In this week’s episode, Eric talks to the brains behind one of the world’s biggest brands, Shell. Jane Keate, Shell’s Global Brand Standards and Assurance Manager, and Dean Aragón, CEO & Vice Chairman of Shell Brands International, explain how a brand as massive and recognizable as Shell connects to its employees, customers and external stakeholders through its all-in approach to sonic branding, and how building a distinctive yet flexible sound helps deepen and humanize the brand’s identity while also fulfilling marketing’s ROI goals.
These sonic branding insights apply to all businesses, not just those with deep histories and pockets. Learn how and where to start, and how sonic branding will help your brand resonate with more people.
Listen to the wide range of Shell’s sonic branding for yourself:
- Epic, power (Shell V-Power)
- Calm, reflective (Shell Strategy Day)
- Positive, uplifting (Nature-based Solutions)
- Power, drama (Shell Advance Power)
Watch the Sound of Shell show reel here, and watch the Making of the Shell Sonic Brand here.
To end today’s episode, Eric talks to Paul Skinner of Marketing Kind, a community of marketers and change-makers who believe marketing and narrative-building can be an important part of the solution to the many societal and environmental problems we face. Working with Ian Goldin, former VP of the World Bank, Marketing Kind will ask in the new year, can we rescue humanity? Follow Paul on LinkedIn to learn more about Marketing Kind’s gatherings. In this month’s Coffee with a Cause, on Friday, 26th November, Eric will host a gathering with Matthew Powell of Breaking Barriers, to help refugees gain the skills they need to secure longer term employment.
Transcript
Dean: As a human being, what do I connect with. And it's not a very far conclusion, the reach the sights and sounds, and potentially even, you know, smells and texture are a very important way to connect. So to me, don't look ahead, in fact, look behind. And also but more important than you look inside.
Eric: I'm Eric Fulwiler. And this is scratch, bringing your marketing lessons from leading brands and brains rewriting the rulebook from scratch for the world of today.
Eric: In today's episode, I talked to Dean Aragon, CEO and vice chairman of Shell brand and Jane Keate global brand standards and Assurance Manager at Shell about how they developed the sound of Shell. And the thing I find really fascinating about this episode is not just how much work went in to developing it, but also how it was just as important, especially for Jane in her role to actually get people bought in and onboard with using the sonic brands. And so that's a fascinating part of the conversation. The other part that I really love is, we really talk about how any brands in any business can and should just get started looking into what a sonic brand, a sonic version of their brand should be. And it actually really helped me because I always thought this was the realm of very big companies with very big budgets. But you'll hear from both Jane and Dean, that there are opportunities to just kind of get started getting started billing no matter what your budget is, or how big your team is. So hope you enjoyed today's episode would love to hear what you thought. Let's give it a listen.
Hello, Dean. Hello, Jane. How are you doing today?
Dean: Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having Jane and I here
Jane: Good to be here
Eric: So let's start with a little bit about you just to set the scene give our audience a little bit of context on who you are. Jane, do you want to go first maybe tell people a little bit about your background a little bit about your role overall at Shell.
Jane: Sure. So I I sit in beans brand team and I my role is basically about delivering brand standards, which guide how the shell brand is physically experienced around the world through the senses. So visually, of course, the traditional logos, colours, fonts, imagery movement, but increasingly, as we'll be talking about much more sophisticated areas like sound, olfactory tactile, you know what material shapes movements defines our shell brand. And then those brands are deployed across the vast scope and scale of the shell brand, anything from packaging, to digital, from communications to EV charges. So it's a huge beast to manage and keeps me and my team super busy.
Eric: I can imagine how much of your role, I'm curious how much of your role is setting the standard or creating the audio logo, like we're going to talk about today versus the assurance or I'd imagine there's a quality control portion of it as well.
