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Why Creativity in Marketing Sounds Fun with Alex Gangi · We Built This Brand

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With storytelling, you have to know how to speak to the audience.
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Especially in marketing, you have to be true to your audience.
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You have to say it with the right voice.
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You wanna find somebody who can speak the truth to their audience.
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Not someone who's faking and making it up, but
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somebody who has that connection to the audience.
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Welcome to We Built This Brand, where we talk to the
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creators and collaborators behind your favorite brands.
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Today, I’m picking the brain of Alex Gangi, the
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Partner, COO, and Head of Production for Sounds Fun.
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Alex started in film, made the transition to marketing, and has spent
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his career using new tech and strategies to reach new audiences.
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Want to know how you can harness the power of emerging technologies like AR?
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How can you use AI to take your creativity to the next level?
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Let’s not wait any longer to find out!
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Here’s my conversation with Alex.
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All righty.
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Well, Alex, welcome to We Built This Brand.
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Hey Chris.
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Thanks for having me, man.
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Yeah, it's great to have you here today.
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I'm excited to talk to you more about Sounds Fun
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and everything that you've got going on over there.
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Where I always love to start these conversations,
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just getting to know a little bit more about you.
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So tell me about your background.
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Where do you come from, and how'd you get to Sounds Fun?
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Started off in a way which I actually have brought into the agency life.
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I always love movies.
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When I was growing up, I always would find the movie on the TV.
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I never really watched TV.
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TV shows were not a thing for me.
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I didn't care about that too much.
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I'd always go to the movie channels right off the bat
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and on cable and find them, but I never really realized
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that that could be a career for a very long time.
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It was just kind of more of a hobby for me, and it was always
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the big four I was looking at when I was moving forward.
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It was medicine, law, engineering, architecture.
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Those were the ones that were pushed on me.
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So I went to undergraduate for pre-med and halfway through
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that I realized that that was not what I wanted to do.
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And I took a film class and fell in absolute love and was like, "Oh
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my God, I can make this actually a career." Now I'm an agency, right?
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So I'm a little adjacent to that.
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It's not really film, but that is where I got my start.
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I got my MFA at SCAT in Savannah, and shortly thereafter
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moved to Los Angeles to try my hand at becoming a director.
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Oh, wow.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's a very difficult way to go, but I found production.
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Yeah, I found production, and I jumped into that
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with I got a role at Pretty Bird North America.
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I'm sure you might be aware of Pretty Bird as a production company.
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I think they won number two Ad Age Best Production Companies again this year.
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They've been on it for like 10 years straight or something like that.
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One of the top ones.
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Like really, really lucky to have basically
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started my career there as a production assistant.
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Did that for a couple years, and then I went freelance
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and started to work my way up with some of the best
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production companies, which I didn't even know at the time.
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You know, I'm like just doing what?
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Just doing the things, taking the jobs, and it just kind
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of be bopped me around between some of these companies.
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Like, you know, Pretty Bird, Tool of North America, North Six, London Alley, you
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know, some of the best music video and commercial production houses out there.
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I did like music videos, commercials, branded content.
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I even went into fashion photography for a little bit.
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So I started watching The Studio recently.
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I don't know if you've seen that on Apple TV or not.
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I haven't watched it yet.
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It is on my must watch list.
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It will probably give you that feeling in the pit of
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your stomach of like, "oh, this is painful to watch.
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" Because even though I'm not in Hollywood by any means,
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the situations, the things the, that the main characters
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get put in, feel like situations I've had in production.
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And yeah, I can empathize.
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So, I didn't know if you've had a chance to see that or not, but that
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was like my baseline right now when you said, "oh, I went to Hollywood
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and tried to be a producer." So that's really neat that you've had
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that background, 'cause storytelling is intrinsic to marketing, right?
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We wouldn't be where we were if we didn't have the ability
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to tell those stories, and it sounds like you kind of came up
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through that, and used that to leverage into your early career.
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It's true.
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I mean, you have to, with storytelling, you have to know how to
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speak to the audience with everything you make, especially, and
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especially in marketing, you have to be true to your audience.
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You have to say it with the right voice, and a lot of that, both
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in directing if you're doing it yourself, you know, you wanna
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speak something that's true to yourself, and if you're producing,
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you wanna find somebody who can speak the truth to their audience.
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And not someone who's faking and making it up, but somebody
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who has that already has that connection to the audience.
