for several business within the banking industries. Hi, beautiful. On that note, hi and welcome to Sound Talks. That was me and Ken just getting ready to talk about fintech and the banking industry today, which is today's subject. I am Constance. Oh, I'm touching my microphone. I'm Constance. I'm a member of the team here at Sonic Minds. And once again I'm here with our sonic leader cast and camps. Um we were just doing some exercises, some vocal exercises uh to get our voices warmed up. Yeah, we went went to music school music singing. So we have all these rehearsals for speaking lives and well and like we just talked about with the first more general question it's yeah today we'll just explore the importance and the strategic role of audio branding in the fintech and banking industries. So maybe just again even though we already have sung it the general question get a lay of the land. How often have you worked on sonic branding within the fintech or banking sector? You just mentioned some different brands brands that you have uh worked. Yes we have been doing um audio branding within a lot of fintech companies and back in the days it was mostly audio logo for commercials you know TVCs or radio. Yeah. where today has shifted a lot more into the UX space in terms of um confirmation sounds from the app or platform sounds. So the um the audio environment has grown a lot. So uh I still believe that especially the fintech business is very much in need of using sound strategically because it's they have closing a lot of branches. It's becoming more and more digital. So the user journey is primarily digital nowadays. a bank has been reduced into an app or or a screen meaning that you cannot really touch the um the bank anymore. You don't talk to a um accountant in the bank anymore. It's all red. Usually you would go into a bank and there was a person who would you would feel trust to work you have a person relationship within a bank you reduce your economy but now it's all been reduced to a bank and when you do that you are reducing the um communication bandwidth as I used to say into two senses and that is hearing and seeing whereas before you look at the big fine banks you know the entrance the colors the paintings on the walls you know and the smell of the coffee bar at the bank and some small cookies in the corners as well. Now, all you have there is this, you know, the app. It's an app. Yeah. And how can you really make a really cohesive and engaging experience within the app and still express this is a solid brand that you can trust us and uh you know all the values, how can that be expressed in an app? And that's really difficult. Yeah. So you need to really use sound to to create that extra layer in the communication of of conveying trust and recognizability. What are some of the most common needs or requests that clients typically bring to you within this particular field uh fintech and banking of course which we're talking about now. You just mentioned some of them. Are there other needs than the whole um security thing? Well, as I mentioned, the uh the whole fintech business has been disrupted so to say. You know, branches are closing down. It's all been reduced to an app and the app are getting more and more complex and um the user journey is is um is um getting only digital. I don't recall when was the last time I went into a physical bank especially here in Denmark and Scandinavia. We have very few bank branches there. I do know that in other countries part of the world there's still a lot of branches. Yeah. But the trend is you're going to do your own banking on on the app or on a platform. Yeah. So that means that the whole user experience has been reduced to an app and so the usability has to be really uh high and that's where sound can add some extra really powerful uh moments in the user journey for confirmation or something went wrong or uh push notification sounds but also in in the general communication. So if they have you know a new service or want to communicate how good they are they only have visual and and uh hearing to communicate that. So if you're a bank that says we are trustworthy and we are innovative and we are whatever engaging but you sound boring and stuck and old school then we feel before we think. So what we hear has to match exactly what we see or what we think we're seeing. Mhm. So these two senses hearing and seeing are really you know interacting with each other. So you see something is beautiful but you hear something is cheap. Then the hearing a is is is overruling that. Yeah. Then you might say I don't really know why I'm feeling this but it doesn't sound right. People say it's also worn it just doesn't feel right. This doesn't look right. So it's our intuition and our gut feeling. So that's because all the senses goes together say which one of these two apps is better? I think this is better. You cannot say it's the color or the the button or that particular sound. It's the sum of all things. And that's where you know just like a dinner you know what's what's the best the potatoes the the beans or the or the sauce or the beef. It's just you know the whole plate here. Mhm. But you know if the beat is if if the meat is bad on the plate and the potatoes are good then oh you know has to it has to has to fit. And right right now there's no audio responsible at the companies. they have not taken sound seriously and when you're reducing the bandwidth to these two sensors you know seeing and hearing