Jane: So I'd say the huge bulk of my role is the implementation of it, working with the businesses to understand the standards intrinsically buy into the standards, you know, we don't want to do it by rulebook and then helping them apply it sort of creatively and with lots of flex, but delivering a sort of coherent brand experience across everything that we do. And the assurance side is not so sexy, it's the sort of checks and balances that a brand and a company like Shell has to have in place to check how our brand and trademarks, you know, the trademark aspects of this are actually being used. And you know, a logo is a trademark, but a sound brand is also trademarked. So yeah, that's less less sexy, but also very important part of the job, and then I standards kind of evolve at different paces. So you know, our vehicles may be around for you know, a couple of decades, but our communications and our digital, you know, the standards for that need to evolve pretty regularly to stay, you know, ahead of head of trends and anticipate what's happening with channels and digital media.
Eric: Yeah, and you know, what's interesting is obviously, you know, a brand like Shell, a business at the scale that shell is, Has someone like you in what is a very important role. But every business because we have people listening from all sizes of organisations and marketing roles, every business has someone who has to play, if they're doing it, right has to play the function and have the role that you have, they just might not be full time doing that somebody has to be responsible for setting the standards and overseeing the implementation of how the brand comes to life.
Great. So Dean, tell us a little bit about you and your role at Shell.
Dean: I'm essentially the brand guy of shell. So I look after everything that pertains to the shell brand overall across the business across all the countries in our ecosystem. That means principally looking after brand strategy, brand communications and engagement but also some enabling Centres of Excellence such as digital and social media, looking after our own channels, channels strategy, content effectiveness, but also one of the world's best creative agencies, except that it only sells services one client, it's our internal creative solutions unit and making sure that we understand the real insights of the heart of our customers and stakeholders. I also look after insights and analytics.
Eric: So let's dive into it. The question I always like to ask first, before we get into the nitty gritty of, you know, what this initiative was all about, and the results that it drove. What was the problem that you were trying to solve? When you kicked this off? Jane, maybe we'll go to you because I think this actually started before Dean's time there. So Jane, what was the actual marketing or business challenge that you were looking to solve with us? So yeah, it was multiple strands to that.
Jane: So I don't know that there was a burning platform that was a problem that we needed to solve. But I think there would have been had we not been addressing Sonic strategy by 2021. But back in 2013, when we started thinking about it, it was very much about the opportunity area. So we had this incredibly strong, powerful, but pretty visual centric brand. And there's an opportunity we knew to extend that into sound. It was fairly nascent at that time, I guess.
Jane: But we could see the way the world was moving to develop a much more sensorial. We know that music is very closely associated with emotions. And we knew that was part of our strategy to build much more human connections and and a humanised approach to the shell brand. But also, I guess, problem solving. I think the the money that was being spent on music rights on sound libraries, was was a definite, you know, that's an ongoing imperative for any business to look at opportunities to save cost. But that wasn't the driver. The driver was absolutely brand building the opportunity area humanising the brand.
Dean: By the time I came in, it was definitely something that I was very fortunate to be inheriting as a project. Because I clearly had an agenda from the get go about humanising the shell brand, and humanising the shell brand means having a very clear sensorial strategy that extends beyond visual identity. So, as human beings, you know, we are drawn not only to sites, but also the sounds. And if you want to extend even beyond that, you know, things that we smell and things that we touch. So the combination of sight and sound, was going to be quite a powerful, indelible aspect or manifestation of our brand of our brand identity of our brand, personality. And if you'd like the personification of the shell brand.
Eric: Yeah. And I do, going back to what Jane was talking about in terms of the money saved on licensing. That was something to be honest, I didn't even consider. And I have a quote here from a Forbes article that covered the sonic branding work that you've done that said that to date, it has saved the company 10s of millions of dollars in licensing fees, which I think is really fascinating, because for me, having been around Sonic branding for a while, at least the last five years, I feel like it's become a little bit more mainstream. Obviously, it's been around for a while, jingles are not the same as Sonic branding. But that idea of connecting with the consumer and representing the brand through sound is nothing new. But the question that always comes up in my mind, and that, you know, I'd love to dig into a little bit further is really about that ROI. And Sonic branding as something that I'd love to understand a little bit more of how it actually drives the marketing objectives and business results of the shell brand. So maybe taking it down to level two, how is this actually used besides saving the company money on licencing fees? How is this actually used in a way that helps to drive the growth of the business?
