Australia. And they were, they obviously had a really clear idea about what they wanted to achieve. , and everybody who's come to us has been really thoughtful, had a really methodical Generally had all the materials we need, all the brand work done.

Ramesh Sathiah: I think once they've had that done, that's when they go, Oh, should we include Sonic into that? We found that, that process has been really great with working directly with clients.

Ralph van Dijk: It is still quite remarkable though, that some of the biggest advertisers in Australia don't have Sonic assets and all this media is going into.

Ralph van Dijk: One off, uh, music tracks, , voices that change from campaign to campaign. And obviously you want this, want to still have the creative freedom to be able to capture whatever the, um, the best version is of that message. But there's a way of having your cake and eating it. You know, you're never gonna, you never get them to change their visual logo from one campaign to the next.

Ralph van Dijk: Why should it be the same Sonic, you know, with your sort of audio assets. , there was an interesting stat, I think in 2023, there was a 20 percent increase in brands commissioning Sonic branding year on year. So it's definitely something that more brands are looking at now. And I think that's as a result of marketing, um, So, uh, gurus like Mark Ritson and you've got Aaron Burr Bass talking about, , distinctive assets.

Ralph van Dijk: So there's a lot of talk in the marketing world about, about having, , your brand represented in audio. Uh, and I think also as new, Advertisers in a certain category do it, then the competitors follow on. And then the final thing, I guess that's influencing this, this sort of increase, , focus on it is the touch points, the increase in audio touch points, like, um, tick tock, for example, is the sound on platform, , smart speakers, podcasting audiences, uh, using their ears to navigate the world more and more.

Ralph van Dijk: Really, really, really need to exist in sound.

James Lawrence: Yeah. And what, how do you, because I was thinking, , written, I've read some of his stuff in this space and that kind of the importance of brands having distinctive assets, including audio, right? And I think one of the articles I read was, , it's a McDonald's ad before any reference to Big Macs and whatever else has been made, as you do, you know, when you say, an outdoor ad from, Most big advertisers, right?

James Lawrence: Because of whether it's typeface or color or whatever it might be. , why can't the same be true of audio? What kind of data or arguments are you using if you're trying to convince a skeptical stakeholder, , if the CMO has gone out to market and said, Hey, we need to invest in this, it makes sense.

James Lawrence: But there's someone, , maybe the CFO or CEO or someone else saying, Hey, does this stuff really matter? Why can't we just run, , ads in isolation and we'll, , we'll pick a jingle for each ad. Like what? Are there any kind of reference points there that help you to convince?

Ralph van Dijk: There are a few studies, , that have done all that work for us, , which is great. Like Kantar's Brand Zed, , research that showed brands with strong, audio assets have a 76 percent higher brand power, , and 138 percent higher Perception of advertising strength. So these, I know they sound like complicated metrics.

Ralph van Dijk: Your advertising strength and brand power, uh, are important subliminal communications for, do I have confidence in this brand? And, , and then there's also attribution, increased attribution. The, , the impact. So there are a number of studies that we draw on that, , have done the research for us.

Ralph van Dijk: And then there's also the cost savings component where brands are now having to spend less and commissioning. And licensing, , bespoke music , or , yeah, licensing tracks, , because , they have a consistent brand track that they can use. And that doesn't mean that they don't ever use those other things, but just, they have this owned asset in their arsenal.

Ralph van Dijk: , it means that they're less reliant on having to pay each time.

Ramesh Sathiah: And I think just even making the whole process or creative process more efficient, like rather than every time you're putting a new asset on, Oh, we're scratching around trying to find some production music or getting something composed or you know, so Or even not even having understanding of what the style the tone of the brand is like it just makes sense to Have some guardrails around how you're presenting the brand sonically considering how How many guardrails are around?

