Johan Jervøe
101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior
Johan Jervøe, Group Chief Marketing Officer at UBS
Jervøe took up his current role in October 2013, joining UBS from Intel, where he was VP Sales and Marketing. Prior to Intel, Jervøe was Corporate VP for Global Marketing at McDonald’s, culminating over 13+ years with the company in the US and Europe, and overseeing marketing technology and innovation (digital), global entertainment, and sports partnerships, including the McDonald’s sponsorship of the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. He is the Chairman of the World Federation of Advertisers’ Committee for Integrated Marketing and serves as a board member of the Chicago Architectural Foundation. Jervøe holds an MBA from the Vienna Business School.
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““Humans communicate emotions via voice and sound.””
— JOHAN JERVØE, GROUP CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, UBS
Reese:Tell me a little about your role at UBS.
Jervøe: I’m the Chief Marketing Officer of the group. I cover everything from looking at strategic positioning to the company’s purpose, to client advertising, booking media, social media, digital; you name it. Because it’s a bank, it has a twist of a regulatory environment, so it’s not as easy as a non-regulated product.
Reese:Can you give us ideas about how brands can move forward in this golden age of audio?
Jervøe: Humans communicate emotions via voice and sound. Very few cultural things – plays, movies, books – can be repeated. I’m from Denmark, so I used to listen to ‘Winner Takes It All’ by ABBA, and that song still brings back memories from the 1970s. You can’t do that with many plays or paintings. That whole spectrum of what James Bond has been able to do, where they use parts of the song, part of the themes – despite the fact it’s a 60-year-old song – makes it the biggest IP property in entertainment ever. And it keeps on going, despite changing the main actor because it communicates emotion. News media also knows that music brings back memories. Look at the BBC. It starts in the evening with a song, there’s a jingle, and then the journalist is there. If you can put that into the cloud of how your brand works, you win. Having said that, you first need to figure out the sound for your brand so that the audience feels comfortable. You need instant recognition visually and sonically. The two pieces together are the most important.
“You first need to figure out the sound for your brand so that the audience feels comfortable. You need instant recognition visually and sonically. The two pieces together are the most important. “
Reese:What are the requirements of a sonic identity today in a screenless ecosystem?
Jervøe: If I ask my smart speaker to tell me the weather report, I want to have a ‘ping’ going off. That’s reliable. And if I were asking about sports news, I’d want to hear the BBC jingle. The app should be starting with that. I don’t know why, as marketers, we haven’t been able to think in such a way. We have to ask ourselves, what if you only had sound, and then – instead of worrying if the logo works in an app – you'd start worrying about what that sound would be.
Reese:Humans have an immense recall for voice, even if you haven't heard the voice for 40 years. Sound is ingrained within us…
Jervøe: Yes, and if you’re close to family members and they sit in the same building with you over time, when you hear them walk down the hallway, you know exactly who is coming, because there’s a mechanism in the way everyone takes their steps. You know if it’s your dad or mum coming down the stairs. That’s what sound does.
Reese: I talk to a lot of your colleagues, and we agree on the tremendous power of audio, but most are lost. Using a piece of sonic-pop culture doesn’t work anymore, so what’s your advice to them?
Jervøe: First, a disclaimer: I don’t think we have it right, and many of the brands I work for, and on behalf of the teams that worked on these things, I think what we came up with at the time was good, but none of it has made it to where we are today. So this shouldn’t sound like I figured it out. Winston Churchill always said that his advice for you when you go through hell is to keep going, and that is kind of what I would say here. I think it comes down to first spending a huge amount of time trying to figure out what success looks like. If you think having an instantly recognisable sound is all you need, then that is different from an instantly recognisable sound that triggers an emotion; for a brand that becomes difficult because you need a little bit more time. Getting to the heart of the brief is probably the one thing that takes the hardest push. So figure out what you want to trigger. You really have to figure out what you’re trying to achieve. What is the golden asset? Where does this really need to work the hardest? Then fix that one first.
Reese: People are anxious, especially in this age of COVID, but how do we fix broken customer experiences?
Jervøe: There’s a misconception that more choice is better. Nobody wants more choice. People want little choice, and then the brand confirms that the consumer is picking the right product. This instant recognition of memory is what we do. And so, when people are anxious, say with COVID, unemployment or whatever, a brand helps you and says, ‘Don’t worry, I got you covered’. It’s not about choice, it’s about guidance. That’s when brand trust happens. If you can afford to be on air as a brand in a crisis, be on air. The number one mistake is going off-air in a crisis because you’re not giving guidance, you’re not helping.
Reese:So you’re saying that when you’re most vulnerable, that the brand can help to make a huge impact?
Jervøe: I remember working for McDonald’s in the nineties, and we were opening in former Eastern Europe, and for many of these cities and villages we came to, we were a symbol of freedom. I know that sounds fluffy, but it symbolised freedom and aspiration. So, what I’m saying is that brands do something to humans, and if you do it the right way, you can be really meaningful. And if you want to repeat that in a couple of notes, then why not?
”If you think having an instantly recognisable sound is all you need, then that is different from an instantly recognisable sound that triggers an emotion; for a brand that becomes difficult because you need a little bit more time.”
Note: The interview took place in Zurich on November 6th, 2020.
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