Dean: You mean, I think for me, the before we even get to the commercial return on investment, I think by employing a very consistent sound scape, which is beyond just your mnemonic signature, the end, you're really building and compounding, the the accumulation of you know, identity aspects that just enrich and deepen the brand. And so if you allow the flexibility as well for different topics, tones, cultural nuances, ethnic nuances, then you can really flex it, rather than become a very, very narrow template, while still adding you know, it's a game of addition, I suppose to what what if you just keep on employing whatever is the popular song of the day or random set of sounds that may be relevant to the particular creative execution but doesn't really add to the brand equity, then that's a very clear myth. So I consider that the biggest return on investment is strategic return on investment. And of course, commercially, there's also real return on investment as what Jane was saying through cost avoidance, but not just in, in usage right, but the also in having to commission original soundtracks that, again, may not even be additive to the brand equity.
Jane: That sound very rarely appears on its own. So it's quite difficult to isolate the impact of sound because it's always there at an event or over a TVC with other content and visuals going on. But we have, as you'd expect, done some research. I think we did it in China, South Africa, USA, UK to look to make sure mnemonic and our music is memorable, that it's likeable, that when people hear it, they fit it to our defined brand personality. So we do do check ins like that, to ensure that it's taking our brand in the right direction that we want to go with holistically with with our brand identity, and that it's been said, humanising and driving us forward.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, I think that's great, because I think, a very big marketing team of a very big brand. There's these things that we see from the perspective of marketers, and I think it's always important to connect it to actually the perspective and experience of the customer as well. So seeing how that actually translates into the experience that people are having with the brand. And what that means for their perception or behaviour around it, I think is always key with something like this, that is maybe not kind of like the bread and butter of what most people would consider marketing. But I think increasingly, like we're going to talk about with the way the world is going, it will be.
So let's, I guess that was a pretty big preamble. But let's get the broad strokes of actually this initiative. So it kicked off a while ago, there's a video that we'll share in the show notes, I think does a great job of kind of telling the case study and all the different components of it. But Jane, do you want to give us maybe a you know, a minute or two overview of actually how you kick this off? Who was involved and how you actually develop the sound of shell?
Jane: Sure. So yeah, the journey journey started, shall a while now started back in 2013. When we first conceptualised this, and we spent over a year doing a very deep audit into our musical DNA our past we've got a very rich heritage with music. Then forming that into a brief for composers, we went very far and wide with composers I think we started with around 40 from all around the world, narrowed down to four, which we then briefed to do compositions which we then tested around the world, as well as internally to make sure that it fitted with our brand strategy. And we landed on Tom how you feel. See in the video, he's the type is a young up and coming la based composer, I think he did British Bake Off and is doing music, film scores and TV scores in the US.
And he was the the judge with the right music that really embodied our brand in the realm of sound, which led in 2015, to the epic day that Dean and I were both lucky enough to be up and we recorded the sound of shell in studio, one of Abbey Road, which is the same studio that Star Wars and the big orchestral works are recorded. And that was the starting point. So if you imagine that's the trademark, the original piece of music, but of course, we were never going to go and take that and slap that across all of the brand and musical experiences that that represent the shell brand. So that's really when the implementation journey started. But broad brushstrokes. That's the journey to launch, Shall I carry on to implementation?