Ramesh Sathiah: Visually, it goes down to the millimeter on the color, all the rules around that. But many brands have no rules at all about the sound and audio. So it's just inefficient. , and it's probably not a great way of presenting the brand

James Lawrence: and how broad Are the outputs for want of a better expression. Are they the same for all of your customers or is it, is it heavily dependent on, like, I presume, I think Ralph was reading one of your LinkedIn posts before the pod and you've worked with the Australian Open, right?

James Lawrence: So I presume that what you're creating and outputting for them is very different to say what you might be doing for Wool Ease or Canva or for an industry association like the one you mentioned, Ramesh.

Ralph van Dijk: Yeah, well, for example, the Australian Open, we needed something that would be, uh, flexible enough for them to use their advertising, their social posts, their little highlights packages, but also within the park itself, , everywhere you go around the Australian Open, , they've got speakers.

Ralph van Dijk: And so they, , bring, bringing the brand Anthem in at various points, but then we've got rearrangements for when the winners are receiving the, or coming on onto the court, , or the trophy, um, presentation. So they're constantly finding ways to add a bit of marketing at all the touch points

Speaker 4: for

Ralph van Dijk: Canva.

Ralph van Dijk: What we created for them, uh, was, uh, distilled and actually brought into the platform itself. So some of the UI UX functions are born from their sonic essence. You know, some of the little details that are in the track are also finding their way into the actual platform and that's not. Obviously relevant to many brands that don't have online

James Lawrence: platforms.

James Lawrence: It was actually I bought tickets this morning this afternoon from ticket tech and I was kind of had this like spinning wheel as I was trying to load tickets are reasonably high demand event and then it kind of gave off his really interesting unique kind of sound and my partner was in the other room and she was like wow.

James Lawrence: What was that sound? That was cute. And it was kind of a success sound of, you know, the tickets actually being confirmed. Yeah. It was really interesting kind of connotation between the two.

Ralph van Dijk: No, well that's, I mean, that, that's what we often find is that once a brand has these assets, they find all these different.

Ralph van Dijk: Ways of using it that they never considered in stadium, live events, shareholders, meetings, uh, on hold, um, app opening. So the, again, it's driven probably because there's a big campaign coming. There's a lot of media spend, a lot of exposure. So they want to have some of those assets in place because they can capitalize on all that exposure.

Ralph van Dijk: But then they find all this sort of long tail of opportunities to imbue marketing and every step of the customer journey. It's really interesting. How do you,

James Lawrence: um, like when you're scoping a project or even when you're delivering it, how do you, I guess, get a handle on the breadth of opportunity and where to focus your time?

James Lawrence: It must be quite challenging, right? I think there's obvious things, which is the jingle, um, you know, the type of music if, if you're dealing with a fast moving consumer brand that does lots of TV work, I imagine it's probably easy to identify that as an area where you might put some consideration, but it's not like the idea of piping in sounds through it.

James Lawrence: You know, the park where the Australian Open is held and shareholders meetings, like you must, you have to get pretty intimate with a brand, right, to understand. You

Ramesh Sathiah: really do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, and no, no two brands are the same. And I think you need to treat each one really differently. Like, for example, you know, uh, some brands, we call them reinforcer brands where the idea is just being a hundred percent consistent, makes sense for them.

Ramesh Sathiah: And the best example of that is Bunnings. One piece of music for, I don't know, 20 or 30 years, but that's not right for every brand. Like for example, Nike doesn't have any consistency. They're about telling stories. Um, so, and, or other brands like Apple are all about curation, just presenting the coolest music every time.

Ramesh Sathiah: So we want to. Look at each brand and figure out what is best for them and then just look at the opportunities and where we think the music and sound to go. And that's really a conversation with the brand. And that comes out with the workshop process, auditing where they museum music and sound and then try to present a coherent strategy for them

Ralph van Dijk: to your question about how do we know where all those touch points are?

Ralph van Dijk: Well, we do the order at the beginning, but. What we really are hot on is bringing all the stakeholders into the process right at the start, and we need them all to agree on the North Star. What is the sonic essence that we're all identified with, all identified as being the thing we're going to amplify.

