Wish we made that: Sonic branding with Why Do Birds

WWMT is a recurring column from Reed Words about good-natured creative envy.

It features conversations with people who created something that makes us think — “damn, we wish we were part of that.”

For each, we get to know the people behind the project and discuss inspiration, the creative process, and the role of words in their work.

And for once, we’re not talking about brand voice, but actual sounds. THX’s clamorous crescendo. Slack’s busy, cheery, maddening rattle. The futuristic whoosh of a Macbook powering on, or the ethereal chimes of Brian Eno’s Windows 95 startup music.

Turns out, there are whole agencies devoted to creating a “sonic identity” for your brand — or in Berlin-based Why Do Birds’ case, metro systems, TV shows, vehicles, and more as well.

It’s a fascinating niche within the branding universe. A project might require programming robots to play instruments, collaborating with an Icelandic choral group, or reviewing thousands of voices to find the perfect clarity and tone for station announcements on the BGV.

Working in such an ineffable medium can inspire a bit of envy in someone who spends their days wrangling words, with all their connotations and denotations, grammatical strictures, and jobs to do. How liberating! But alas, even here there's no escape — turns out language plays a critical role in translating strategic imperatives into music. At least they have their robot musicians.

We spoke with the managing director of Why Do Birds, Alexander Wodrich, to learn all about it.

What sparked the idea of founding an audio branding agency?

Why Do Birds evolved from the idea that we don’t perceive brands with just our eyes — we use all five senses. I've been playing music since I was 13. And then I studied business and marketing in school, and went to work in advertising and then at a branding agency.

At the branding agency I had the opportunity to combine my skills. We began thinking about sonic branding, and as a musician, I was kind of a natural choice to work on a process for translating a brand’s personality into sound. Like, what would that look like? How do we create a strategic foundation for sound?

Then, after developing a process there for a few years, I left to do it on my own. But I wasn’t alone for long. We grew, and now there’s 25 of us on the team today — producers, musicians, engineers, strategists, and so on.

Sound can be so subjective. What does the strategic process for creating a sonic identity look like?

It’s funny. Sometimes a client will ask me, “You’re the expert. What does Customer Satisfaction sound like?” And I’ll tell them, I have no idea, but we can find out together through a process. That process starts with establishing a common language.

We have a whole set of like 100 adjectives, which we call audio tonality words — words that can suggest a sonic approach. And we put them on the table and say, let’s look at these terms and see which ones describe your brand best. Are you more human? Or minimalistic? Or powerful or dynamic or rhythmic?

From there, we can quickly feel and see what they understand is right for their brand. Then we’ll use what we learn to put together reference sounds. Some might be classical, or more upbeat, or more electronic. We show them these references and ask for their responses. Obviously, not every snippet fits, but maybe one element stands out — like a rhythm or an instrument — and that can inspire us.

You have a team of music professionals, but the client likely won’t. How are they able to maintain the sonic identity you develop after you’re done?

We create guidelines — similar to visual guidelines, but with sound. Specific do’s and dont’s, examples, and an explanation of the strategic foundation. So while clients often come back to us for new sounds or music, they can also take the guidelines to another producer who ideally will be able to create something in their sonic identity.

We’ve also created brand music implementation software. We spent a couple of years developing that because we saw the need from our clients. They would often say, we love the music, but we sometimes find it difficult to cut it to a certain video, or we need a softer approach for this subject — not just lowering the volume, but the whole arrangement.

Our software enables our clients to create custom soundtracks out of the music pieces that we've produced for them. It sounds a bit like magic, and it is! It allows them to adapt the music pieces to fit any storyline that a video may have.

Most musicians only have to find one unique sound — their own. But you have to develop a huge range of styles for different clients. What’s an example of the lengths you’ve had to go to to capture the perfect tone or effect?

We were working for a German company that produces and calibrates highly sensitive equipment — they calibrate calibration devices, among other things. So naturally, precision is core to who they are.

The obvious choice for a sonic identity for their brand might be electronic music or something. But there is also a human story to the care and attention they bring, and it’s ultimately people that are achieving these incredible feats of precision. And we wanted to reflect that.

We had an idea — let's create a music piece with real instruments performed by robots. A combination of human craft and mechanical precision. So, we had a computer to control machines that hit the drums and struck the bass, we had a robotically controlled piano. It achieves both the precision and the liveliness we were after, and the client was thrilled.

Sometimes it's about the storytelling as much as the sound. Obviously, the music has to be good as well, but if you can tell stories with the sound you're creating and people understand the story, it’s another level of connection.

You worked on the sonic identity and announcements for the public transport system in Berlin (BVG). These are sounds that people might hear multiple times a day, almost every day of their lives. What was that project like?

Very intensive! I think it took about seven years from my initial contact until we actually started the project. A key part of the process was finding the voice for the announcements. There was a lot of discussion around who this voice should be — should it be male, or female, or different voices for different languages. But we quickly realized that with the budget and time we had, we could only use one voice. And that’s quite a question: whose voice should represent Berlin?

We thought a lot about it, and considered Berlin’s character. It’s a quirky place, very open, lots of intersections of cultures and identities — we were drawn to the concept of a voice that could represent that. We did tests with hundreds of voice-over artists, and then we found Philippa. A transgender voice with an intriguing sort of ambiguity within it — it’s very distinctive and memorable. And we thought, this is it.

Of course, there are concerns when doing anything like that for the public. You’re under such scrutiny, and this has never really been done before. But it's Berlin — if not there, then where else could this be done? And there really was no backlash at all. It’s gone wonderfully, and we're proud to be the first and only city with a transgender brand voice in public service and in a public transportation system.

Finally, what’s something that makes you think, I wish I made that?

I’m a huge Beatles fan, and I’m always looking for the behind-the-scenes recordings of their process — I just can’t get enough of that material.

So when Disney and Peter Jackson released the documentary with hours of footage from the Let it Be sessions, and you see Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr working together as a team, and the perfection of what they create… it’s just so awesome. I would love to be a part of a creative process like that. Those songs — they’re so magical. Every note, every instrument, every drum break, every arrangement is just out of this world for me.

Sometimes there’s magic in the room when you make music, and you don’t know where it comes from. But for The Beatles, there was magic in the room for eight years straight. What a stroke of luck!