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It's so much of what we do now is finding the correct, you know,
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as the head of production, right now, it's so much of finding
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the correct partners to actually execute against the creative's
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vision while speaking to the audience that we're targeting.
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That's such a big part about it, and you can get that wrong, and when
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you get that wrong, the product, it's never what it's meant to be.
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Even if it, like, looks maybe amazing, it doesn't speak correctly all the time.
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So that's my number one check mark normally.
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Yeah.
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How do you go about identifying and tracking,
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you know, who will meet the mark for a client?
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Because you can't have the same person on every project.
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They're not always gonna fit the right theme or the right vibe for the client.
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So how do you even approach that?
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Yeah, for sure.
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I always have some of my go-tos, of course who know my work, know my creatives
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work, know how we like to execute, and they always deliver stellar results.
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But that also being said, I think the way we work
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is very different than a lot of other agencies.
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Sounds Fun, we really try to bring in a element of not
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only cultural capital, because that is such a big part
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of our messaging, but innovation to everything we do.
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We don't just generally do the linear, we're gonna do a linear
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spot that we're gonna do, you know, a couple of social pieces.
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We're gonna do web banners, you know, it's like they basically have a
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package and you're like, we're gonna do the same thing, rinse and repeat.
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We never do that.
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We always build the creative around the client and around the client's needs.
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And we go where a lot of people don't go.
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So
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I'm always constantly finding new partners to actually execute things
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that have never been done before, or if they've, if they've ever been
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done, they've been done in such, they haven't been done in this way.
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You always need people who are kind of on the edge
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of innovation to executing against that stuff.
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Now it's all supported by, you know, standard, traditional media stuff.
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But, you know,
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it's important to look around and find outside the box and
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it's, I'm always doing research on people, reading up on
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things that have been done, being introduced to new people.
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It's a constant, it's a constant game to keep it up.
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Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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I mean, especially because what you all are doing is a lot of
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emerging technologies, emerging ideas, emerging concepts, and yeah.
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You just never know when that, where that great idea is gonna come from.
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And those leaders in the innovation are gonna be, I mean, they might
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be on YouTube right now, they might be on Reddit, they might be on, you
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know, some other platform I can't even pronounce somewhere in the world.
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I don't know.
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But yeah, hunting that down and tracking that I'm sure is a lot of work.
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So tell me about Sounds Fun itself.
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So you've got this background in production, and then I
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think you mentioned about a year, year and a half ago,
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you all started, probably even longer, started Sounds Fun.
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So how did that come about?
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Yeah.
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So we all met at our previous agency and we worked together for about two
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years doing, like, probably one of the, until recently, one of the most
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incredible work streams I've ever been a part of, which was Coca-Cola Creations.
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I assuming you might have heard of it, maybe?
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If you haven't basically what it is, it was a bunch of limited time offer
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products dropped by Coca-Cola and marketed to Gen Z. We started off with
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Starlight back in 2021, 2022, which was my first job working with the team and
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the first Coca-Cola creation, and it kept us going for two years afterwards.
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The last one just basically launched about a little over a year ago.
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I had left a little earlier, but I had set up and delivered all the
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stuff and then left, and then a few months later we started Sounds Fun.
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But while I was doing that project you know, that's kind of where we met.
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That's where we all met, and we got to do some incredible out of the
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box thinking for one of the most amazing marketing brands in the world.
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So I can't ask for more than that.
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Coca-Cola, such famous brand.
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I mean, I've grown up in the southeast, and so it's
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had a even a huge commercial impact on our region.
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So I definitely understand the value that they bring.
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And I mean, literally you've grown up with it, so that's fascinating.
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So, you all were making products, you said, for Gen Z?
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I'm actually not that familiar with this
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product line, so I'm curious about this.
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Yes, it was wild.
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We actually did we basically created new limited time offer
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products and then we had to market them in really interesting ways.
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So the first one was Coca-Cola Starlight, where the first
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time Coca-Cola has ever changed the color of the product.
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It was, it had a red hue versus it's that standard caramel.
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And then it also had a a flavor profile where it kind of gave
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like kind of a minty taste on the back end after you swallowed it.
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And then we created this whole campaign around the first
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Coke in space and we shot a, oh God, what did we do?
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We did such amazing things.
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We did incredible product with the product floating in space.
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We did several online teasers.