Ralph van Dijk: Once we have that approval, uh, or once we get their involvement, they're telling us about all these different things that they would be using the asset for, um, and even the CMO may not have thought of the thing that the, um, the, you know, the chief customer officer was planning to use it and, and the, and the, you know, the corporate investment, um, side of the business may have had a different use of, But getting them all aligned at the beginning and to all agree that, yes, this is what we want to say about our brand in that context is so important because music is really subjective.

Ralph van Dijk: And the last thing you want at the end is to be derailed at the end of the process because someone goes, Oh, it's too jazzy.

James Lawrence: Yeah, I imagine you get some, uh, some quite frustrating feedback in the space that you work.

Ralph van Dijk: Well, we learned the hard way, you know, and I think that that's why we set up a specialist agency because, you know, it's just too easy to, uh, get it wrong.

Ralph van Dijk: Chasing the wrong thing and go straight into execution after the first chat. It's just, but then it's so at risk of being derailed. As I said,

Ramesh Sathiah: yeah, it's really about taking all the stakeholders on a journey and explaining why you're doing everything, giving everything a reason. That's why we talk about that.

Ramesh Sathiah: The Sonic S it's the North star being so important. So luckily we don't get too many curve balls at the end. I

James Lawrence: think the, um, the point rematch around the Bunnings outlet that music is just repetition, repetition, repetition has been used for so long. We had recently on the pod Paul Sinconson, who is probably one of the leading authorities in Australia on measuring marketing effectiveness, and he kind of made the point around ad fatigue.

James Lawrence: And I think the question was like, you know, how long How often do ads actually run to a point where they start to fatigue? And his basic response is, I don't know because I've never seen it. It lends very heavily into, um, distinctive assets. Uh, same as the Ritzen thing. I get just this constant repetition until the market knows and understands that that is you.

James Lawrence: And I think there's some overlap there. I think that proposition around this is going to help you, Jumping off on when a new campaign is rolled out, having to go off and spend all this money on you, Sonic kind of creative and assets and whatever it might be, because it'll help you be disciplined and kind of stick to these guidelines that have been very, very well thought out.

James Lawrence: Makes a lot of sense to me.

Ralph van Dijk: It's all, it's also a bit of a Trojan horse because, uh, like I was particularly on some of those emerging platforms because nothing, nothing triggers a scroll like a, or on TikTok faster than a, than a brand's logo, you know? And. Um, sound is much less of a kind of buzz kill. So you can have, uh, that your iconic sound played at the beginning of the ad, for example.

Ralph van Dijk: And even if you scroll, at least, you know who you're ignoring. So it's, uh, there's a way of using sound even for that visual fatigue. Um, even to sort of deal with some of that visual fatigue. That's that's so sort of that's out there and also double screening. You know, the ad break comes on, you start looking at your phone again, your ears can't close.

Ralph van Dijk: So you'll be able to hear brand is

James Lawrence: on TV that you're not necessarily looking at. Yeah, it is very good point. I hadn't thought of it from that angle, but the idea that we've kind of because I remember when, because we do a lot of work in digital, um, and one of Google's big, Points around YouTube probably about eight years ago when they're investing a lot in the platform was that it's it's an audio on environment and compare and selling directly against Facebook and Insta, which are typically sound off.

James Lawrence: Um, but if you look at podcasting, YouTube, Tik TOK, we are kind of moving in the direction of sound being on, on these platforms, right? And yeah, that's really

Ramesh Sathiah: turned around that whole, that whole sound on sound off. Yeah, absolutely.

James Lawrence: It's fascinating. I'd be really, you've kind of took on there a little bit, but I think it'd be really interesting.

James Lawrence: You mentioned app, you mentioned, um, Sound being piped through the Australian open. You mentioned shareholder meetings. Like what are some other just interesting applications of sonic branding? Like where do, where, where have your customers. Where have you seen just awesome case studies abroad of really cool, interesting ways that brands are getting their unique sound out there?

