3 Ways Music can Increase Team and Personal Effectiveness (feat. Jonathan Elias)

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Hi, I'm Susan Drum and welcome to the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we spotlight groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help executives and entrepreneurs get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we empower teams and strengthen leaders to achieve high performance. Go to meritageleadership.com to learn more. Today we're focusing on a subject close to my heart. Music. And I'm excited to introduce Jonathan Elias to talk about audio branding and how music influences the way we think, feel and buy. One of the most influential composers in the advertising world, Jonathan is responsible for groundbreaking work for countless brands. His work as a record producer, Grammy nominated artist and film composer include collaborations with Duran Duran, B.B. king, David Bowie. Yes, Grace Jones, Alanis Morissette, Sinead O' Connor and countless more. So for over 40 years, he's brought his award winning style to the business of music and sound. So welcome Jonathan.

Nice to be here and thank you for the introduction.

Yes, I can't wait to talk to you about all things music with as you know, I wrote my first book on how music can help leaders. And what I'm particularly interested in is learning more about how music influences us. So perhaps you can share your thoughts on that.

Well, let me start by saying that music is the soundtrack of our life and everyone has their own unique soundtrack. And there's nothing more memorable or that can connect with us quicker than hearing a piece of music. You remember your first kiss with a piece of music. You remember holding hand on the beach with someone. You remember tragedy. You remember love. You remember emotions of all types. Music connects with our dopamine system chemically. It has such an instantaneous ability to connect with all different parts of our heart and soul.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And what I found fascinating in some of the research that I did is that music impacts when it's played. They can see all the regions of the brain lighting up on an mri and very few things can do that. But somehow music has this power to do that. And in a sense it's pre language, right? It's vibrational. And because of that it has incredible impact on us as humans.

Well, isn't it interesting that a lot of people who have Alzheimer's still remember songs from their youth and they can still hum along and they can still sing the words when they can't remember their own children's names. So that fact alone shows us how music is so integrated into us as human beings.

Yes, yes. You know, when they done those studies, they just come alive when they're unresponsive. They find this ability to connect. There's the studies measurable increase in eye contact and happiness and a decrease in fatigue. And they're able to see this on an MRI where all those regions of the brain are lighting up, which is so fascinating to see if it can do that, what else can it do? And that's, that's what we're here to discuss. Right.

Can do a lot. And I believe that in the years ahead, science will actually. We already know MRIs are partially made of sound. And there are going to be things that in the near future, I believe that there will be sound that will be actually healing beyond spa music, beyond things like that, but. Or beyond calm, anything that can relax us, but that will actually stimulate our brain in different ways. I mean a lot of people believe that listening to Mozart and Bach actually help your brain get into that 3D chest space where you're actually opening all channels.

Right. It helps you at the end of the day form new neural pathways more quickly.

Exactly.

Or access old ones. Right. Is it in the case of the office.

Exactly right.

And so if it has that ability and we want to learn a new task, then why not leverage music in a new way? Or is in the case of what I do, if you want to change a pattern, you can do so. And even a deep seated childhood wound pattern, you can do so using music. So share with us a little bit of your work in audio branding and what that means.

Well, I have a question and I ask this to brands in general and to people in advertising or CMOs or what sound does a brand make? Now this may seem odd because we often think of what a brand is, not what a brand sounds like. But the fact of the matter is music can help brands connect with us on a deeper emotional level. Brands like Yahoo, Liberty and Farmers have become iconic because of their catchy mnemonics. Now presently Liberty and Farmers are two of the top most recalled logos in America. And I happen to have done those. So I am considered somewhat an expert obviously in that field. And there are reasons that they are so iconic. Part of it is they're entertaining, part of it, they make you feel good. They remind us of a brand that just might have some value in our lives. In fact, I shouldn't even know this, but I've been doing this so long. There's an 800% increase in brand recognition and recall in commercials that use sonic branding. Wow. How do you like that? Isn't that impressive? I remember that.

And you didn't have music in the background to help you.

So it's a quite an important. It's. It's really a hidden gem in the world of branding. And humans are wired for sound and music, and that's why it relates to us so, so well. And branding and music are a match made in heaven. Corporations spend $8 billion a year on audio branding. So basically they get to live rent free in our brains.

Yeah, right, right. It's very true. And I think about some of those jingles, particularly if it's tied with music that we already know. Right. I think of that Ozempic ad. Right. Which was. At least if you're a bit older, you know that song. I mean, it's not from my generation, but I know the generation prior.

First one that was written or that I've heard about in. In 1926, Wheaties was the first company to do a radio jingle. And it happened because their brand was slipping and people weren't really interested. And they did a little radio jingle with a barber shop quartet, a local barbershop quartet of where they did it and their scale, their sales started to skyrocket. And that's the first commonly recognized jingle or diddy or sound that we call upon.

Yeah.