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We did a, oh, the big one was we worked with popstar Ava Max to create
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an augmented reality concert on a can where you would scan your Coca-Cola
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can, and she would walk out and perform one of her three hit songs.
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At the time, AR was only being used for about like 15 seconds worth of content.
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We created three, three and a half minute like pieces that were bespoke that
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you could watch on your desk, that you could watch anywhere in the world.
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And this was like, you know, this was at the very cutting edge of it.
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Like, the team we brought on to do it basically had to break
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everything and rebuild it to figure out how to actually do this.
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It had never been done before, and it was an incredible, still to this day.
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One of my favorite things I've ever made was that one.
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And then we just kept innovating and doing new things.
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After that, we worked with
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we worked with Epic Games, and we did a launch in.
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Fortnite?
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Fortnite, thank you.
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Wow.
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That was the tip of my tongue.
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So we did a launch on Fortnite in the next one,
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and then we built the first Coca-Cola from Dreams.
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Then we did the first Coca-Cola made with AI.
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That was Y3000, launched in the summer of 2023.
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We did a partnership with League of Legend, and we got three emojis from
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Coca-Cola Ultimate, which was a really fun product, which was crazy.
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It was the first of its kind where anyone in the world could
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basically get on their cell phone, scan your face, and be put into
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a film and get your own bespoke version of this, like basically an
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homage to video game film that we had created, and you're the hero.
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And then we leveled that up again with K-Wave, which was a K-pop Coke
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where we worked with groups like ITZY, NMIXX, and then Stray Kids.
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We created this crazy, we went to Korea, we shot this amazing music
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video with them, and then anyone in the world could log in, create
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their own avatar, which would then be placed inside the music video.
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Your voice would also be auto-tuned, and you'd sing along with this, with the
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track, which is incredible, and then your name would be, would
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show up in lights, literally in lights, all throughout the
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video, and you get your own bespoke music video at end of and a
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lot of other fun cool collectible content that you could share.
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That one was super fun too.
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So, you know, taking something that might have been like a traditional
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thing where like, "okay, we created a music video," to being like, "oh
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no, you can be a part of it." It's immersing the audience in the branding
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as, and they can be part of it instead of just being a passive viewer.
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It's an active integration of
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it.
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Yeah.
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Puts them in the place of the, you know, with the brand and
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with everything else you're trying to do and reach out to.
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So what was Coke's, like, ultimate strategy there?
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I mean, obviously reaching Gen Z is a part of it, but I mean, these
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are very niche engagements, very targeted things that you're doing.
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So what was kind of their goal there?
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I'm sure, I don't know if you've been aware, but like sugary
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drinks and things like that have kind of been on the downfall.
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You know, a lot of Gen Z was, you know, they're not really drinking alcohol.
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They're not really drinking sugary drinks.
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They're going to water or like alternative drinks.
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There's also like a huge amount of
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product growth within that market as well.
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Like, you now can get, you know, like PRIME Energy, and
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like a bunch of other different products that you would,
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that have like come up from influencers and things that you,
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that it used to be a much more concentrated market.
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And then, so they're trying to grab more eyes, grab more
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lips, I guess, to to actually drink their products, right?
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And they're trying to reintroduce Cokes to Gen Z to Coca-Cola
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as a beverage, and something that you can have all the time.
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And by that, we basically made hype drops of you know, think about shoes, right?
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Like we basically created hype drops, like, or like something like Supreme.
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And we created these limited time offers
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that people wanted to get their hands on.
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I mean, like we, when Starlight came out, there were people selling after it
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went out, there were people selling Starlight online for like $200 a bottle.
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Like, this is a Coca-Cola, this cost $2.50 at
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your local QT or your corner mart, you know?
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Like it was pretty awesome what we were able to accomplish with it.
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Yeah, it was totally different.
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It'd never been, not, never done in that way, at least.
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And that definitely drives a lot of engagement with the product.
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So that's really neat.
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So then your team, your group of friends, and
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everybody who left that, founded Sounds Fun.
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Where did the name come from, by the way?
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I'm really curious.
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We had thought about names for, we were working on that
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for days and days, maybe a month, maybe a month and a half.
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And we even came up with one name for a little
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bit, and it was very innovative and techy.
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And we're like, "alright, this is cool." And then we're like, and then
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we found out that there was another product that we didn't really wanna
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be associated with that had a very similar name, almost exactly the same.
