In The Business Of: Sonic Branding with ATB

On this episode of In The Business Of, we tune into the world of sonic branding with Jennifer Manning, Associate Creative Director of Copy, and Jesse Yuen, Managing Director of Culture to Brand at ATB. Together, they share how the financial institution went beyond the traditional jingle to build a full sonic identity that’s as flexible as it is memorable.

From testing sound to see what emotions it sparks, to partnering with Canadian dream-pop artist Munya, Jennifer and Jesse walk us through the creative journey of finding ATB’s brand voice through music. They discuss why sonic cues are eight times more effective than visual logos, how consistency in sound helps stretch marketing dollars further, and why banks—yes, banks—have more to say (and sound like) than you might think.

Whether you’re a marketer, a creative, or just someone fascinated by the way sound shapes emotion, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how ATB turned music into a powerful branding tool.

Transcript

Jennifer Manning: [00:00:00] Audio brand cues are eight times more effective than visual logos.

Jennifer Manning: Think about the sort of emotional connection you have to music. I mean, I'm old now, so I listen to music in my car from when I was a teenager and you know, all the lyrics and it makes you feel a certain way. So yeah, I guess that's not that surprising that people are gonna emotionally connect more naturally.

Adam Rozenheart: Welcome to the Advertising Club of Edmonton podcast, where we explore the ideas, strategies, and people shaping the world of marketing and communications right here in Edmonton. When it comes to sonic branding, a bank may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but maybe it should be. In this episode we're talking about how sound from mnemonics to full on music systems.

Adam Rozenheart: Can shape a brand just as much as [00:01:00] visuals and words Our guests share how they built a sonic identity that goes way beyond a jingle and why the right sound can trigger emotion, boost, recall, and make a brand unforgettable. Our very own. Joshua Doit sits down with ATBs, Jennifer Manning, associate creative director of copy, and Jesse Ewen, the managing director of Culture to brand.

Adam Rozenheart: To explore their journey of discovery into sonic branding and why banks might just have more to say and a sound like than you think. 

Josh Radostits: Well, why don't we start off with a easy one. How would you define sonic branding? 

Jesse Yuen: I think the way that I've been talking about. Sonic branding is we generally, as marketers and as creatives, focus on visual assets.

Jesse Yuen: And we focus on words a lot. And there's this whole other asset group called Music and Sound that we don't focus on. So Sonic branding is really just an extension of what we normally would use in terms [00:02:00] of visuals, in terms of words, it's just another dimension. So Sonic branding is really just finding ways to use sound.

Jesse Yuen: To connect your audiences back to your brand. 

Jennifer Manning: Audio brand cues are eight times more effective than visual logos alone, invoking brand recall and language. Yeah, I think it makes sense if you think about the sort of emotionally connection you have to music. I mean, I'm old now, so I listen to music in my car from when I was a teenager and you know all the lyrics and it makes you feel a certain way.

Jennifer Manning: So 

Adam Rozenheart: yeah, 

Jennifer Manning: I guess that's not that surprising that people are gonna emotionally connect. More naturally to music? Any, any kind of visual or, 

Jesse Yuen: or logo? For sure. Yeah. I mean, we all can think back to when we were younger, like you had mentioned, whether it's a jingle or whether it's like a, like a mnemonic at the end, right?

Jesse Yuen: Like sometimes I think about McDonald's like their da da da. Like that's a really recognizable one. [00:03:00] Yeah. You, you, you're actually singing it. That's the other interesting thing that we. Experimented with and learned through this process was, it's not. Playing people a song and then going, do you think this is innovative?

Jesse Yuen: Do you think this is this or that? But there's ways to test sound just like there is with visuals and asking the right questions to understand if what you're showing people or what you're having people listen to, if it evokes certain feelings of, you know, does this sound like. It's coming from an innovative company or a company that's forward thinking, things like that.

Jesse Yuen: So it's less about asking a direct question and kind of the feelings that evokes. So like that's, that's a lot of like the testing and the work that we've been doing around the brand, whether it's visual work, whether it's about specific creative or the, the sonic branding that we did was testing whether or not when they hear certain things, does it evoke certain emotion.

Jennifer Manning: I think one of the early exercises. [00:04:00] That was really memorable for me was early on our partner's Sonic Lens had us go through a series of songs and uh, we were sort of ranking everything on this XY axis and we were looking at things like instrumentation or beats per minute or. Organic versus inorganic sounds and we were asked to talk about or write down our feelings about does this feel like a TV or how does this make you feel emotionally, or, I remember there was some stuff in there and it was really dissonant sounds, so I was like, this makes me feel uncomfortable.

