Emotion & Sound

The idea that sound has an emotional impact on our lives may seem like a “no duh.” Of course sound sparks emotion! We experience this every time we hear someone laugh, or cry, or hear a nostalgic tune from our past. We even found this cool tool for testing your own emotional connection with sound.

At least, this is what we thought when we decided to interview Sam Crowther, Head of Creative at A Million Ads, for our next podcast episode. But what we walked away with from our conversation was so much more.

It turns out that sound–while not nearly as obvious as our other senses–is actually one of the first and most important senses we develop as humans. In fact, it’s sound that functions as our earliest warning sign of danger (think: a jaguar rustling in the brush). It’s also sound in the form of speech and language that allowed us to develop relationships outside of our family unit (aka civilization).

The reason why sound has such a deep impact on us is because it works mostly in our subconscious. Even in our own lives, most of us anecdotally know that it matters less what we say, but how we say it. Yet, what many us of don’t realize is that it’s the musical elements of sound specifically–volume, intonation and rhythm–that convey the real meaning of our message. Or in other words, the EMOTION behind the message.

In this fourth episode of our Power of Audio podcast series, Sam explains two important ways that advertisers can tap into these fundamental elements of sound to create an emotional response in a target audience.

You can take a listen to this latest episode right here–or add our brand-new “Power of Audio” station to your Pandora playlist. Now, you can learn about how audio impacts us as people and consumers in the exact same way you would listen to any music station on Pandora. It’s an even more seamless way to catch up on previous episodes and stay up-to-date on new releases.