Eric: Yeah, please
Jane: Sure. So yeah, that's where the implementation journey really began. Because then Dean was on board for that point. And we were in a room together selecting the mnemonic because the the long form piece had various phrases that we could have chosen as the mnemonic device, and Dean and I remember that day where we sat and listened to them all and selected the mnemonic device, which is the most other pectin in sound, logo in sound. And then, yeah, we, one of the big challenges was getting to a critical mass quite quickly of enough different variants of the long form music, that we could apply it to the vast scale, scale and scope. So the music at Shell has got to go from V power, you know, powerful testosterone type communications, right to sensitive communications to selling coffee to experiences and events and our CEO. So we had to get quite quickly to enough variance that all of our brand users around the world would buy into this. You can imagine the 1000s of brand users we have in Shell, we have our colleagues, we have hundreds of agencies, we have, you know, hundreds of third party companies, distributors, licensees, who all produce branded experiences on behalf of shell so awareness by in helping them implement it effectively with the right tonality. That's and that's not a one off task. That is because with churning agencies with Shell people moving to new roles, that's an ongoing challenge to make them aware of all the other areas of brand identity wear buy into it intrinsically understand how to use it effectively to build the brand experience rather than just slapping the music on. So we now have a massive sound library with 600 variants of the long form music from sensitive violins to Epic rock to brass bands. And lots of variants. They called stems and music, but sort of layers of music. So if you like that track, but you don't like the claps, or the drums or whatever, then you can, you can take those off. And you can browse that like a like a good music library can browse it by genre, or mood or tone, or beats per minute, all sorts of technical things as well. But the mnemonic device, which I'm sure dean will talk about as well is the one where we're much more singular in approach. So we wanted a wide, lot of flex, because we need it at Shell for the long for music, but the mnemonic device though doo doo doo doo doo that you will typically hear a company that pectin at the end of films and social content, we were much more single minded in that we started with three, we're currently at nine because we've it's very singular in its approach, but it's just different instrumentations, a lot of natural sounding instruments, guitar and piano and cello, and then some more powerful ones for the the the brands and product areas that need that. I'll take a pause for breath.
Eric: It's a fascinating, I can't even wrap my head around how many different just layers and components there are to what you were talking about. I want to go off script for a second, actually and ask a non sound a shell related question just because hearing your talk. One of the questions I get a lot and one of the things that I sometimes will help other marketers with, is how do you get buy in for the things that you want to do? And just hearing your, like, you talked about how many 1000s of people that are that you need to get on board with something like this? I'm just curious whether it's specific to the sound of shell, or just in your experience, you know, spending more than a decade having to do this, how do you go about getting buy in from people that, you know, you might not know, or might not work with that closely?
Jane: Yeah, I think it's identifying the shared agenda. So people are in roles, they've got a job to deliver, they want to sell more product, they want to get eyeballs, they want to do whatever they need to do in their job. And it's a sales role from my team's perspective and helping them understand how a cohesive, well delivered. Shell brand can help them do that. So it's, you know, try to there has to always be a little bit of policing, because you work for Shell. And because that is our policies, you know, there's a little bit of that. But the more you can get hearts and minds buy in, by helping them see the bigger picture, because often they're in their pockets of the world or their pockets of shell. But if they can buy into what we're trying to achieve as a brand, and what their role is in helping us deliver that, then it's usually fairly straightforward to find a shared agenda there. I think the challenge in Shell is just the scale of it. So as you said, We are a large team. But, you know, for the 1000s of users around the world, it's it's, you know, I'd love to be able to have face to face conversations with all of them every week. And that's not possible. So we have to do have to rely on channels and websites and policies and documents and checking processes. But yeah, hearts and minds buying as much as we can and helping them see how the shell strong shell brand helps them succeed. And it's a symbiotic relationship. They're drawing from the bank of the shell brand every day with what they do, and helping them understand how they need to pay back to the shell brand. So I think that's a well established principle and shall as well that's interesting.
Eric: That's really interesting. Thanks for that. So should we listen to a little bit of it? What What should we listen to first? I know there was a couple things we were gonna play right now
Jane: With the the main or pastoral work the original Abbey Road work. Let's hear it
[music]
Eric: So let's listen to a couple of variations, you have a couple of variations that you're gonna play as well.
Jane: So we're gonna hear two extremes, we'll hear an epic rock track that we would typically use for say Motorsports and then a more sensitive violence that we might use for the future or corporate communications or human story. So have a listen.