Jennifer Manning: Or you know, like it's untrustworthy. So it's really. Interesting, the emotions that come up when you listen to those sounds and to music. And there's probably some similarities between people, but some differences as well. Or you know, an orchestra is gonna lean more sophisticated than a banjo. So we looked at that type of stuff and tried to connect it to what we were feeling.

Jesse Yuen: I think that's the interesting [00:05:00] thing about this work is, so the concern going into it was, are we gonna just have to always play. The song and the song becomes part of who we are, just like, you know, a logo. But the approach that the producers took was it becomes the source material, whether it's literally taking components of the sonic.

Jesse Yuen: And creating new assets. For example, today I had a call with our call center people, uh, about our on hold music, huge dissatisfier. Most people, when they're on hold, they're grumpy. It doesn't help when you're trying to play music that is cutting in and out because music's never meant to be played over the phone.

Jesse Yuen: But just even how we're able to develop a derivative of the sonic that will actually play nicely. On hold music so it doesn't become a 

Jennifer Manning: irritant. An 

Jesse Yuen: irritant, yeah. So even like things like that where we can literally take components and [00:06:00] start to connect all of this stuff because I mean, I thought that was an interesting thing that they talked about.

Jesse Yuen: As a regional financial institution, we don't have the same deep pockets as like a national or international provider. RBC. So we have to like make our dollar stretch further. And part of that is if you're using all different forms of music, it's like every time you're playing something new and there's no consistency to it, whether it's genre or beats per minute, things like that, you're forcing your audience to like, oh wait, is this a TB?

Jesse Yuen: Is this someone else? So by creating a consistent foundation. Of sound. I think it just helps create that linkage back to our brand. Like it is funny all the times now when we're like, I wasn't paying attention to the video, but I heard the Sonic and it made me go, oh, it's our ad. So it's just those little things.

Josh Radostits: Right. I was thinking about the consistency thing. It does seem like a piece of the creative that is never really talked about as a cohesive piece. No. It's just like. Kind of a slap on at the end. You slap the logo [00:07:00] on, you slap the sound on, and you set it on. Yeah. Or if 

Jennifer Manning: you're doing a really good job, you start with the music.

Jennifer Manning: Right. I think some of the best spots that I've seen, you know, broadcasts, TV spots, you start with the music and then the video follows the music. It's inspired by the music, and those tend to be really moving, I think, when you treat music as an afterthought, which we have generally done our, I think most brands generally do that.

Jennifer Manning: Our history. Yeah. And not giving it the power it warrants. 

Jesse Yuen: Yeah. You 

Jennifer Manning: know? Yeah, knowing how powerful it can be, 

Jesse Yuen: and maybe going back to the flexibility part, so, so to be clear, like the sonic identity system that we created is sourced out of this song, and the song allows us to create different options and derivatives.

Jesse Yuen: But with the identity system, we also created a pneumonic, and that pneumonic has three components. It has what they call the molecular component. Which is supposed to inspire, like innovation, innovative thoughts. That has like three nodes, which is supposed to represent a TV and then a [00:08:00] human voice at the end, which should emphasize our focus on humanity and client relationships.

Jesse Yuen: And so that's another component that we can use when we're developing content and different assets as a way to connect back to a TB. The component can be used as a whole or we can break it into. It's different parts. The other thing that's pretty, I think cool about the identity system is we didn't want it to be so restrictive that it was always about the song.

Jesse Yuen: And so once in a while, if we do need to use other songs, as long as it's within a certain beats per minute, so that's kind of part of the system. Like finding songs within a certain genre within a certain beats per minute, we can attach the mnemonic to the end of it and it can be done in any key. So. I just, you know, I really loved that the producers were able to come up with a solution that really gave us full flexibility while keeping it within this system that allows us to, you know, always go back to it as a way to link things back [00:09:00] to our brand.

Josh Radostits: I'm wondering, just looking back on the project, is there anything that surprises both of you that you didn't know going into Sonic Brand or didn't think of? 

Jesse Yuen: So the whole process was a learning journey, and in fact, the journey wasn't even just the. 12 to 18 months that we were on, I would say like pre pandemic, we, because we used to use a TB listens, like that was kind of our platform.