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And we're like and one of us just said, "That sounds fun," and we
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stopped, and we were like, yeah, and it's great too, because whenever
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clients or, and we tell anybody our name's Sounds Fun, everyone's like,
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they always have to drop Sounds Fun somewhere in our conversation.
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It's always on their lips.
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It's very memorable, and it also helps us add a
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little bit of everything we do should sound fun to us.
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You know, it's like we're not doing stuff
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just to build a business just to make money.
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Like, we wanna do stuff that's fun and engaging to our consumers as well.
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Yeah, that's exciting.
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So as you all get together, start this business, start getting it going,
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everybody has those moments where I call like, the moment of validation.
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You're starting a business, you're never a hundred percent sure until you
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get to the point where something's, you know, something actually happens.
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You're never a hundred percent sure whether that business is
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really gonna actually move forward beyond the concept, right?
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So.
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What is that moment of validation for you all,
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or what was that moment of validation for?
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Sounds Fun.
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Oh, that was our first really big client bringing us in to lead a
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cultural campaign for them, a thought leadership, and that was Lenovo.
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They brought us in, our amazing friend and marketer,
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Lex, she found us with help through her team too, and
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we were brought in to start a thought leadership program, and we ended
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up calling it Make Space, and we built that all last year, and we finally
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launched it in February of this year with a culmination of a, basically it
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was a musical event where people could test the product, but we also like
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had Rebecca Black headlining and stuff like that in Bushwick, New York.
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Yeah.
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You know Rebecca Black, and
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it was wildly successful.
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And we're now starting our iterative R two, round two, year two,
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with them right now to hope to build it and keep it growing.
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So basically the whole program was about bringing, you know, how
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with something like Coca-Cola, I like to say with something like
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Coca-Cola, we brought Innovate, we brought, Coca-Cola's already culture.
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It really is.
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I mean, it's like a marketing behemoth.
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They already, so we brought innovation to
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culture in this one.
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We brought culture to innovation.
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We kind of flipped it on its edge 'cause, you know,
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Lenovo's already known for being a very innovative product.
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Anyone who knows anything about Lenovo as a brand knows
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if you go to CES and stuff like that, knows that they
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always have some of the best techy products out there.
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Like, they're always bringing something new, and what we're
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doing is we were, we are building the culture around that brand.
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It's like, hey, it's not just a technical product, it's also
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a fun, cool technical product where you can create something.
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We call it Make Space because
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what it's about is about the white space, the messy in-between of,
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between your idea and the final product.
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So what we like to show off is we're showing off creators
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and artists and musicians making their work in progress.
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So much more than just showing off the final thing, like, "oh, look what
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you can do on this thing." It's like, "no, look how you can screw up,"
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but how it helps you remedy it and also you find it using this product.
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It's not just, it's your tool.
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It's your tool to discover and invent.
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Yeah.
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And when I think of laptops, especially some of the stuff that Lenovo has done,
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I think the yoga line is what we were talking about here with this space, and
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like with that, like, there's a lot of innovation they've done with it, right?
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And so, you know, a creative like me, who needs to brainstorm,
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who needs to think through things, who needs to work on projects
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from time to time that require space to mess up, like, I could
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see why marketing a laptop in that way makes a lot of sense.
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So that's really cool.
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That's really fascinating.
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There's also, you know, it also fits with like the, I think
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kind of like the mindfulness movement a little bit too.
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Thinking about making space for things and all of that as well.
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I'm sure that played into your project as well.
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Yeah, it did in a few places.
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Yeah, for sure.
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I mean, you have to to think of what you're gonna
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create before you actually create it, right?
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It's not just like messing up and calling it a day.
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It's like, you have to believe it.
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Yeah.
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For sure.
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As someone who relies on a tablet or a laptop at all times, it feels
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like I could definitely see the value in that marketing approach.
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Well, that's just so interesting.
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Some of the people we even worked with, like they, you know, like a
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lot of the younger generation, some of them don't even have laptops.
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They don't have things like that.
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It's like, it's another of that piece of getting a piece of
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hardware in their hands, and so they're learning new ways to create.
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Like some of them create on their phone, some of them create on their, and
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we're not talking about content creators who create for like money and stuff,
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we're talking about people who like to create because they're compelled to.
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You know, people who actually create interesting new works,
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and they basically build a following around them for what
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their innovative thinking and their, just their creativity.