[music]
Eric: Great, thanks for that. So, Dean, I'd love to pick up with you, you are the shell brand guy. I'd love to hear a little bit from your perspective on the future implications not just for Shell, but also for all brands, given the rise of voice and sound, you know, in car technology, home devices, IoT, everything that is coming in, I always think of that, quote, The future is already here. It's not evenly distributed yet, like this stuff is here in terms of people experiencing brands through sound, it's just a question of whether brands have the resource and you know, progressiveness to take advantage of it. So from your perspective, what is the future implication for any marketer or any brand, when it comes to Sonic branding and audio?
Dean: The future is not in front of us, the future is inside of us. This whole area of Sonic branding isn't really new. The power of sound isn't really new. In a music sound has always been with us since the since the dawn of civilisation. And that's how we communicate. That's how we evoke feelings. That's how we emote with each other. That's how we connect and engage powerfully, profoundly at the very human level. And brands, frankly modern brands at least are just discovering its power. But many of the brands like we have been around for over 100 years, but we've we have a rich history of of music, you know, we had Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and many other you know, shall we say, artists that we would have been associated with, just three years ago, we had, you know, Jennifer Hudson, Pixie Lott DJ, okay, and some regional stores in Brazil and in Africa. And so it's just a matter of really saying, Well, how if I work to humanise the brand, and why is it important humanise the brand because he wanted to connect with humans, whatever your business, whether it's b2c, or b2b, they're all business to humans or brands for humans, then you have to really look inside as to Well, I as a human being, what do I connect with. And it's not a very far conclusion, to reach the sights and sounds, and potentially even smells and texture are a very important way to connect. So to me, don't look ahead, in fact, look behind, and also but more importantly, look inside.
Eric: And so are there other other things you have planned on this Sonic roadmap? Are there other, not just implementations, but anything else you can speak of that you're planning to do in the future in this area?
Dean: We just want to keep on driving it right? Because I think although Jane and the team have been masterful, you know, really, you know, soliciting and securing buy in, across the company, not in a not in a non aggressive way, but in a way that really allows them to realise why this is a strategic must when we do want to really drive it consistently. And that's why there is this breadth of possibilities, because that lowers the hurdle for adoption. But at the same time, we want to we want each of them to understand that it's there really are no exceptions. We all need to be in it to drive it successfully. And sometimes it requires lots of conversations with creative agencies, because the creative partners and we all understand this want to be doing something special and something that's really flexing their creative muscle goes to show how great they are. But we say, yeah, that's all great. But you don't have to invent something in this area, because this is our identity. And you don't get to play beyond what our identity is about. We cannot be someone we're not. And therefore, there's a bit of herding in the bit of education. Jane, would you agree, we still, we still, today have to educate our creative partners that this is not stifling creativity, if anything, this allows them to focus on creativity of the main body of work, but allow this to, you know, to indelibly identify as a shell. And what makes shell shell
Jane: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's it's human nature and probably particularly amongst creatives and agencies to want novelty to have ultimate creative freedom. And you know, if they work with Shell for a while, I think it's it's they get, just like the colour palettes, you know, they use an artistic Shelley a logo and the shell music again, but our audiences don't our audiences don't see your shell yellow and and hear our music every day. So we have to have some elements that have longevity and consistency. And a key part of that is leadership. So I'll just give Dean A shout out here that I think you need. I think one of the keys to success at the sound of show is that you've got to have strong leadership that will back you when needed when you're having those tough conversations with, you know, internally and with the big agency partners as well. But just to add to Dan's point about implementation, I think we've done some awesome stuff with implementation. And we've obviously gone for the for the big comms, the experiential, the digital and social. And that's kind of the low hanging fruit in a sense, as well. But there's so much more opportunity, even just for the music. You know, what sounds might there be across the four courts, or the mnemonic when you open the forecourt door? In our real estate spaces in our offices? How is the opportunity to build brand in an appropriate way in different areas in our offices? In telephony, we know we still have massive call centres at Shell and music playing and all sorts of different places that, you know, the resource first has been focused on that that big comms and big brand expressions, but there's all sorts of things that we could be doing and as different channels emerge, that's huge. And music is only one aspect of sound branding. So our focus at the moment is rounding that into a more fully developed soundscape, which includes the voice of shell. So what is the human voice that represents the shell brand and it won't just be one voice, but what is the territory for the right shell human voices when which as as for the implications for Shell brand black shell, which is so visual, when in the future brands will increasingly be experienced, either with sound as part of the experience or sound is the only part of the experience? And how do we make sure that we are in the right territory and have attributable aspects to voice and then sound effects. So those are the functional sound effects when you're in a loyalty app to ambient background to what is the sound of Evie charging, you know, outgrowth of our Evie business we're getting into? Well, we've already been in coffee a long time, but the launch of Shell Cafe is a much you know, barista premium experience. What are the sounds associated with that? So I think music we've we've gone a long way but voice and and soundscape will we'll be adding to that to create a really rounded sound of shell.
