For the tenth episode of ▶▶FAST FORWARD, we were joined by Alexander Wodrich, one of Europe’s most renowned audio branding experts.

For over two decades, Alexander has created emotionally compelling brand experiences that engage audiences in unique ways. Today, he is the managing director and founder of why do birds, an award-winning agency considered to be one of Europe’s leading creators of holistic sound experiences for brands.

The Berlin-based company is behind the research, conception and implementation of audio strategies for clients across the globe, including Hyundai, Volkswagen, SEAT, Deutsche Bahn, Siemens and FIFA.

Why do birds won the GRAND PRIX of the International Sound Awards 2019 for its audio branding for Axel Springer and gold at the 2020 Transform Awards Europe.

Alex talked about the rise of voice-based services, what AI has to do with it, why brands feel threatened and how they react.

Would you have envisioned 25 years ago that on a daily basis you will be conversing with devices powered by artificial intelligence? While synthesized voices are becoming our day-to-day companions, Alexa and Siri are monopolizing the landscape. Alexander will discuss and envision more diverse audio-first futures, that embrace the unique identities of brands.

▶▶ More about Alexander

Alexander has been working in advertising since 1998, first at the Wunderman agency in Frankfurt, then at MetaDesign, Germany's largest branding agency.

As a brand consultant, he collaborated with clients such as Volkswagen, Lufthansa, Allianz and eBay.

In 2007, Alexander became the head of the Audio Branding and Motion Graphics division and a member of the management board of the agency.

A passionate musician, Alexander has played more than 100 concerts with his bands to date and has also recorded several records.

In 2010, he curated the sound exhibition "Oggetti Sonori" in the Museum August Kestner in Hannover.

As an international speaker, Alexander shares his knowledge about audio branding at universities and conferences around the world, including the Industry Day in Berlin, the Transform Conference in London, the Entrepreneurs’ Forum on Design in Bayreuth, the Radio Advertising Summit in Düsseldorf, the Munich Creative Business Week in Munich.

References, links and resources from Alexander’s talk:

▶▶ Voice recognition doesn’t always take into account the variety of human accents as shown in this “Scottish Elevator” video.

▶▶ Scarlett Johansson’s voice from the film Her often fuels the imagination for how human-machine interactions in a voice environment could look like. Sci-fi writer Joanna Kavenna also addresses the relationships we build by talking to smart object. „Oh it was wonderful when Tom first met Linda! She was so understanding, so interesting, such an intellectual. She was also a wristwatch, but this hardly mattered” starts her short story The Perfect Companion to be read here.

▶▶Why should we and how could we use gender neutral AI voices? Q is the first genderless voice. Using research and design techniques, The Feminist Internet is also investigating neutral and inclusive voice interfaces through the Feminist Alexa project.

▶▶ Are voice interfaces a step towards the adoption of digital humans? Uneeq is creating Digital Humans, AI-powered customer experience ambassadors that recreate human interaction. Emoshape does an impressive work with synthesizing emotions.

▶▶ How can marketing in a screenless internet look like? More about using soundscapes to convey a brand’s identity also in this article.

▶▶ "Studies of vocal expression on the brain suggest that audio tones can transmit messages that transcend language and cultural barriers. As a result, listeners from different backgrounds and cultures can interpret music as being happy or sad. From a branding perspective, marketers are using this knowledge to appeal to customers’ appetite for memorable, shareable content with sonic branding” states this report by Deloitte.

▶▶ Descript/Overdub are doing interesting work in the space of creating personalized, synthesized voices, letting anyone create a text to speech model of their voice—pointed one of the participants—while Vokaturi is a software aimed at understanding the emotion in a speaker’s voice.