Mark Wilms

101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior

Mark Wilms, Director of Brand and Reputation, EnBW 

Mark P. Wilms is Director of Brand and Reputation at EnBW AG. Before working in clean energy, he pursued a 20-year career in digital communications and advertising. He moved through leading positions within the DDB and BBDO groups to Jung von Matt as Managing Director, winning several major awards. Life without music is unthinkable to him because no matter what, great music has the power to make you feel good.

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“In terms of music and sound, the skill level isn’t there yet. We’ve had decades of experience with visual identities, but sound is a young discipline. There’s a big education gap.”

— MARK WILMS, DIRECTOR OF BRAND AND REPUTATION, ENBW

Reese:Describe your role at EnBW?

Wilms: Ihead up the brand and reputation management team. Basically, I’m in charge of the EnBW corporate brand, and this entails its every aspect, such as brand communication, visual identity and also sound identity. For the last couple of years, I’ve been working on major campaigns with a brand and reputation focus.

Reese:How important is sonic in building and guiding a brand?

Wilms: It’s essential because brands are about emotions, non-verbal communications and feelings, and music is a fantastic facilitator.

Audio can uniquely shape brand perceptions. Nowadays, with a multitude of channels, voice-command devices and sonic environments, there’s also a practical need to create a unique brand voice because, in many, your brand will be experienced only by voice or sound alone.

For us, as a public utility company, there are many opportunities for customer touchpoints where you can actually use sound branding to enhance the customer experience. 

Reese: Why has audio become so dominant in recent years, and what's the future going to sound like?

Wilms: Our main means of communication is voice, now the technology is here to use voice to operate our lives more conveniently. Technology aims to take voice to a more organic level. EnBW’s purpose is to create human-centric infrastructure. Part of it is what we call social infrastructure, modern living spaces which enrich people’s lives. If you ask leading architects, they will tell you that homes are now being constructed with in-built voice commands, so it’s apparent the technology is becoming a natural part of living. 

Reese: What are the biggest challenges when creating a sonic identity?

Wilms: There’s an analogy here to visual corporate design. If you think about how visual corporate design used to work, it was monolithic; this is the brand logo, and it has to look the same and last a long time. But a brand should also allow diversity. I think we’re going through the same process in sound; a brand can stay true to itself but also be diverse. For many marketers, this is an abstract concept, but you need a unique diversity to explore the diversity of life. My perception of many marketers is that giving up this kind of freedom can feel like a loss of control, but really it’s all a learning process. I think, though, in terms of music and sound, the skill level isn’t there yet. We’ve had decades of experience with visual identities, but sound is a young discipline. There’s a big education gap.

Reese: Why do so many brands have such a problem distinguishing between tactical campaign-driven licencing and tactical thinking?

Wilms: Simply, not many brands have a clear, long-term strategy. I know very few companies that have sustainable strategies. At EnBW, we’re at the end of a seven-year strategy cycle, which started in 2013, after Fukushima. The company has been transformed in terms of the generation portfolio, business efficiency and culture, and we’re now at the beginning of our strategy for 2025. And we’ll stick to it. If you have that kind of commitment, you can create something long-lasting. We’re more than 100 years old, and hopefully, we’ll last for the next 100. 

Reese: I always say own the body behind the fashion, as fashions will change.

Wilms: Most brand essences don’t need to be changed, but you have to communicate them in a contemporary style – that’s the same with sound branding. You have your brand DNA, and that can be produced in many different styles and rightly so. But if we add something new, it will probably be produced differently in 50 years. If I listen to the music my children listen to, it’s painful to my ears, and if I play originals of what’s covered now, they laugh because it sounds alien to them – but it is the same notes and melody!

Reese: I see resistance to the process. Where’s this coming from?

Wilms: There’s a huge amount of vanity involved in creativity, so taking it away is a threat. Collaboration is such an integral part of how we work, but if an agency comes up with the idea that revolves around a piece of music, then you see a fear of the unknown. 

Reese: But using licensed music doesn’t build brand equity.

Wilms: What’s difficult is the expertise to craft music because it’s often judged on a very subjective level. People say, ‘This feels cool right now’. And yes, it might be cool at that moment but is it something lasting? Is it the perfect sound for the brand? How will it play out in different touchpoints? Creative agencies often lack expertise, and I don’t mean it as a bad thing – just that it’s not their main business. They’re listening to Spotify for something that’s currently trendy.

Reese: What’s your advice to your colleagues? 

Wilms: Get the best information. Find somebody who will strategically understand your brand and be able to translate your brand strategy into sound. That’s the key. 

Reese: Finally, what's most important for you when it comes to sonic?

Wilms: Music is about moving people and making them feel good; it’s that simple. 

I want to make people feel that way about EnBW because if they do, they will like EnBW more, and they may even learn to love us. Being a meaningful part of people’s lives is the hardest thing to achieve for brands and even more so for a utility company – but if we can manage to make people feel good about us, then we will create lasting connections.

Note: The interview took place in Stuttgart on December 18th, 2020.

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