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They're not just trying to sell a product or anything like that.
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So actually, one of our creators had never owned a laptop, and
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he's like, I did everything on my, like my phone and this tablet.
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And he's like, this is incredible.
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And he actually like really gushed about the product, which was awesome to hear.
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And he is like, it actually sped up my workflow and you know, all the things.
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And you're just like, well, I'm not even marketing anymore.
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We're actually talking to the right people here.
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Like, this is great.
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You know, we found the person that we wanted to talk to.
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That's always great when you can do that.
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When you can find truth, leaving it back to the directing and the filmmaking.
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It's like, you gotta find the people who can actually bring
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the truth, and you're not trying to just force feed concepts.
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Yeah.
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Which is one of the fun things about being on these more
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emerging technologies is you get to play around with things and
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experiment with things before they're ever, you know, really a
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risk to doing them because you're trying it for the first time.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah.
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And you're allowed to make mess up, and honestly, you're allowed to break stuff.
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I mean, so many times, things are gonna fall apart somewhere in the process.
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Especially, you know, as being a producer, being in production, like, and
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working on these emergent things and doing stuff that's never been done before.
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Like, I can't tell you how many times things break before you get it right.
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You just have to build that into your workflow and understand that like,
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hey, it's probably gonna break and then keep your cool when it does.
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Just get it fixed as soon as you fast possibly can because it's just part of it.
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But no one really holds it against you because, you know, if it
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works, when it works, and if it works right and it does the thing
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it needs to do, and it works correctly for generally, most of
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the time everyone's usually happy because it blows minds and no
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one's seen it before, and it really gets the conversations going.
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So it's really fun to do.
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So speaking of some of those technologies, what are some things right now
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that you're seeing that you're like really excited about within this space?
23:24
'cause I'm sure we could talk ad nauseum about some of this stuff.
23:28
There are so many.
23:29
We talk Gaussian Splatting all the time internally.
23:31
I mean like creating a 4D, basically a 3D-4D world out of, like, a picture.
23:40
I am personally, I was seeing something that was popping
23:44
up the other day, and now this really doesn't have a ton,
23:47
it's more of like, it's not really a super interesting
23:52
marketing thing, I guess, but what I do love about it is,
23:57
there is a platform that you can now do, it's basically
24:01
dubbing, but it uses AI to change the mouth movement
24:09
of the actor while they basically dub their own lines.
24:12
Like you can maybe, say they're doing a Spanish language
24:17
film, and then they wanna release it in America.
24:21
And they wanna do it in English, and they speak all their
24:23
lines in English, and they use AI to change the lip movement.
24:28
So it's their performance, both their voice, their voice,
24:31
their performance and everything, but it's completely changed
24:35
in the North American audience wouldn't know the difference.
24:39
And I think that's incredible, and I think that could definitely
24:42
be spread too 'cause so many of these products we work on
24:46
are global, and so much of the stuff we shoot is global.
24:49
I feel like that is something that we could
24:50
definitely implement into some of our structure.
24:53
So you're actually speeding in the, speaking in the native tongue.
24:55
So much of this global work that we've done, we do
24:58
silent for that reason because it's a lot easier to
25:04
move into different markets if there's no one talking.
25:09
But now you don't have to do that anymore,
25:11
and you don't have to record it four times.
25:13
If you're going to four different markets, you can record it
25:14
once, and you just do this, and it saves you a ton of money.
25:19
And just, it's so incredible.
25:21
Yeah.
25:22
I've noticed that with like children's shows a lot of times
25:24
where they've got like a narrator that tells everything.
25:27
Like there's this one kid show that my kids are watching, and I
25:30
found out, oh, it's actually a Spanish show originally, but they've
25:33
redubbed everything with an English narrator, and he is a professional.
25:36
It sounds great, but there's a lot of that type of stuff in lip syncing, man.
25:40
Like you talk about an area that's, like, in animation, in video,
25:44
and everything that just feels so phony if you get it wrong.
25:47
It's so painful if you get it wrong, at least for the producers of the
25:52
house, you know, it's just like, oh, cringe-worthy even, that, to hear
25:56
there's a technology that can make that work naturally, is fascinating to me.
26:00
Yeah.
26:00
I mean, so many people like avoid foreign language shows and films and content
26:07
just because of that one thing where you're like, you don't like to read.
26:11
I don't know why we don't like to read.