you really have to be aware of that. Yeah. So that's the primary change that that we see that the um user journey is getting more digital and you have to use sound in that space strategically to create more engaging communication. And so for a brand how important is it to develop a consistent sonic identity like across all touch points? Is it only in the app or because there are also ATMs and contact centers, uh, voice assistants and in the physical branches like you mentioned before. I mean, branding has been known for many years. It's about consistency. Yeah. Consistency beats everything. You need to be consistent what you say, what you do, and what you sound, what you look like. So I used to say to my clients, when you're about to get so bored and annoyed by your own sound, the clients just might start to learning or liking it. So today sound isn't decoration anymore. It's really infrastructure. It's it's part of the way you navigate and it's a multiplier for getting more effective communication, more consistent communication. So you might say yes you look with your within your CVI I mean the corporate visual density consistent but when I go through that user journey and sound call you up here uh down I use the app I might use it uh see a film on on social media and it all sounds different my brain hear differences and but looks consistent in what should I trust in so you need to be consistent in all senses obviously and um as I said before it's becoming more and more important important because in the digital space you only have seeing and hearing. Yeah. But that makes so much sense and I was also thinking maybe you could talk a bit more or tell me a bit more about your thoughts on the the whole safety or trust thing. Why is it so fundamental within the fintech and banking? Well, in fintex can be more it could be a bank. It could also be a trading platform. People trading, you know, stocks, you know, all kinds of different assets. And if you're a stock trader, you know, you're very, you know, it could be millions or thousands of of dollars or bitcoins or whatever you're trading here. So, you want to have this notification that oops, something is going wrong or did the transaction go well. So, these small micros becomes yes, wing, I succeeded or you you you got the trade right or you hit the the right um level in terms of where you should you trade. Uh so these small micro UI moments are as I see them very important because that is where a brand a bank and a brand can use those micro sounds to really empower their own brand. Yeah. And not only in the um big campaigns on on TV or or social media, but as a banking trader or me, I'm actually using my bank app say three to five times a week, transfer money to my kids or taking the budget account, blah blah blah. Have those money came in or a push notification. Oops, did I get the money or or did the transaction to the foreign bank went well? So these small micro sounds I can hear, oops, this is from the bank. stuff from Airbnb or from Slack or from Teams. So these can be small identifiers for for your company. Yeah. And many brands oversee that you might hear those micro sounds 100 times a year perhaps more and suddenly they becomes the most highly frequently played sounds for your brand and not the uh expensive campaign that you might see once twice uh throughout the year. Yeah. So the whole user journey has changed from the product is the brand and the brand is a product and the UX sounds a brand and the brand is the UX sound. So it's really hard to to to separate those things nowadays. Something we talked about at one point was also how we often tell our clients that it is so important that they, for example, their paying sound that they actually need to go into the app and make it their own because otherwise, for example, on an Apple phone, it's going to be a standard sound. Yeah. It's just going to be a standard Apple sound and if they don't change it, then people will associate maybe a negative thing from their brand with I just noticed that today. Yeah. I had downloaded the library app in Denmark. You can borrow libraries on the app as well. And that notification sound was the same as another app. So I got confused. Oh, it's a library. Okay. What is that saying? Well, I thought this that was the message I got. Why why is it the library? Exactly. So if you don't take control of your audio landscape, somebody else will take control of it. Exactly. So you need to own your audio landscape and and the touch points. And but not saying it's very important for me Karen just because we can make a sound doesn't mean we should make a sound. It could be a haptic receipt. Yeah, it could be light flashing. I'm just saying not in the app, but we always need to make sure, okay, what sensors do we have available in this point? Should it be light, haptic, or or sound? Or a combination of all three? If it's very important, you're you're just losing $1 million on this training. I want all senses on, hey [ __ ] my house is on fire. I just want to by the way, your house just burned down. Why didn't you just call me notify me? Do something. So there's also this level of you know it's very important is it a notification or is it just more branded sounds. So when should I be really disturbed I don't want a notification sound 4:00 in the morning that my money went through to Africa whatever it's fine but you could just know. Yeah. So the intelligent notification sounds also is adaptive to what is