David Redhill

101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior

David Redhill, Global CMO, Deloitte

David Redhill is the global Chief Marketing Officer at Deloitte Consulting and has been part of the firm for over 18 years. His integrative approach of using intellectual and emotional brand engagement strategies has been instrumental in positioning Deloitte as one of the world’s leading consulting firms. In addition to being a brilliant thought leader, David’s strategic and creative work has seen him win numerous industry awards in several countries, and his work has been published in major-league newspapers such as the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, New York Times, The Australian and La Vanguardia.

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“Don’t cut corners or under-invest in the creative process. It’s very easy to borrow or transplant ideas and adapt them, but if you want to stand the test of time: Invest. Originate. And do the job properly.”

— DAVID REDHILL, GLOBAL CMO, DELOITTE

Reese: How do you think the sonic landscape has changed in the past five years? Is the industry future-proofing itself adequately, and what would your advice to CEOs be?

Redhill: With the acceleration of filesharing and streaming platforms and the increasing shareability of sound, we’re beginning to see a more defined polarization between content which is seen as transient, disposable and valueless, and high-quality material which stands the test of time. It’s often delineated between content that is simply produced to fill the web, and content which is created for its own sake as an impetus by an artist, or driven by organizational purpose.

Given the tools available now, everyone’s a potential composer, sound producer, actor, vlogger or influencer. But quality content is like cream rising to the top, and what I’m seeing is a rising literacy of audiences whose senses have been sharpened by continual exposure to content, with collective antennae becoming more sophisticated. Sonic producers are, as a result, responding by raising their game. That speaks to your second point about future-proofing: people have an instinct about creative content produced purely for functional purposes. The best way to future-proof is to make work that is original, distinctive and good enough to stand the test of time. When you blend the work of talented artists with that of experienced commercial producers, you are more likely to see output that endures. And with sound and music, the best work transcends the era in which it is created, again because it is created with care and authenticity. So my advice is don’t cut corners, and don’t under-invest in the creative process. It’s very easy to borrow or transplant ideas and adapt them, but if you want to stand the test of time, don’t think in terms of style, trends or speed of production. Invest. Originate. And do the job properly.  

Reese:When I say ‘sonic identity’, many people still think of the Intel logo or the McDonald's logo. Is one of our challenges to close the education gap?

Redhill: Marketers are on a journey, just as designers were on a journey 20 years ago. When I was at (brand consultancy) Landor, our biggest challenge was explaining that we weren’t just graphic designers, but strategists creating experiences through all points of brand expression. Sonic wasn’t yet addressed in that mix, but I’ve since been educated in that process, and as a musician, I didn’t need persuading about the power and potential of that dimension. Sound and music have the capacity to lift a message from a straightforward piece of information delivery to one with powerful emotional resonance, deeper meaning, and greater complexity. In the context of the tools open to marketers and strategists, to ignore sonic as a foundational element of brand building is an abrogation of responsibility and a lost opportunity in terms of connecting to audiences and driving commercial outcomes. Building a brand using sound is to leverage a universal language of meaning, syntax and emotion. And music’s unique power to speak to humans in tribalistic, subliminal and visceral terms supercharges its impact, and allows it to deliver across multiple audiences simultaneously. The fact that most sonic branding is not as instantly memorable or recognizable as that often-cited Intel pneumonic is positive for me, because people aren’t yet even conscious that something is enveloping them in an aural brand experience. They just know they feel a certain way, even if they can’t quite put their finger on why.

Reese: Why, especially in the last five years, has audio has become so dominant?

Redhill: I think it’s the end of a natural journey. From the beginnings of mass entertainment, sound was guided by vision. Visuals predated soundtracks in the history of cinema. And when you consider the way we respond to stimuli and think of the way people engage with the world, and with ideas, the sonic dimension tends to be subordinate. The initial approach has always tended to be visual, which is why we storyboard ideas.