26:12
I love, like, everything I watch is basically foreign.
26:16
Like, I love foreign content because honestly I've almost
26:20
kind of run through the US-based stuff and going like,
26:23
ah, it's all kind of the same, coming out all over.
26:26
But no, but it's great.
26:29
No, but that thing blows my mind, and other technologies
26:34
that are really, I really like combining tech too.
26:38
Now,
26:40
I work with my creatives to bring the best execution to stuff sometimes.
26:47
You know, and it's like we have, I have my CIO who really looks at the
26:51
innovation and the forefront of stuff, but a lot of times it's not, we don't
26:56
just bring technology into, at least I don't, I don't just use technology
27:00
because it's new and it's innovative, and it's like, oh, it's a new thing.
27:04
That's doing a disservice to actually the work.
27:08
You use technology to reach a greater audience.
27:10
You use a technology to speak to more people.
27:12
You use a technology to
27:16
make them active participants versus passive ones.
27:21
Those are the places where I think the technology that's coming out,
27:26
especially with AI and AR, like these two areas where I have a lot of
27:31
experience in now, coming to the forefront is where it's that you can
27:34
personalize experiences for people, and that's so valuable to brands.
27:40
I think tapping into that, but tapping into it correctly.
27:43
And that's why we have the cultural aspect as well,
27:45
because when we bring those technologies, we wanna make
27:47
sure we're talking the truth to people at the same time.
27:49
It's a lot of different thinking go out circles, but you gotta
27:54
stay on top of those messages or else you're gonna miss the boat.
27:57
Yeah, because there's a certain level of maturity that
28:00
some of these technologies have to get to as well.
28:02
I mean, especially with AI, a lot of it, you know, I'd say two years
28:06
ago it was a lot of guess in check, and even where we're at right
28:10
now, it's still guess in check to a degree, but it's way more precise.
28:14
It's way better.
28:16
It's really improved, at least from my perspective.
28:21
I mean, six months ago it was guess in check.
28:24
I mean, I was like two years ago.
28:25
Two years ago.
28:25
It was, it was like.
28:27
Pray it would work.
28:29
Well, yeah, but there was so much fun stuff you
28:31
could do with it even two years ago, because it was
28:36
in this area, which has, it was creating
28:40
this content that you have never seen before.
28:42
It was weird, but it had a wonder to it at the same time.
28:47
Do you know what I mean?
28:48
It wasn't just always, it wasn't perfect, but it was perfect
28:53
in its imperfection because there was some really fun
28:56
stuff you could do, which, it's now gone almost, you know.
29:01
Especially if we're just talking about video generative
29:03
content, which I think is like one small aspect of AI, and
29:06
honestly not even the most interesting aspect, you know.
29:09
It's, that's just like, oh, we can make
29:11
stuff for cheaper, and more people can do it.
29:13
Okay, cool.
29:14
That's what, that's been happening for years and years and years
29:16
with like film cameras turning to digital cameras, turning to
29:20
like, oh, now I can basically shoot a film on my cell phone.
29:22
And now it's like, oh, now I can just imagine a film
29:25
and type it into a thing, and it comes out with a film.
29:27
You know, it's like, and then cut it together.
29:29
And you still need to have some basic skills to do it, but.
29:31
Of course.
29:32
That's just the direction that all this, that content has been heading in.
29:37
So none of that is, it's intriguing.
29:40
I love seeing AI films, and I don't love the ones that replace
29:47
the artist, you know, necessarily, but like it's a tool.
29:51
It's another tool to create content basically in my mind.
29:55
Artificial Intelligence can really bring a different, it can speed up your
30:00
workflow a lot, I think is another, is another great part of it where it.
30:05
It can allow you to do a lot of creative things.
30:07
Like, I mean, for instance, I had a project, and this was
30:12
almost two years ago now, about a year and a half, well,
30:15
about a year and a half at this point, and I suck at drawing.
30:20
Like, well, lemme rephrase that, I'm not bad at drawing when I put time into
30:24
it, but if I'm storyboarding for a client, I don't want to spend all my time
30:28
drawing out characters and stuff 'cause that's not my specialty, but I could
30:32
just put it into generative AI and get my storyboards set up for a client and
30:37
help them visualize the product we were trying to do with them right away.
30:41
And that stuff is just hugely helpful just on the
30:46
creative end, and then, you know, you go out and execute
30:49
on it and try to make it as close to that as you can.