And through the years, look, the first really major one that I got involved with was for mtv, the moon landing. Now when someone brought that project to us, I felt like, who's going to be sitting in front of a TV watching videos all day? What a dumb idea. It's a good thing I didn't invent electricity. But the concept of MTV and what it did to my personal career, all of a sudden I was looked upon as an expert to the younger generation. And I was part of the younger generation when that came out. But the power that that had. I later went on to work with, as you said, Duran Duran and Bowie and Duran Duran, particularly with. They would say to me, and they were on MTV all the time in the early years, they'd say, you're on MTV more than us. And it was a cute little factoid for me.

Yes, that's right. That's right. Well, how does. What. Have you seen examples of how music has influenced people? Because I saw some of your notes on that and I thought it was really fascinating.

Well, it influences us in countless ways. Specifically, I will say this, that we live in a fragmented society and entertainment platforms, we have so many of them. Audio branding has the power to reach beyond advertisements and broadcast tv. And today, with all the different opportunities to use sound. Smart speakers, for example. They're a huge part of new media landscape, and sound can help. Where everything is saturated, brands are looking to capture our attention. And in situations where visuals are not there, sound is the way to do it.

Yeah, yeah. Some of the things that I read that you put forth were, were just, I think, particularly powerful and completely agree that the impact of sound goes beyond conscious or rational perception. We can create change for good. Right. And drive powerful results. But here are some of the things I read. So crime rates in Lancaster, California dropped 15% after the city's mayor introduced a relaxing scoundscape along the city's main boulevard.

Crazy, isn't that?

That's crazy.

So there are. There are countless studies where, as you know from your work, where sound can be used in a sense of healing and in a sense of calm and in the sense of human interconnection and human contact. And when we stand together, as in anything, we have a sense of unity. I think that, you know, sound has a purpose there.

Yeah, yeah. And the, the other piece is like that I read robberies dropped 33% and assaults on staff 25% and vandalism down 37 when classical music was piped over the loudspeakers in London's underground, their subway.

Yeah, that's a crazy one. Those are some crazy facts. Boy, you really did a deep dive on some of my information. But, yeah, those are some stats. And it just goes to show that, you know, that sound and music have power over our hearts, our souls and connection.

Yes. We can do that to heal ourselves. As I talk about and what you really talk about too, as business owners and entrepreneurs and executives, we also can do that to grow our business. Right. So another you mentioned playing French music in a wine store led to French wine outselling German wine by five to one.

Isn't that crazy? That's a crazy stack. I. I still don't know if that. If it would make me do that, but.

Right.

But it's. It's there. And these are all verified things and things that I've learned along the way. But I will tell you this. You know, we could. We've all been in a store and we hear something and it attaches to a memory or attaches to something that we felt before. And all of a sudden, we find our way through the ice cream aisle into something that might have reminded us of our childhood. And why did I buy that? Yeah, So a lot of it is subconscious. In fact, most of it is subconscious. And the Future of audio branding is even more exciting because I think pretty soon the majority of global products are going to be digital. And whether it be what Tesla's doing or security systems or fashion accessories or healthcare testing devices, we're living in an audio renaissance. And sonic branding is going to be considered the secret weapon of marketing. The sounds of these products, well, they're not only crucial to the brand's identity, but they're going to have to tell the story of what the brand stands for, because these brands and these items, they don't inherently have sound. So that's going to be interesting. And look, another little fact that I know is that 70% of Gen Z and Millennials enjoy it when brands have a distinct sound period. That tells us a lot.

Yeah. So I would say if you don't have a distinct sound yet for your brand, that's some work to be doing because you're leaving a lot on the table. A visual memory only for people to recall versus this power of sound.

Yeah. I think that we're seeing an enormous uptick and I know that we are at. I work at Universal Music in our publishing world and we're seeing an enormous. Elias Audio branding is seeing an enormous uptick because of this. People are starting to know this and it's becoming a huge growth industry for us.

Yeah. Yeah, I bet. Well, tell us a little bit about your story. How did you.

Because we talked about. My goodness.

Yeah, we talk about in the show, you know, our personal evolution. Right. And how it sparks our leadership. Evolution. So how is it, how has that happened for you?

Well, I used to, when I was really little, we would go out to my. My Aunt Rose's house in Long Island. She had a piano and I was three or four. And I'd sit there and make up little stories about running through magical forests. And it didn't sound very much like music, but because I didn't know how to play anything. But that led to me starting piano at a very early age. And I always composed. I didn't realize that composing was something that everyone didn't do, but by the way, I still feel that composition is something that everyone can do. We. We can all access that part of ourself, but that's another story. But so I, early on in my career, I was writing piano and I was writing for cellos and piano and string quartets. And as I got a little bit older, I went to school for conducting and composition. And I thought I was going to become a teacher at Eastman School of Music, where I had been or later on, I thought I'd be one of those composers, that artistic brand that went down to New York City and was doing avant garde electronic music. And at 21, a friend of a friend said, you know, you're doing a lot of that synthesizer stuff, right? That. And it was brand new, 1976. You had to patch everything. There were these big machines like today. But I happened to really love doing that work. And it was another type of composition. And they said that they were looking for electronic music that was scary for something. I didn't know what it was. And I sent them a piece and they sent it to the friend of a friend, and they used it on movie trailers and TV commercials for a movie called Alien. I was 21 years old and I was in school, and I had no idea what it was going to do to change my life forever. So that was my first real project. And then I moved to New York City and my next big one was really mtv. And MTV changed a lot of things for me. Along the way, I met a composer, John Barry did all the Bond movies out of Africa, amongst many seven Academy Award. But he became my mentor of sorts, and he really taught me a lot about film work. And he got me to work with him on View to a kill with Duran Duran. And that got me into the record world. So I was working in parallel careers. Part of it was in advertising, part of it was in record work, and part of it was film work. And it was interesting because they all wove together in different ways.