Jesse Yuen: And we're like, oh, well we need a sound, we need a mnemonic. And we treated the creation of a mnemonic as if it was just like another creative activity. We tried to write a brief, we sent it to a music production house, and we literally got, I don't know, like a hundred. Sounds that we were trying to evaluate 

Jennifer Manning: a TB financial, 

Jesse Yuen: it was like crazy.

Jesse Yuen: And so it was like one of those, like, where are we going with this? This, this doesn't feel like the right process. And so we paused. [00:10:00] Pandemic happened. We went through this whole process to basically develop our brand model, which we call our differentiated experience model. And in fact, because we did the exercise to create our brand model to define, you know, what is the personality of our brand, what's the core essence?

Jesse Yuen: This idea of expertise well shared, how do we actually bring that to life? What outcomes are we trying to lead to because we have that foundation. Going into this process of creating a sonic identity was so much clearer. And in fact, working with our partners, they were like, oh, we've never had this before.

Jesse Yuen: And it even forced them to think differently about how you create this robust sonic identity system with all of these components that we were trying to fulfill out of our brand model. So. Even then we were like, okay, we wanna develop a pneumonic, let's go. And we had seen some case studies, you know, one for Colgate, so we knew that there was power behind how [00:11:00] you could take sound and apply it to different things.

Jesse Yuen: But really it was a bit of a organic process between us and the production company that we worked with. And to really get to something that feels very bespoke and it really does show the power of really understanding. Who you are as a brand and having a solid brand model. Like I still go back to that, all that work we did and it's still as relevant today as it was back in 2021 as we were developing it.

Josh Radostits: Is there interesting bits of like the selection process that actually getting into like who we're gonna to use and the genre and that stuff? Did you have that figured out before you, the production company? Oh no. Okay. No. 

Jennifer Manning: That was part of the journey. 

Jesse Yuen: Yeah. It was totally part of the journey. Yeah. And honestly.

Jesse Yuen: If day one they would've said, we're gonna do something called bedroom pop, we would've been like, oh God. Like, how does that, like, you know, as I could hear our fellow marketers going, bedroom pop, that's not sophisticated, right? So, like, through this whole process, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like bias checking that [00:12:00] needs to happen and.

Jesse Yuen: Why It was also super important that every decision that we made along this journey was very much reinforced by data. So one, we had a brand model that was very informed by data that the organization that bought it had already bought into. Two. As we got to different stages, we would do different forms of testing.

Jesse Yuen: And this is not just, oh, do you like this music type of testing? But we worked with the same researchers that helped us develop our brand model to help us develop testing with the production company to make sure that if we're trying to evoke certain emotions, certain feelings in our. Work ads, content is the music doing that?

Jesse Yuen: So it was really interesting, like the process from which you could get these different components and you could have people saying things that, oh my God, like I, I couldn't have paid them to say that thing. Like, so through this whole process, it was just really important that we found a [00:13:00] way to connect it back to testing and results that would deflect some of the feedback that we would get.

Jesse Yuen: Like, oh, we, we can't do that because that's. Too poppy or you know, stuff like that. 'cause we were trying to be sophisticated, so it should all be about, you know, orchestration and, and, and stuff like that. It was, yeah, kind of interesting. 

Josh Radostits: And then how do you get to, like, how did you guys get to bedroom pop?

Josh Radostits: How do you get all the way there? 

Jennifer Manning: One of the first things that our partners did was conduct an audit of sage round. And that wasn't just financial institutions, that was across the board, Ted. 

Jesse Yuen: Ted, IBM Audi. So different brands that we felt that they felt, we felt were in that same category of being a sage persona.

Jesse Yuen: And 

Josh Radostits: what is, what does that mean, by the way, Sage? 

Jesse Yuen: Oh, sorry. The 

Jennifer Manning: arch. There's brand archetypes, so there's the, yeah, there's 12 different ones. We made the switch from a caregiver brand archetype, which is all, I think all of the other banks, at least in Canada, belong in that category. [00:14:00] So where you're very much kind of the.

Jennifer Manning: Caregiver, the nurturer to your clients, you give them all the answers. You know, there's kind of this like parental vibe, right? That it gives off where the stage is an empowerer and uh, we light the spark. So we provide information to our clients that make them wanna dig in and inspire them and motivate them to take the next step in their journey.

Jennifer Manning: So there's a little less of that. Parentification of our clients happening in the SAGE brand, it's more, it's more empowering. 