Eric: Yeah, so interesting. It's one of those things, I mean, even as a marketer, you don't you just saying the word soundscape and explaining, you know, laying out some of those examples, you just kind of realise how massive that is, and how fun it is.
Dean: It's a fascinating space. And maybe we can also play later on, on exam if we keep on innovating, right, because it's, it's rich and potential. And maybe we can also play the sound of shall as us as deployed in for instance, the the latest campaign we did for the brand in India, where the Indian artists, actually some the notes that the five notes in the names of the notes in Hindi. And that was the that was a first for us as well. And it gave it a little, not only a rich sound, but a real local routing. Because remember one thing, one of the reasons we were doing this with such flexibilities, all of our customers, all of our stakeholders are very local. You know, we don't believe that we have global or international customers. And so the trick is, we're also wired to allow that local nuancing that local routing, but again, they all connect to a singular sense of identity.
Eric: Yeah, and I will say we're going to try to include as many examples as possible in the show notes if people want to go check out other iterations and manifestations of the sound a shell. So I know that we're coming up on time I want to try to point this now a little bit more towards our audience and some things that they can really take away and try to apply to their own business. So, Dean, maybe let's start with you. But I'm curious. So shell, you know, one of the biggest brands in the world, you know, marketing budgets that can allow for an initiative like this over the amount of time and space that it took, at what stage? Should a business be thinking about sound? Is it every business now and they just do it to a smaller degree? Because they're not able to do it the way that you were? Or is there a certain stage at which this should factor in how, where should sound fit in a modern market or set of priorities?
Dean: Yeah, to be honest, I should have intervened when we were characterising this as something that a big brand and the big company like Shell was doing, because I think that could be a head fake. In that, some may conclude that well, if I'm if my business isn't as big and isn't, as you know, as vast the shelves, then maybe this is not for me. If if you go back to the bare essentials of a brand and brand needs to connect with its human stakeholder, his human customers, consumers and users, you need to pull every lever possible to be able to do that. And that's why for me Sight Sound, and whatever other sensorial aspects may be pertinent to your to your marketing next year offered your product, your solutions, is really crucial. And so it doesn't really matter what size of the businesses or whether your brand is emerging or popular, I would even say, start it started right from the very beginning. And bring all the fundamentals into place from the very beginning. Of course, it's understandable that there are certain limits to what you can afford. But make your sense of identity, your brand identity, a very rounded one that isn't relying on only one lever, enrich it, deepen it, because that layering will make it a far more interesting brand to connect with from the perspective of your customers and stakeholders.
Eric: And there there any, you know, in doing this work or being in this space, any resources or tactic suggestions that you'd have for marketers that maybe aren't going to have a big budget to go hire an agency or compose their own score? Like, is there any way to kind of get started getting started with something like this, if they do believe in the theory of what you said, but need a little bit more help on the tactics of how to do it?
Dean: That's a very tough question to answer, which will, I'm going to rely on Jane.