it? Is it you know a fire alarm or is it a branded sound? What time of day is it? And also how often is the user hearing this sound? Because if you're hearing too much then ah turn it down turn it down or yes I know you don't ping me all the time. So when we do our research we always look into you know how often is this sound played and how often should it be played and then take into account what situation are you in? Is it very important? Is it a winner sound or is it the oops you just lost money again sound. You don't want to be hitting your head all the time. You know you did it wrong. You just lost money or it didn't go through. Then you're also getting annoyed. So it's it is complex to make a really good cohesive and meaningful user journey with sound especially because the user journeys in apps uh have so many different scenarios you know and um that is why you need an audio strategy and what we call a audio architecture to know okay where is we should use sound or here we use light here we use text message only or here we can notch with a more sound again if they haven't applied to this then we can use sound again to know oh you really need to look into this because otherwise you know your trading will will end or whatever. Yeah. Or your transaction won't go through if you don't handle this issue. So understanding this urgency level and also in training videos for for for trading apps you know which sounds are important for you so you can start learning the user to use to learn the sounds what they mean and then incorporate them into the whole brand and product experience. Mhm. Why do you think just in general why is it so important in fintech and in banking? What is it about money? It's because it it hurts you. I mean if you same with speeding tickets, you know, oops, you want to you don't you you don't want to get a fine. So you always want to have, you know, notifies when you're winning money or losing money. That's really painful to you don't want to sound every time you get a new newsletter from uh you know some kind of clothing store company. Yes. But don't don't annoy me with this on a Friday evening at 8:00 with a sound because I don't need to know that you now have you know shirts on sale. But if I'm losing $1 million or $1,000, you know, I did want to know that oops, your trading didn't go through or right now the stock is increasing, something happened in the world, especially nowadays, should you act on this? Yes. So in these critical moments especially within trading where things is so volatile right now it's important you get the information right now because what happens in the world right now is very dynamic and uh it can shift up and down so fast. What are the like now we talked a lot about our thoughts on the matter but when the client comes to you what are some of the most common needs or requests that the client brings to the table or asks you like their initial thoughts on this subject and and yeah uh why it's so important within this field and for them. Well there are two type of clients there one that are aware that they have a need. Yeah. And then the ones that are unaware that do have a need. And sometimes you the ones that come to us they see oops we might need a sound for this app here or or it's it's isolated within the UX department or the designers or sometimes it's also for the marketing hole we thought we should have an order logo for a company should we do that and then we challenge them and say well it's fine we can make an order logo or we can make a UX sound but if it doesn't really you know connects with your whole user journey then you're just perhaps ending up disturbing people and the sound you have here could be adapted a little bit. So it also could work over here just like your visual indency. You have the the big format, the short format, you have the the inverted color, you know, black and white, white and black. Um you have italic, you have bold. So it's kind of like make them understand you need a sound system for this and not just, you know, isolated UI sounds because then you create what we call cacophony or audio schizophrenia. I don't know what what should I think or feel now. You're saying this or hearing that and now you're, you know, screaming. how your beep beep your beep what beep I don't understand. So then we challenge them back and say what is it you actually need to hear? We also have clients says we need 20 sounds for a for our app. I said I don't think you need 20 perhaps you need four. Oh really? Yes we can sell you 20 but again we don't want to make more noise. So, we really try to help our clients and make them understand that we're here to help you, you know, save money and not make noise here and help you make more engaging communication because at the end of the day, what I really want is the world and the products around us sound better. I mean in a home like my home here, you have, you know, TVs, you have Sonos speakers, you might have kids who have, you know, Nintendo gaming or whatever, X Xbox, and they all want to, you know, playing kitchen fridges, robots, vacuum cleaners, whatever, everything. So your your your life is getting invaded these sounds. And I see more and more people said, you know, mute, mute, turn down, turn down because we're getting disturbed all the time. So we need a we need a community, a landscape, a a you know a daily life where the sounds we have around us actually makes meaning to us and also the bank or the app or whatever you know