Ralph van Dijk: Uh, well, uh, examples for us is, uh, stadium. So brand sponsors, the stadium that, that is a, that is a, uh, an application that, uh, you think is pretty cool. Just so obvious, but one that wasn't on our list of assets to be created, but some of the more famous ones, like MasterCard's payment success, although you know, the tick attack one that you've just experienced recently.

Ralph van Dijk: So every time there's a transaction that you get that little sound. Um, The Audi have used the sort of heartbeat sound as a when you turn the ignition on, the first thing you hear through your speakers is that, um, Which just gives you that sort of moment of anticipation and like, here we go kind of moment.

Ralph van Dijk: That's nice.

Ramesh Sathiah: Yeah. And an interesting area, which, which we're getting more into is like now with EVs is creating a whole sonic signature for the actual car as well. So that's, that's an interesting new area because that's an extension of the brand sound in a way.

James Lawrence: Guess, going into effectiveness and why this stuff works or part of why, does sound hit us as it does? Like, why do we feel and hear and have that, like, that feeling around the things that we hear coming in through our ears?

Ralph van Dijk: Well, it's because music bypasses our left brain filters and rationality, and it connects directly to what motivates us, which is our emotions.

Ralph van Dijk: Um, so that's why even in a, like in a short ad unit, in like, three, six seconds, music can add an emotional layer that we, uh, we don't even know that we're noticing. We're not necessarily processing it. It's just a visceral response or an emotional response to something that, that is, is, is happening. Um, and that's great when you can When a brand can have that component playing and use this a voice to do the heavy lifting and the actual rational message.

Ralph van Dijk: So you got the emotional and the rational happening at the same time, but music itself is something that we are all just hardwired to, um, and music and emotions and long term memory, all those things that are kind of the holy grail and marketing. And if the, if you can add music. Sorry, if you can add meaning to that music and connect your brand to that phrase, then you've just got this perfect amalgamation of, um, uh, rational and emotional.

James Lawrence: I love that. I mean, it's, you know, unscrupulous marketers. It just feels like it's, you mentioned Trojan horse before. It's this, uh, you kind of bypass all the rationality of the people that we're trying to move and kind of get straight in there. And us marketers can weave our magic by bypassing all the rationality of the human brain.

James Lawrence: I love it. That's excellent, Ralph.

Ralph van Dijk: I feel like an evil genius. But it's all about

Speaker 4: the

James Lawrence: board. That's great. Um, I think, um, we've talked a lot about some big brands, and you can see the clear application of it in so many different ways, and in apps, and big events, and stadiums, and a whole bunch of different things.

James Lawrence: There's a lot of listeners to the pod who are Operating in smaller businesses, smaller marketing environments, smaller budgets. Is there a place for this there? And if so, um, what are some considerations or, or I guess advice that you would give to, to those types of marketers?

Ramesh Sathiah: I mean, look, the one thing I would say, you know, besides, you know, getting help, uh, from, from experts is, uh, it's just defining what you think the brand should feel like.

Ramesh Sathiah: You know, if you, if you have, if you can, if you can distill it down to three words, how would we like the music and sound to make people feel what's the emotion, then that can get, can guide every decision from there. And that decision might be just to find some royalty free music, but there's a reason for making that decision.

Ramesh Sathiah: Uh, and then from there that can flow onto everything else. But I think that's the most important little advice I would give for anybody looking for music sound for brands to think about that first.

Ralph van Dijk: Yeah. And just to add to that, um, so as well as residents, another part of my week is spent, uh, on a company called ear drum, which is an audio specialist.

Ralph van Dijk: I just be making a lot of audio ads so we spend a lot of time with some of the SMEs that may use radio as their main form of advertising and one of the first things we do is identify a lane like mesh was saying, just like define yourself or pick a lane in your category you can absolutely own and then all those other things tend to sort of come off that if we are going to have We are the most approachable brand in our category.