Jane: So I'd start with I mean, brands will use sound whatever size whether whether they're managing it in a coherent way or not. So I'd start with an audit of how you use sound and apply an 80/20 rule, you know, what is the biggest applications of sound that you have, where there is an opportunity area, to build attribution alongside your other brand assets. I mean, if you've got a visual identity, and you've managed to pay for that, I don't see why you wouldn't have sound components to that. And it's a bit like designing a logo, you can do that for $10 with a student or 10 million with the top agency. And similar similar with sound I think the you know, composing the soundtrack that fits your brand you can you know, that can be done with a freelancer right up to your top agencies depending on what you need. But it's not just music, it's it's soundscape. It's, you know, if you're big in digital, what are the sounds that go with gestures and haptics? And that could be own-able in your space, but I would say audit where you use sound? Or could you sound and apply an 80/20 Rule into into what what the opportunity areas are, and stock Starcraft and start working with that I think there's something that you can be playful and change quickly, I think are the things if you want to build a long term thing, like a logo or a sonic Sonic identity, you need to invest a bit in and make sure that it's got some longevity, you don't want to change in every few months.
Dean and Eric: Yeah
Dean: Jane makes a really great point. And it just brings to mind. If I were a small brand, let's say I'm a startup. And I want to talk about my origin story or my provenance, it may be a good idea to start with, who are the musicians, emerging musicians, or even just student musicians from your place of origin from the from the town where you found it and and have that as a defining a defining sort of manifestation of your your story if your narrative. So we just chose to work with, of course, a top Hollywood sort of musical score and record it in Abbey Road, but you don't have to the cost that weren't as much as you might think.
Dean: I mean, it wasn't in the in the millions for that at all. And for Shell scale, the payback was pretty quick. I understand for smaller companies, it wouldn't necessarily be but I think it's Yeah, balancing that, what you're going to invest with what it will deliver and what stage your business is at
Eric: Yep, yeah. And what I loved about what you said Jane and actually really helped me because as you can tell with the way I've kind of been framing this up, I guess I even thought, okay, sawn sound Sonic branding. That's more of the realm of big company. I've done it with kind of, you know, smaller size companies as well. But I really liked what you said, Jane, about, like, Hey, you could just go, you know, could be anywhere from 10 to 10 million, you could go find somebody, my mind actually went to Fiverr. Could you find a composer on Fiverr, or something like that, but I think the you know, the first principle for me is, if you believe that sound is a relevant and important dimension of your brand, which hopefully this conversation today has helped convince people, if they weren't already there, you know, what gets prioritised gets done. So if you think it's important enough, you'll find a way to get it done with the budget and the time that you have. So that was really helpful. Before we wrap Jane, any other lessons learned or anything else that you want to share? from this kind of case study before we wrap up?
Jane: So yeah, we've covered the sort of human and creative you know, getting over that hurdle and having enough flex for people to do what they need to with a sound brand. And keep it human as well. I think one of my proudest moments with the sound of Shell wasn't the big TVCs and the global reach stuff, it's we launched the sound of Shell ringtones for Christmas and in for internally for our colleagues and hearing shelter. phones ringing around the office, not just from brand colleagues, but others too, with, you know, people wanting to use the sound of shell for their ringtones was was, you know, a hugely powerful moment. So I think, get your colleagues on board, have the conversations help people understand what this can do for a brand alongside the other elements of the brand identity mix, go have fun with it.
Eric: Great, Dean, anything else out from you,
Dean: think just make it a very human experience for the for your brand. And sound will enrich that sensorial experience of the of your brand. And, and I think that will, as I keep on saying perhaps to repetitively it can only pay dividends. Because as humans, we are hardwired to connect with things that are human like. And therefore, if we humans relate to humans, because they we can see them, we can hear them, we can feel them. Brands are no different. And therefore an AI would really invest in defining the character of your brand, the personality traits of your brand, and use these and Soryo levers to manifest this character. in this personality
Eric: Great. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining me. So it's really interesting conversation. Where can people find out more about the sound of shell, if they want to explore it, we'll drop this in the show notes. But what's the best place to go check all this out?
Dean: So yeah, check out our YouTube channel, see the link. And you'll be able to see the breadth and the diversity and different ways that we've used the sound of show.
