“If you're going to be doing a commercial, for example, for BMW, where people are spending a lot of money on a Seven Series and it's a luxury car, but then you hear the TV ad or the radio ad or wherever you're listening, and that sound isn't recorded at the highest quality. Like, your logical mind might not pick it up, but if it sounds a little tinny or it's too much of an echo, you pick that up, and that really does build into the overall feeling of the brand in terms of quality. There was an interesting example with Nissan. They launched one of the first electric vehicles a long time ago, and when they put it out into the market, they found that people felt that maybe it was a little flimsy, it didn't feel quite right, like, well made. So obviously they went in to fix their upholstery, and they started making things a little more high quality, and consumers are still saying, ‘I don't know what it is, there's something about this, it just doesn't feel like a quality vehicle.’ And what they did was they changed the audio. Through the speakers in the car, when you start it up, it will make a fake sound of the car starting up. And, all of a sudden, people are like, ‘ah, now it feels like a car.’” – Darren Borrino

This week’s guest is an art director at heart and an ECD-level creative with over twenty years experience, working all across the globe. He’s led teams at some of the world’s top agencies, such as TBWA, DDB, and Saatchi & Saatchi, and has won multiple awards for his work. He launched Inkfish, a boutique agency in New York that helps smaller challenger brands take on the big guys with sharper strategy, more disruptive creative, and budgets that go into the work, not overheads. He’s endlessly curious about what persuades the human mind, loves ideas that actually land, and believes that the best work comes from collaboration and clarity, as well as a healthy sense of humor.

His name is Darren Borrino, and in this episode, we’ll be discussing how companies can shake things up using sound, the difference between clever and persuasive, and how to stay relevant in a changing ad world – especially in the age of AI. Stay tuned for a Masterclass in being different!

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - The Power of Sound in Advertising

We start off our discussion with Darren’s childhood impressions of sound, which include the Universal audio logo when he and his dad used to watch movies. “You'd made it home, you'd finished everything you wanted to do,” he says, “and you could sort of relax with a little bit of popcorn and maybe watch a movie and just take it easy. So that was probably the first time.” Our discussion turns to audio branding in the age of social media, and just how quickly things move today – especially audience attention. “People switch off very quickly,” Darren explains. “So you need to make sure you have a brand that has the right qualities, and then you match that with the right voice to bring that to...

“The brief was ‘we want to sell some more train tickets to Germany, where you can go to Berlin for a techno party, you can go to Hamburg for the opera, have a famous opera in Hamburg, or you can go to Munich for the beer festival.’ And we made this audio journey with sound, and you definitely can hear, ah, now we’re in Berlin, it’s the opera, and now we go to Munich. So yeah, we can play with that. And the client just also loved the idea. It takes two to tango, as you say, the client also needs to value and understand if you want the effect of this. You need to work with this in an ambitious and professional way.” – Karsten Kjems

This episode is the second half of my conversation with audio branding specialist and founder and CEO of Sonic Minds Karsten Kjems, as we talk about the surprising value of silence in sound design, why familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt when it comes to sonic logos, and what it means to be a musician in a world where both instruments and vocals can come from a laptop.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - The Power of Sound Design

As the second half of our conversation starts, Karsten points out how effective sound design isn’t always intuitive, and that less is sometimes more. “I’ve played some gigs, sometimes for a reception,” he says, “and people were just talking and talking, and they didn’t listen to the music at all. But then suddenly if we start to play really soft, then people go, ‘oh, I think the band is playing.’” He adds that sonic interfaces today are, in some ways, reminiscent of the early days of web design. “In the old days, they had flashes and everything moving,” he recalls. “You know, now we just go back to ‘give me a simple burger menu,’ ‘click contact,’ or whatever. User usability is also very important.”

(0:06:41) - The Evolution of Sound Design

Our discussion turns to audio marketing, and Karsten points out how much of effective sonic branding depends on the demographics. “There has actually been a study for that, that shows that we create our musical preference, I think, when it’s between we are 17 and 21,” he says. “We’re about to get the first boyfriend or girlfriend, moving away from home, these really high peak moments in our lives.” We talk about AI in sound, and the direction he sees it taking in the industry. “It’s just like when the sampler came out,” he recalls. “’What should drummers do?’ And now the drummer plays on top of samplers, so every drummer has a sampler or a drum machine next to him, so he uses it as a tool.”

(0:20:22) - Quality Sound Design

As our conversation comes to a close, we talk more about the role of shifting demographics in sound design and how they impact not just relatability but the user’s experience. “If you’re having hearing loss or having, you know, difficult hearing,” Karsten notes, “then you don’t want products that really annoy you. You want to be able to understand them.” He shares some of his...