Very interesting. And how do you think music has healed you? Were you ever at a point in your life where you went through a bit of a personal transformation and found music to be helpful or even instrumental in that?

Well, I think everyone who's ever had their heart broken will tell you that music is instrumental to them. But I will say this, that When I was 7, about 7 or 8, we moved out of New York City to the suburbs. And I was left alone a lot. And I would dream a lot. And I really do believe that Those years between 7 and 10 were where I gathered a lot of my ability to channel, because I do believe that composers channel a lot. We work very, very hard in those first 10,000 hours, as we all know. But I do believe that first instincts and channeling, it's almost like meditation, composing. And I think a lot of it came from those early years. My daydreaming, my. My thought process, my wondering what life was about, wanting to belong, all those things that. That happen when we're young.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. It's interesting to see how it's flourished in your life and what a successful career you've made of it. What would be a piece of advice that you could give to leaders who are either thinking about this concept of how music influences them personally or how music can influence their business?

Well, first of all, I believe in first instincts, and I believe in the importance of trusting in your instinct. And to other leaders, I would say that there's a reason that instinct is in you, and to believe in it is very important because it comes from within. Somewhere in your brain, your body, your soul, something is telling you to believe in yourself. There was a famous Apple ad that I worked on called Think different, and it was about, here's to the crazy ones, the visionaries.

Oh, yes.

It's something that always has resonated with me because the writer was a friend of mine, and I remember that Steve Jobs insisted they hire some famous poets, and they did along the way, but in the end, they kept what my friend wrote because it was brilliant, poetic and authentic. And incidentally, we had one night to do that music. But trusting in first instincts proved how belief in oneself is really part of life's most valuable assets.

Yeah. And. And I would even add to that to say, you know, music can heal you. I talk about that in my book. I talk about how to use it to be a better leader. But you could use it also with your teams, even if you're not in charge of branding or feel like, well, I can't do audio branding. They already have the brand established. I'm in the. Whatever, procurement department. It's not related, but you could, for yourself, for your team, create some branding and use audio to help you with that.

Unquestionably. Unquestionably. You. You. You do it as a team.

Yeah.

A team effort, you know, and you get everyone involved because everyone has their, as we discussed at the top, the soundtrack of their lives. And if everyone's involved, you get to know a little bit more about who they are and they get to know a little bit about who you are.

Yeah.

And inevitably, you'll share a story about, oh, you know, when I heard that, I was so and so. And it brings people together, brings people.

Closer, and it'll bring your team together. Even if you have different team interests you can think about or different interests and tastes of music, my sense is there's usually always something you can rally around.

Oh, yeah. You know, with some of the brands that we have worked with and some of the stories are really interesting. And for instance, Yahoo. The idea of a yodel being placed on top of a brand new technology, the fact that we use that was out of the blue and it skyrocketed. The whole concept of Yahoo. People recognize them 96% more because maybe 86. I've got a lot of white in my beard from remembering these stats. But the fact that we did something so off center was so unique and it really made a technology that was a little foreign at the time. Internet search engine. What the heck was that? Yeah, and it brought some fun to it. And really, yodeling is what people would do in communities when they were on mountaintop. Villagers trying to connect with each other. So there are fun stories even within the branding projects we did. Another fun one was Liberty, which I'm sure everyone has heard more than once, but Liberty mutual. So I was walking my dog one day and it was, it was a hard project because I was trying to get it in the word liberty four times in three seconds. And finally my dog, who loved going out for walks and running after the ball, I, I always take along a little my phone and record ideas. And we finally found the key to open up that door. So you never know where music, where sound, where art, where ideas come from. And you just have to be open to it.

I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing some of your thoughts and powerful stories around the impact of music. I would also encourage, if you are an entrepreneur or have your own business, have you thought about audio branding and what are you doing in that space? So either if you're not, you know, don't have your own company, then you can use it for your team. But if you do, you, you definitely should, as should we. So I'll be talking to you a little bit after. Where can people learn more about your work?

Just go onto our website at and you'll. You'll learn as much as you need to know.

All right, great. Well, we'll have that in the comments.

The last thing I would like to say, one line is that there was a song that I used to love called the when the Music's Over. It's by a band called the Doors. In fact, wearing Jim Morrison's beads. I still wear it. I can't imagine a life without music and I can't imagine a world without music. And I don't think anyone listening here can imagine a world without music. Add music, move it forward, make it part of your brand. Brands need life. Music brings life to it.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much and I'm glad you are here to share music, the power of music since it is so important to me as well. If you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Tommy Breedlove, who serves clients and audience everywhere by empowering them to build and live legendary lives. Let's all lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive sa.