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Eric: Right, so today, I am talking to Paul Skinner, founder of marketing kind, which is an organisation that I've been somewhat a part of, I'd love to have more time to be more involved, but I really love what you guys are about and what you're up to. So Paul, first, tell us in the audience, what is marketingkind
Paul: marketingkind is a community of marketers, business leaders, and changemakers, who believe that marketing can be a bigger part of the solutions to today's problems.
We launched it in October of last year. So it's partly come about in response to the pandemic in a very rising sense of sort of urgency of social need today, amid dealing with a pandemic, recovery from the pandemic, the climate, emergency, collapse of biodiversity, all of the many interconnected problems that we're going to have to face in the coming years. And so we really are a community of people who believe that marketing is an important part of addressing this.We launched it in October of last year. So it's partly come about in response to the pandemic in a very rising sense of sort of urgency of social need today, amid dealing with a pandemic, recovery from the pandemic, the climate, emergency, collapse of biodiversity, all of the many interconnected problems that we're going to have to face in the coming years. And so we really are a community of people who believe that marketing is an important part of addressing this.
Eric: Amazing. And so you talk a little bit already about why you started it, but I guess, what's the vision for the future marketing kind where you try to take it?
Paul: Well, essentially, if we think about those kinds of problems, then more even than money more even than technology, solving them depends on finding effective forms of human cooperation. So actually, we see the most pressing global priorities and even local problems is essentially being marketing briefs in disguise. And so at marketingkind going we try and address those briefs and so we understand first of all, people can make a big difference on these issues through the day job. And so we coach and support each other in becoming more conscious, impactful change makers across all of the change that we lead.
Of course, we can't solve these problems just through the day job. So we also extend into volunteering work and our good citizenship. And we have gatherings are designed specifically to support our members in working together to improve the outcomes of inspiring charities and social enterprises every month, we're working with you on a very inspiring charity this month that helps refugees, better access gainful employment in London. And so through that stream of activity, we help marketers build a powerful portfolio of achievements in addressing social and environmental issues. And then thirdly, our third main stream is that we recognise that a lot of these problems actually, the systems that we are a part of the bigger systems that were a part of themselves shaped by narratives, even a disaster or an emergency, usually, the direct impact is relatively small compared to the total impact that is driven by the narratives that shape how we anticipate it, prevent it, and mitigate, adapt to it, recover from it, and so on. So these narratives are incredibly important. And we support our members in really working with their heroes working with global changemakers. In addressing systemic systemic issues. We've worked with Seth Godin, on reimagining marketing, we've worked with the Harvard economist Rebecca Henderson on building resilience. We work with people like Sir Tim Smith, founder of the Eden Project on building alternatives to and for capitalism. There are very few questions that are too daunting for us to take on. In fact, in the new year, we're even raising the question of can we rescue humanity, working with Ian Goldin, who was vice president of the World Bank, he was a presidential adviser to Nelson Mandela, and has rather helpfully written a book called rescue that will be our segue into the topic of working together on that big challenge.
Eric: Amazing. Well, nobody can accuse you of making small, that's for sure. And I'm really excited and grateful that I am liable or some small part, what you're doing. So thank you for everything you do. Thanks for it's been great kind of getting to know you a little bit. And thanks for having us involved. Last thing, where can people find out more?
Paul: Well, definitely come to our website. So marketingkind.org. Some of our exchange gatherings are open to guests as well. So follow me on LinkedIn and you will no doubt get some invitations to some exciting gatherings that way. And there is also a membership application on the website.
Eric We'll drop those in the show notes for today's episode. All right, Paul, thanks so much for coming on.
Eric: Scratch is a production of rival. We are a marketing innovation consultancy that helps businesses develop strategies and capabilities to grow faster. If you want to learn more about us check out we are rivals.com If you want to connect with me, email me at Eric at we are rivals.com or find me on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, share with anyone you think might enjoy it. And please do leave us a review. Thanks for listening and see you next week.