“If you can see that your product is selling better with better sounds, and it gets better reviews Actually, I saw a car review that scored the car better just because the sounds were better. He didn’t talk about how fast it could go, how fast it could brake or how many airbags, he talked about the user experience. A car today is a driving iPad on wheels. So, all these sounds here, I got so stressed from these beeps and boops, suddenly it was too close to the edge, or too close to that... sometimes there wasn’t even a thing, and it just starts to, what was that? Was a fly running through the camera? What was it? So, I think it’s so important that we also choose brands and products with our ears as well with our eyes, and also with our wallets.” – Karsten Kjems

This episode’s guest was raised in a musical home with a studio in the basement. He began drumming professionally at 23, and his passion for sound design and early use of digital audio tools like ProTracker on the Amiga shaped his approach to music and technology. While working at a branding agency, he noticed companies struggling to define their sonic identity, leading him to launch one of the first strategic audio branding agencies, Sonic Minds, in 2004. Today, he’s a recognized expert in the field, frequently speaking and teaching about sound design.

His name is Karsten Kjems, and you’ll want to hear more about his perspective on brand sounds, why he believes audio branding to be so important, and what sets good and bad sound apart. If you’re still on the fence about audio branding for your own company, or if you’re struggling to explain why it’s important to your clients, you should definitely check out this conversation.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - The Power of Sound in Branding

As we start things off, Karsten shares his early memories of sound, and how growing up with ADHD in a musical family shaped his formative years. “I was brought up in a family where my father was a drummer,” Karsten recalls, “so I’ve always been around musicians and music and the first time I really discovered that I had this almost perfect pitch was when I went to music school.” He explains how a surprising discovery at a concert led to his career in marketing and audio branding, and the seismic shift that the streaming era – and particularly the rise of YouTube – represented for the industry. “Suddenly brands and companies need to communicate in these spheres,” he tells us. “How did they do that? How did they choose music? How should they buy music? So it’s a whole new game, from only being on TV and radio to being on all the time, to keep… producing content all the time.”

(0:12:18) - Designing Meaningful Audio Branding Experiences

Our conversation turns to UX and branding through sound design, and Karsten points out how ubiquitous sound interfaces have become these days. “A headset, a modern headset, for whatever company, it can have up to around 15 different sounds,” he...

“If it’s stock music, unless you’re paying, like, some libraries have exclusivity, but most of them don’t. So that’s what I always say to clients, like stock music. You might hear that Joe’s ice cream shop also has the same music that you have. And you’re Chrysler – I keep saying Chrysler, but whatever, a big brand. A good example of an audio branding that we did was the Rogers. That was huge, and when we first did that, it was for a very close friend of mine, Philippe Garneau, and Mark’s brother, the astronaut, and he came to me, and he had the Rogers account. He said, ‘We want a mnemonic on the end of the spot, but we’re only going to use it for three commercials.’ And so they lost the business, and Rogers loved that mnemonic.” – Ted “Theo” Rosnick

This episode is the second half of my conversation with music and audio director/producer Ted Rosnick, as we discuss the use of AI, especially digital voice clones, in advertising, the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strike, and the unwritten rule voice artists follow when it comes to branding.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - Evolution of Music Production and AI

The second half of our conversation starts with Ted’s perspective on advertising in the 21st century, and one early trend that marked a turning point. “One of the main things I remember changing a lot was when Napster came along,” he recalls. “People could download a hundred songs in an hour, and I noticed it was, all of a sudden, we were expected to do seven or eight demos, because that’s what they were used to, like, pulling music down all night long and hearing their stuff.” We talk about digital studios and sound design, and how AI voice cloning has transformed the industry, including a recent commercial campaign that featured a synthetic likeness of a human actor. “We asked his permission,” Ted tells us, “and so we AI’d his voice, and it worked out really well. Nobody would know. I know the difference because I just know, but you wouldn’t know the difference.”

(0:10:42) - The Impact of AI on Creativity

Ted tells us about his experience with AI-assisted brainstorming and its limitations as a content writer. “I’ve written them and then thrown them into ChatGTP,” he explains, “and then said, ‘Can you just make it a little warmer?’ But the truth of the matter is that I’ve always gone back to my own, because I don’t think it’s as warm as or as good as what’s in here, you know.” We discuss what sets human and AI creativity apart, and how what makes a work human often comes down to the very things AI would try to fix. “A lot of it is that human subtleties are mistakes,” he tells us. “When you start tearing it down for the mix, you hear all sorts of mistakes. They’re not glaring mistakes that are going to ruin it, but they’re not perfect, and that’s what makes it human. And that’s what makes it great.”

(0:23:10) - The World of Audio Branding

Our conversation closes with some of Ted’s most...