And it could be that we’re missing something there. A contrary example: as part of their intrinsic connection to the land, indigenous Australians – the first peoples of my continent and the world’s oldest living cultures – have a powerful aural tradition of songlines, or ‘dreaming tracks’, that go back 60,000 years and which help them navigate and make sense of the landscape. This is how they connect with each other, to the earth and to their history: through the stories and songs that define them and which they have shared and passed along. So it may be that ultimately, the sonic form is more robust and durable as a way of hardwiring memories, dreams and ideas. So, why has it become so predominant in the last five years? Perhaps the oversaturation of visuals, and the numbing effect of bombarding people with extraordinary images and visual ideas is rendering them less effective. In contrast, the comparatively unexplored realm of sound still offers many more possibilities for discovery. 

Reese: At Deloitte, you embraced sonic branding, but this isn’t always easy in accounting and consulting…

Redhill: Marketing and branding in retail products and consumer goods has been around since the 1940’s, but in many countries, marketing wasn’t even permitted in accounting until the 2000s. That’s what makes professional services such an intoxicating challenge, as a relatively unexplored marketing landscape. At Deloitte, we pioneered some of the techniques of marketing in professional services, blending provocative, symbolic, sometimes minimalistic creative forms and taking corporate license to go into very new territory. We were also the first professional services firm to embrace sonic branding as a viable way of delivering on our purpose and connecting with our audiences. It’s an incredibly powerful addition to our branding toolkit.

“People don’t want to be told what to think or what to do anymore. They want to co-create, and want to be telling the story. They’re also capable of creating the sound, so that’s the logical extension of where sonic branding is going.”

Reese: Can you tell me what you think the future of sonic in branded communication may look like?

Redhill: It’s going to follow a different path to that of the traditional brand hierarchy. In the knowledge economy, we understand the best thinking doesn’t necessarily come from the top – it can come from anywhere. Organizations that flatten the hierarchy and harness the collective wisdom of the young, the middle-aged, the elders, and the marginal and lateral thinkers, tend to perform as healthy, functional and creative micro-societies or ecosystems – more so than the top-down, authority-driven models of the old economy.

By the same token, brands used to be didactic; a brand would tell you the way it wanted to be experienced. With the dawn of the internet, this became more of a dialogue, and currently, brands are all about co-opting their audiences to help them tell their stories. Sound is following the same pattern. The brands with real momentum now allow their audiences to own a little piece of them and personalise them in their own image. The future of sonic branding will put the tools of creativity into the hands of the audience to a degree. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but it’s the logical extension of where we are, and of brands seeking evermore powerful engagement. People don’t want to be told what to think or what to do anymore. They want to co-create, and want to be telling the story. They’re also capable of creating the sound, so that’s the logical extension of where sonic branding is going.

As we move towards brand experiences that envelop us in immersive communications, sonic will play varied roles; sometimes as a linking mechanism, sometimes as a punctuation point to delineate different facets of the experience. Think of those reading spectacles that transition from clear to darker glass when you walk into the sun. Think of the expression ‘The soundtrack to my life’. That’s the sort of seamless role I see it playing in the future: a continuous blended sonic journey for those who choose to opt into it. Of course, we all need silence occasionally to refresh our senses; it’s nice to listen to music or podcasts on a walk, but it’s essential at times just to hear the birds sing! But, generally speaking, audio will become more omnipresent.

Reese: For me, brands need to have a brand book and own their body of work…

Redhill: And that suggests that the role of marketer and brand custodian is itself changing. The contradiction at the heart of marketing today is that the most valuable role a marketer can play is to put themselves out of a job, by creating tools and channels for the brand to be co-created. It’s not the marketing department’s responsibility or privilege to own the brand anymore. You are no longer the creator – you are now the enabler and curator of brand experience. That can be a little scary for a marketing person who is wedded to a past in which they had control over the mechanism and apparatus of brand creation. The courageous marketer of the future will divest responsibility for brand creation and tap instead into the zeitgeist and the audience for the best ideas.

Note: The interview took place in Sydney NSW on February 26th, 2021.

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