Jesse Yuen: Yeah. So banks tend to be, if you look at the brand archetypes, there's this one quadrant that's all around control and power authority. And as a bank, you, you are an authority figure because people trust you with their money.

Jesse Yuen: So it's not bad to be there. But it's also one of the complaints that people have about banks. You have all the control. I just have to trust you. And so we were kind of in that caregiver ruler space, which is where banks tend to [00:15:00] be. But when we developed our brand model, what consumers actually want is they want the advice components, the empowering components that you get from that ruler type space, but in a more sage way.

Jesse Yuen: You relinquish some of that control. You meet clients where they're at and you build more of a relationship. And so that's what we mean, that shift from caregiver to sage. It's all part of that 12 different brand archetypes. 

Jennifer Manning: We conducted that audit and we felt that Sage brands took a dreamier approach to music.

Jennifer Manning: And I think from there, that's where they started drilling down into specific genres and which genres would sort of reflect that sage archetype for us. And then it came down to, I mean, even to. The philosophy behind a bedroom pop, which is that these are independent artists. Yeah. Making music in their bedroom, sharing it with the world, like, you know, they're artists who power their own possibilities.

Jennifer Manning: So that kind of lined up with our [00:16:00] promise. And then also it came down to it instrumentation in how the music sounds as well. So lush pads, dreamy female vocals, all of that sort of evoked this sense of. Innovation and 

Jesse Yuen: possibility. We presented this in New York at Transform North America, which is a publication based out of the uk and there were a lot of brands there, like Amazon, audible, Pepsi, MasterCard, and it was interesting how a lot of them were like, oh, you know, this is not something that we've thought about, like a company like Audible, literally.

Jesse Yuen: Sound is in the name of your brand. They hadn't even thought about investing in how they could use sound more effectively. Like that's probably the first question to ask is how do you use sound more effectively versus it being an afterthought? I think once you start thinking about it that way, you know, you could start to get clients, get companies [00:17:00] to look a bit differently in terms of what the investment would be.

Jennifer Manning: I think too, from a creative perspective, and this might not be everybody's experience, but I can't tell you how many hours I spent on 8:00 PM music looking for music to suit a spot that we had built, and it was in the last minute and we hadn't found a track that we were vibing with yet. And you're in there searching keywords and instruments and just hoping for the best and like those wasted hours.

Jennifer Manning: Initially, I think some of the creative team looked at this as. A limiting exercise. Having a sonic is gonna tie us to this song that we have to use all the time, and it's gonna have be, it's gonna get worn out and it's gonna be boring. But now that we've started using it and we recognize the flexibility in the system, it's actually been really powerful because our last broadcast shoot that we went into, [00:18:00] we knew what the song was and we played it on set and we knew that we could match the vibe and it felt really fluid.

Jennifer Manning: The whole process. So that, I mean, that's selfishly just about the process of actually going into production and creating something, but it really does kind of put you ahead of the game instead of playing catch up at the end, 

Josh Radostits: and it's unique, like something that no one else can recreate. 

Jesse Yuen: Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the things that they first told us about is like, like, and, and in that video that we showed you is in a way you're giving away some of the equity by using familiar music like oh.

Jesse Yuen: You know, that's, that's a Lady Gaga song, or that's a whatever song, and then it's like, oh, right, and that was a RBC ad. But, right. If you're using a song that's unique to you or components that are unique to you, it really does help. And sometimes like, yes, that's what the mnemonic is for, but that's just one aspect of sound, which again, is probably a good start.

Jesse Yuen: But even like for, [00:19:00] for the creatives now, they know that, oh, if we're gonna use music that isn't. The song that's ATBs song. We at least know what to start with in terms of like beats per minute in terms of a genre, in terms of certain instrumentation. So there's, there's stuff like that that I think puts us ahead of the game and the fact that we have a sonic identity system, I think we look at sound and music differently.

Jesse Yuen: It's not just, okay, let's attach it at the end after we've shot everything. I think the extent. By which most companies do it, or most brands do it is they have at, at most is a pneumonic that they attach to the very end of whatever they're playing, and that that is a form of sonic identity. But I think that's where it would feel limiting, right?

Jesse Yuen: It's like, oh, we gotta attach the, it's like a logo. It's like if the logo was your only visual identity component, that would be pretty sad, right? So, 

Jennifer Manning: yeah. Or then you're faced with the, you're faced with the question of, you know, you've got a Rolling Stones track [00:20:00] playing over your spot, and then it's like a pause kudo.