“We did one for Mercedes, which again was very unique and very simple. It was about this guy Raymond who had never tried ice cream before. And it was a great commercial, and it talked about Raymond never having ice cream, and he waited, and he would watch other people have ice cream, and then one day Raymond decided to have ice cream. And then all of a sudden it cuts to a Mercedes logo. And then the last ten seconds, it was for Mercedes, but it was so well done and so unique, and the score was very, very, very unique.” – Ted “Theo” Rosnick

This episode’s guest returned to Toronto from Boston in 1974 after attending Berklee College of Music. He soon began working as a studio drummer, but his passion for audio production quickly led him to start his own jingle production company, Rosnick Productions, in 1975. Through hard work and dedication, he quickly established himself as Canada’s top audio producer and audio director for commercials. He went on to partner with Steve McKinnon in 1990, forming RMW Music, and the company remained the top music production company in Canada for decades before being sold to Vapor Music in 2016. Since that sale, he’s remained with Vapor as a Creative Director, continuing to bring his expertise and passion to many projects and to the industry. His work is recognized not just in Canada but globally, having shaped the sound of major brands like IKEA, Molson, Subaru, Mercedes, Peroni, and Heinz, among many others. Over his five-decade career, he’s earned hundreds of advertising awards for his music and sound design, always pushing creative boundaries with fresh ideas and meticulous attention to detail – all of which are things we definitely appreciate here.

Beyond advertising, he’s made his mark in sound design and music for feature films and documentaries, and he’s the executive producer and audio director of the well-known advertising podcast IOFA with Aaron Starkman. He’s also mentored countless emerging talents over the years, a role that he takes great pride in. Just this past February, he decided to retire from the advertising industry after an illustrious fifty-year career, and he now enjoys spending time at his cottage in northern Ontario with family and friends, playing the drums, and catching Raptors games.

His name is Ted, or “Theo,” Rosnick, and getting the opportunity to speak with someone who has such a rich knowledge of the advertising industry and how it’s evolved over the years – not to mention how much sound has played a part in that – is a real treat. If you want to know where advertising’s been, where it is now, and where it might be heading, this is a discussion you won’t want to miss.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - Legendary Marketing and Music Memories

Our conversation starts off with Ted’s early memories of sound, and it’s one a few guests have shared: The Beatles’ unforgettable performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. “I had never heard that kind of music before,” Ted tells us....

“There’s a quote from a famously terrible person, Thomas Jefferson, who said – I don’t particularly like him or a lot of the things he did, but I do agree with this, I do agree with this specific quote. ‘I will study war and strategy so that my children may study science and maths, so that their children may study art and poetry.’ I’m sure I’m butchering the exact quote, but the sentiment is there. Why are we creating robots to do art for us? Why do we not yet have something that can fold my laundry? Wouldn’t that be useful? That’s what I want. And at the end of the day, if I had to pick either having a robot to do my art for me so that I have time to fold my laundry, or having to do both, I’d rather do both. I’m fine living. I enjoy being alive and being a human. I don’t need a robot to take away what, to me, is the most human thing about us, which is that we can create.” – Benjamin Kapit

This episode is the second half of my conversation with Benjamin Kapit of Second World Entertainment as he shares some of the more obscure sounds that he’s turned into cinematic effects, discusses the ethics of AI training and what it gets right and wrong about human creativity, and the message he’d most like to share with future generations about the power of sound.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - Exploring Sound in Film Production

As our discussion begins, Benjamin shares more of his hands-on experience with audio production, from the studio apps and audio plugins he prefers to the challenge of bringing it all together in the film’s final cut. “You have to record sound and work with the sound props make,” he says, “the way that people talk, or rather who’s mic’d up in certain shots. You have to work with the edit. You have to have that somehow in your mind because you, the director, are the only one who really knows what it’s going to look like when it’s done.” He tells us about some of his more inventive sound sources, such as a microphone specifically tuned to record static. “When it comes to post-production,” Benjamin says, “especially sound,” I hate rules. I don’t want to do things the way that everyone else does. I don’t want to sit down and say, okay, well, this sound sounds like this, so it has to be this thing.”