Ralph van Dijk: We are the most dynamic, the most, um, excited, the most energized, the most passionate or the most friendly. You know, find that tone of voice and then that'll impact what you write. Who voices what you write, the music you use, uh, and all those decisions kind of flow off that. But unless you have that really clear definition, then you're likely to be all things to all.

Ralph van Dijk: It will be just, you're going to be schizophrenic from one campaign to the next. The brand's not going to know who you are. And it's a small advertiser. You really want that compounding, um, effect of every campaign building on the last. And that's how you get that long term brand. Um,

James Lawrence: That's an awesome response, guys.

James Lawrence: I think anyone, cause the reality is, is you're going to have some smaller businesses where radio advertising or Spotify or YouTube are actually quite important channels for them based on the type of product or service that they're trying to market. So I think that's really good practical advice for smaller businesses.

James Lawrence: And then I think, um, just before we wrap up, I'd love just to get into measurement, like it is. Measurement in all marketing is kind of obviously, um, has been and will continue to be such a hot button issue. How do you go about trying to measure the effectiveness of this type of work?

Ralph van Dijk: Well, we use implicit behavioral research.

Ralph van Dijk: So, um, you know, with specific target audiences and the reason we do that is because we have to uncover the subconscious emotional response that people have to a sound. Um, We also measure implicit memorability, um, appeal, implicit brand association, uh, to make sure that the logos, uh, this is audio logo and to make sure that it's successfully expressing what that brand is.

Ralph van Dijk: But one of the most important questions is. Is it distinctive? Do you think of another brand when you hear this? And that's obviously something that we will make sure we avoid. But you just don't know. Sometimes when we're doing global jobs, um, there'll be a local brand that may just have some similarity to what we've created, in which case we may need to do a rearrangement or tweak for that market.

Ralph van Dijk: But there's, there isn't really a shortcut. To it, that's if you want to test it, you have to do it in that way. And that's the benefit of residents being connected to a global network, massive music. They have, um, tested so many, uh, categories and brands over the years and have a really like finely tuned process that we can tap into.

Ralph van Dijk: Um, and it doesn't mean that it's expensive. We can be very geographically specific in the testing, but it's a real benefit for us and our clients to be able to have that, um, you know, in available to them.

James Lawrence: That's really, really interesting. Um, guys, it's been awesome having you on the pod. I feel I've learned so much about an area that I honestly knew very, very little about before, um, doing the research for today.

We finish every episode of the pod with the question, what's your best piece of career advice that you'd give to a, to a marketer? Um, let's go. I don't know who wants to take the question first. Ramesh, Ralph.

Ralph van Dijk: Well, I think that, It's not just for marketers, but you know, in my, in my career, it's been really apparent the people that care for the job for the work they're doing and care for the brand they're working on just excel.

Uh, If you're in a job or working for a brand that you just don't feel a connection to, or the people that you're working with don't recognise the passion that you want to bring to it, then life's too short. Find, find that connection between the passion that you have for something and then your, your skill as a marketer.

Um, Yeah, it's just, you're going to find, it just means that your radar is constantly open for all influences when you're not necessarily in work during work hours. And it just makes it so much more fun. That's a great,

James Lawrence: great response. Find a job you love and you'll, you'll never work a day in your life. No, it sounds like it is, but yeah, I mean,

Ralph van Dijk: it doesn't mean you have to, you have to be used the brand necessarily, but you just got to feel something for it.

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's a good one.

Ramesh Sathiah: Yeah. Look, I would say, um, I've accidentally ended up being involved in marketing really, because I started off doing essentially music and sound working in studios and bands and then writing music for TV shows and then music for brands. I've loved learning more about marketing, to be honest.

And I've, that's one of the thing I've loved the most about sonic branding is learning about brands. Uh, but at the end of the day, I just love the craft of making music and sound for a function. So it doesn't matter what we're working on. Um, I enjoy solving those problems. So I'd say just, just, just soak yourself in the craft and what you do.

James Lawrence: Love it guys. Thanks so much for coming onto the pod.

Ramesh Sathiah: Absolute pleasure.