so that's why it's so important for me that I really say to my clients we're not here to make more sound. We're really here to help you understand when you should use sound. And we have this philosophy which I've said so many times but still important that when we do break the silence it must create more meaning than the silence itself otherwise we're just making noise or disturbing and when we say that to our clients it really says yeah you're right and that goes with all kinds of communication don't just make a some post if you don't have anything to say or today with AI we can make you know all kinds of sound but does it really add value to us humans do we need that So it's more about the awareness and intention behind when and why should we use sound and what should I feel or think or do when I hear this and that's the discussion we should have more than just yes we can make 20 sounds or four sounds. So um back to your question two clients the one that doesn't know they have a need but then we we stop having the discussion you know where who should own it should it become from product from the app or marketing but we need to break down those silos because me as a user using an app yes uh from a bank for instance that's the app department who made that pass was an agency but then in within the app I can push a button and then I go directly to the website to see a tutorial oh then into the marketing who has another agency and then they say I need to call up because I don't understand this and then you go into the whole system which is another department. So you cannot really separate it because in an app you might go through three or four different departments. So we really helps and try to make the client understand that just like visual identity it's omniversal. It's everybody has you know in the company use your visual identity and the same is sound. You cannot separate into silos. So when a client comes to us, we either start within just the app sounds or it might start in the corporate communication and then from that we try to make it you know okay spread out so they because of course brands are not stupid they they can see it when they hear it and say yeah you you're right but we don't just cannot implement that in that department right now. So it takes time. So either it comes from the top down, the CEO might be very insightful, say we want to use sound here, here, here, make it happen as a whole project or it starts as a minor thing due to a um some kind of problem within the app or we have people doesn't understand the sound or we get complaints. We also heard that you know people are complaining about the noises or we don't understand the sounds why don't you turn it down etc or why don't we get a notification sound and then we start from there. So we always start where there's focus and energy and then say okay we can solve this but actually the problem is perhaps over here or the problem shouldn't be solved with sound it should be solved with something else. I think that's a great way to actually end our conversation today. My last question might also take us someplace news because someplace new because I just want to ask you looking ahead, what role do you believe Sonic identity will play in shaping this future of brand experience within this fintech and in the banking industries. For an example, also in the whole impact on long-term customer relationships. We've all already talked a lot about it, but maybe you had some more. Yeah, I have some good thoughts about that. I see that definitely a trend that we will get more adaptive and intelligent use of sound. Yeah. So the app knows okay what time is it now or is this really urgent? So it can actually you know change a little bit of the volume. So because am I in a noisy room? Uh, so you know the speaker an app phone has speaker and a microphone. It can hear, okay, this is a noisy room. So I should adapt the notification sound because right now cast is losing on this trade. So I really want to notify this. So I turn up the notification sound and also use some haptic because I can hear that he's moving around or I can feel with the guy he's moving around and he's a noisy environment. So the sound adapts to that environment. or if I'm sitting in a quiet in my living room reading a book, I don't need the sound of a fire alarm in a pocket. I can just say this is okay, this is important, but not shouting too loud. So this intelligent and adaptive use of sound to the user, to the environment you're in, I really hope that we can get that to that place where the sounds are, you know, intelligent. So again, back to my first philosophy, if it's meaningful, it it's not disturbing me. No. But if it's yelling at me 4:00 in the morning said you you could just has inform the this at 9:00 in the morning well well why because this is not so important and so making adaptives to the situation and um yeah this flexible consistency so we don't use the same sound but and a an adaptive sound design system with different intentions and different levels all according to the user journey and the user and suggest you in that sounds amazing. I hope that we'll be able to do that soon. Yeah, I think so with all the tech and AI we have now. So, why not? But again, it all starts with the intentional behind when and why should we use sound and when should we be played and what should I think, feel, or do when I hear this. Yes. Thank you so much, Casten, for another great conversation. You're welcome.