(0:11:06) - Exploring AI in the Sound Industry

Benjamin and I talk about the groundbreaking audio work in sci-fi movies like Dune and Interstellar, and how they’ve inspired his approach to sound design. “It never really occurred to me that, like, oh, you can just mess with a synth or with a sound so much that it becomes something else,” he says about Interstellar’s distinctive soundscape. “You can completely shift the tone and the meaning behind audio and make it yours and make people think, yeah, this is this other thing and it’s not.” Our conversation turns to AI’s transformative role in the industry, and his concern that the distinction between different forms of AI, and the question of

“If you have a screen that goes very bright white or if you have a screen that goes very dark, people can deal. Their eyes will adjust, or they’ll just accept that. But if you have bad sound, people will leave. They’ll turn off the movie. If they have to be adjusting the volume, if they have to adjust the volume of a video more than like two times, they’re very likely to leave. If the sound is just, like, bad audio and they can’t understand it, they won’t follow what’s going on. They’ll leave. So even from that most basic perspective, just passable good audio is more important than passable good visuals, because people can forgive bad visuals. But they cannot and will not forgive bad sound, because bad sound hurts.” – Benjamin Kapit

This episode’s guest is a filmmaker, composer, and sound designer who started his production company at the age of fifteen. He’s currently in post-production for multiple short films and web shows, and he’s working on his fifth vocal album. His name is Benjamin Kapit, and our two-part conversation covers a wide range of sound-related issues when it comes to creativity. Stay tuned for more insights into, among other things, what it was like starting his sound career at such a young age, the balancing act of creating sound-based art and film in the age of AI, and his approach to movie soundtracks.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - Exploring Sound, Film & Autism

As our discussion begins, Benjamin shares his early memories of sounds and how his older brother’s musical talent inspired his own career path. “We had an upright piano,” he recalls, “and eventually got a baby grand, and my house growing up was constantly filled with music, and I look up to my brother so much because he’s the one that got me into piano.” He talks about his autism diagnosis and how being on the spectrum can be a double-edged sword when it comes to filmmaking. “I see a lot of the work that I do as a puzzle,” he explains, “and so, you know, despite the shortcomings of it, I’m able to utilize whatever’s going on in my brain to actually end up helping the work that I do.”

(0:11:30) - Creativity in Sound Design and Film

The topic turns to cinematic audio and the challenge of inventing whole new sounds that have no counterpart in the real world. “How do you approach making a sound for, you know, shooting magic out of their wand,” he says, “because that’s not a real thing. So what do you do for it? Do you go for the more realistic element, or do you head towards, like, complete synthesis?” We discuss film scores and their role in shaping not only the narrative but also the performances. “One of my shortcomings is communication,” Benjamin tells us, “and if I can’t get an idea or the feeling of a scene out verbally to an actor, I bet I can do it with music. So I’ll write pieces before I even get on set that I can hand to the actor and say, ‘This is how this scene should feel.’ Then we’ll be able to discuss it...

“And then his youngest daughter, who’s six years old, comes up, and she’s into gymnastics and she’s kind of cartwheeling around the room while everyone else is playing. And then, ‘All right, she’s going to play you a song.’ And she comes up, and she’s all full of beans, and then she sits down and she plays the most somber Debussy song. And it was, like, there was so much soul in what she played for a six-year-old. I’m like, ‘whoa!’ Like, the amount of depth in what she did was, like, whoa! ‘You are, like, a wise young girl.’ That’s an old soul. And I looked at him, and he’s crying. And then at the end of this evening, we again get to talking about AI, and he was asking, this comes full circle, this is the reason I bring this story up, is he’s invested heavily in various different AI projects. And one of them is this company that’s gonna be, like, a prompt and then it makes music. And he said, ‘Well, you know it’s cool, but are you not worried about AI, like, taking you out?’ And I was like, ‘Well, do you think I should be? You probably know better than me.’ And he said, ‘Well, you know, AI can do exactly what she just did, just so you know, like right now, I could get AI to play that song and it can play it perfectly.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but would it make you cry?’" – Stephen Ridley

This is the 300th episode of Audio Branding: The Hidden Gem of Marketing, and my conversation with international pianist and founder of the Ridley Academy, Stephen Ridley, continues as we discuss why Stephen prefers live performances to studio recordings, the school he’s now running to help others find their own passion for music, and the one song he’s vowed to never play on the piano.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:01) - The Future of Creativity and AI

The second half of our conversation picks up with Stephen’s illuminating discussion of AI with a billionaire tech investor, and where he sees AI leading us in the future. “There are a lot of things in life where we don’t necessarily need to put ourselves into it,” he explains. “They don’t require our imagination, creativity, any spiritual anything. Those things probably can be replaced by AI.” We discuss AI’s limitations as a way of conveying emotion, and where the new economy might lead us once machines are handling the busy work. “I actually think the future economy will be heavily into creativity, and into art,” Stephen adds, “since I think that’s exactly where culture will go.”

(0:07:16) – The Unique Power of Live Entertainment

Stephen recalls his brief and unexpected foray into iTunes after discovering that a record label had uploaded his music without permission. “They’re like, ‘Okay, if you don’t like it, sue us.’ And obviously I wasn’t in a position to do that, and they have all the money in the world,” he explains. “So I was like, ‘Okay, well, I can’t do that, but what I can do is remove it. So I just removed it.” He talks about why, even though he’s starting to return to social