Soapbox 2025: Pat Sullivan on Why Sound Is a Strategic Powerhouse for Brands
Our LBB community is buzzing with ideas, opinions and visions for a better advertising industry. So this year, we invited you to dig out your megaphone and climb onto our figurative soapbox to share your hopes for 2025: what change do you want to see? How can the inner workings of the industry improve? How should it adapt to the tech, social, cultural, economic, and politics shifts shaping the market?
Taking the mic this time is Pat Sullivan, head of production at the New York music and sound studio, Sonic Union. He discusses the benefits of bringing sound designers in at the early stages of the creative process and the unexpected benefits that it brings to the work.
Let’s face it, 2024 was a wild one. A chaotic election cycle, economic uncertainty, the rise of AI, a mega advertising agency merger and hello the cost of EGGS?!?
But I’m hopeful for ‘Ad World’ in 2025. To me, this is the year that brands invest in creative storytelling. Gone are the days of “buy buy buy!” spots. For gen z and millennial markets, those folks want to engage with brands that align with their values and the best way to connect with them is through powerful, emotional stories. I anticipate a number of smaller creative agencies leading the charge with fresh, innovative campaigns. But how do you stick out in an already competitive and saturated market? The utilisation of sound.
Why is sound important? Well, think about it. Crappy visuals can be intentional; an art form even. Crappy audio is just…crappy audio. A rich soundscape supported by a solid audio mix amplifies the effectiveness of visual stimuli, evokes an emotional response, and most importantly offers clear messaging to the audience. Sound isn’t just a helpful tool, it’s a strategic powerhouse for brands.
Something that will get even more popular in 2025: the sonic identity. A well-designed sonic ident has been scientifically proven to increase brand association and brand recall. Sound designers and composers take a psychological approach to sonic identity to tap into the listener’s emotional response. It can trigger happy, nostalgic memories, a sense of urgency, or a call to action. Audio is also extremely versatile, so the great thing about this asset is that it can be used cross-channel. The sonic ident acts as a consistent and memorable asset that lives across all deliverables, no matter what medium it’s airing on.
My biggest hope for this year is for creatives to continue bringing their sound designers into the conversation at the earliest possible moment for their ads. This approach has proven wildly successful ensuring that post production partners are aligned on the creative goals, understand the emotional tone, and address any problems before they arise. It brings an unbiased approach to creativity and an opportunity for new, fresh ideas to bloom. As a sound partner, we value bringing expertise and understanding to the nuances of sound and the opportunity to collaborate and problem solve along with the creatives. Sound designers have such a knack for bringing authenticity to a spot and can have a better understanding of what sounds will need to be captured on set and what they will have to recreate in post. They know the right environmental sounds, the right surfaces, and the right textures. You may not even realise these contributions as a listener and that’s why audio tends to be the unsung hero. These small details bring the work to life and create something bigger than the sum of its parts.
The power of advertising lies in connecting with its audience. Sound is proven to connect on a psychological and emotional level. Seriously, not to go all science-y on you, but sound travels through our neural pathways and lights up the parts of our brain that process emotions and memory. Sound is also inherently versatile in adapting to new platforms and evolving media landscapes. As brands and agencies begin in their media planning and strategy, I encourage them to look to their sound partners to develop captivating content with the quality and attention that it deserves