Jennifer Manning: Like you see those spots and you're like, Ooh, that felt gross. That didn't feel right. Oh 

Josh Radostits: yeah. It's funny, even just like now that. People are making like pretty chopped together streaming ads for TV and stuff. Just some of the music you hear, you're like, you can tell it's like one of the first ones in the search query on those sites you were talking about.

Josh Radostits: I feel like it's funny how you recognize Simon that way too. Like, oh, I've heard this before.

Jennifer Manning: Yeah. Or you go through phases. I think there was a phase a few years ago where clapping was really in like back tracks.

Jennifer Manning: And everybody loved it 'cause it was so sunshiney and everybody started using clapping tracks. So yeah, you kind of move beyond that. What's trendy, which is right. Kind of 

Josh Radostits: cool too. Did you guys talk about like timelessness at all? Or is it something that you refresh in 10 years or how does that work? 

Jesse Yuen: I think it's always gonna be driven [00:21:00] by the strategy.

Jesse Yuen: I think the way that our tenure strategy is right now and the way that our brand model is built, it feels quite timeless. Because we can keep evolving it through different instrumentation, through different variations of it. The mnemonic is the mnemonic. The mnemonic comes in different keys, so I think it's pretty timeless, but the strategy should dictate whether it's time to evolve just like it would for our visual identity.

Jesse Yuen: And platforms. 

Jennifer Manning: I don't know if there's any interest in, in Munya the artist we chose to write the song with. We have a, we have a history of wanting to work with local artists and we've tried to support local as as much as we can. It's Alberta when we can do it, but Munya is a Canadian, a Canadian dream pop artists, so I think we were lucky to work with her and our partners worked really hard to find a Canadian artist for us to work with.

Josh Radostits: Was that something that the artist was like. Immediately [00:22:00] into it. Understood. Or was it kind of an odd request for them? 

Jesse Yuen: I think a lot of artists, especially at that stage of their career where they have some popularity, but they're not, like, we're not talking about Lady Gaga or I don't know, I 

Jennifer Manning: Philly Eilish.

Jennifer Manning: Why 

Jesse Yuen: do I keep referring the Lady Gaga? I don't like Gaga, Gaga. God, I don't even love her that much. I mean, I, I respect her. But anyways, they wanted to find someone that was kinda up and coming. And so that was partly part of the reason why they chose her and she fit the genre, but it has to be someone that would buy in.

Jesse Yuen: Like, you know, we don't want it to feel like some corporate gig. And I think the way that the brief was written. And the type of mu song that we were looking for, it didn't feel that way. So even when I met her in New York, she was like, she seemed really excited to have done this project for us. So, and I think like the music itself doesn't feel corporate in any way.

Jesse Yuen: It was very much to the brief that we, that was written for. It wasn't like, oh, you need to fit a TB in here, or you need to [00:23:00] like, like there was not, there wasn't. That corporate injection of here's the list of things you need to include. Right. So I think 

Jennifer Manning: my, I don't know for sure, but my impression is that she was given a lot of room to play.

Jesse Yuen: Yeah. 

Jennifer Manning: With vocalization and the melody and the, the four or five tracks that we got back were all very different. 

Adam Rozenheart: Yeah. 

Jennifer Manning: So I, I, I would think or hope that for an artist that's actually a fun opportunity. 

Jesse Yuen: And there are examples where you could take, like I said, this version and give it to different groups.

Jesse Yuen: You could give it to. A traditional like indigenous group, you could give it to a choir and they could all create their versions of it. So we've played around with what that could look like for activations and stuff like that. Anyways, I think, I think that's kind of the exciting thing is it's, this is not just something meant to be.

Jesse Yuen: Fit into this one box for us, but it's potentially a chomping off ground for other ideas. 

Jennifer Manning: Now we want you to sing the Mnemonics 

Jesse Yuen: No With My Raspy Voice. Yes,[00:24:00]

Adam Rozenheart: that's it for today's episode of The Advertising Club of Edmonton podcast. Big thanks to ATBs, Jennifer Manning and Jesse Ewen for sharing their journey and reminding us that when it comes to branding, sound isn't just an add-on. It can be a. Game changer. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe, share it with a colleague, and keep listening in as we continue exploring the people and ideas shaping the future of marketing and communications.

Adam Rozenheart: Until next time, thanks for tuning in.