30:53
And that's where it's a lot of, a lot of really powerful
30:55
tools, a lot of really useful things for just Individuals.
31:00
There's another guy that I follow on social media, and I'll
31:04
just name drop this guy, and his YouTube account is Neural Viz.
31:08
Highly recommend him if you like, really
31:12
weird hilarious content.
31:14
It's kind of got that odd sense of like, he does basically these like,
31:20
"Unanswered Mysteries" types of things, but instead it is like, "Unanswered
31:25
Oddities" is what the name of it is, but it's from this perspective of this
31:28
alien race that has evolved probably from what I can tell, evolved from humans
31:33
into you know, into living in America and living in the world the planet Earth.
31:39
And it's their perspective on everything.
31:41
They're just short series, but he is creating a whole world
31:44
out of it, and the cool thing is he also shows his work.
31:47
He says, this is how I made all this.
31:49
These are the tools that I used, and if you sponsor him,
31:51
he'll even go deeper and talk through his creative process.
31:54
And it's been fascinating to see how somebody can go
31:56
from like what might have taken a studio to do years ago.
32:00
This guy can produce on his own, and I don't think that's
32:03
indicative of, that's always the way it's gonna be, and
32:06
now we don't need studios, we just need individuals.
32:08
But that power allows you to do a lot with it because he has a
32:13
great idea, but it needs to be fleshed out into an actual, you
32:16
know, if you wanted it to be TV made for TV or something like that.
32:19
So, yeah, it's got a lot of power.
32:22
I think you touched on a really great place where AI
32:27
comes in handy for a lot of the individuals,
32:29
is it's in the brainstorming process.
32:31
It's in that part of the storyboarding.
32:33
It's in the part of visualizing.
32:35
It's in the part of thinking about what you wanna create.
32:38
You can even just, honestly, just talking to a chat bot sometimes
32:42
can get you a lot closer to, and I'm even talking about text.
32:46
I'm not even going into visuals can get you closer
32:48
to an idea of what you're trying to sound out now.
32:51
You know what it's right?
32:52
I mean, like, there was a thing when I was an English major, right?
32:57
And when we were doing writing, a teacher always told, said to me, you know
33:01
someone can tell you what's wrong, but they can't tell you how to fix it.
33:05
And I think AI's the same way.
33:07
You know, even if you're working with AI, you know, you can get to a
33:09
point where you know, you're like, okay, where, what is the answer?
33:13
The answer is the answer that you come up with.
33:15
It's not the answer that AI's gonna come up with if the AI's
33:18
spitting it out, it's not the right answer for you, probably.
33:22
Probably shouldn't go with that first recommendation, should we?
33:26
Probably not.
33:26
No.
33:27
You gotta work with it a little bit.
33:28
And same with the iterative of, of the GenAI stuff, which is so cool.
33:32
Mm-hmm.
33:33
But then it's also blending these technologies, right?
33:35
It's AR and AI, which I haven't, we haven't done a ton in AR in a while, but
33:40
I feel like there is still something there that should really be tapped into.
33:47
We do a lot of digital experiences, we do a lot of live experiences, and in
33:52
these experiences we love getting the user to put themself in a place, and
33:58
that's what I think AR is really great at doing, especially in the digital
34:01
experience to me, where you could reach a greater breadth of audience
34:05
for a much more cost effective activation than having a live experience.
34:10
it basically does that, it puts you in the space for, you
34:14
know, which, what a live experience would do at the same time.
34:17
Now, we did a lot of this stuff over COVID, so obviously AR was a lot easier to
34:22
do than live experiences at the time of the years that shall not be named, but
34:30
you know, but I still think there's a place for it.
34:33
Yeah.
34:33
I think AR is making a comeback too.
34:35
I feel like, from what I've seen of it seems like Google just
34:39
came out and basically said, we're reviving the Google Glass.
34:42
You know, there's all these little things that are happening.
34:45
I think Apple's probably learning the error of their ways with
34:47
that VR headset, and will probably reduce, this is just my
34:50
personal theory, is that they'll probably reduce it down into
34:52
something way simpler for the individual, and I don't know.
34:56
I feel like there's a lot of opportunities there.
34:58
I think the challenge I've always had with AR is, you know, if it's
35:02
on your phone, then you've got to pick up the phone, download the
35:05
app, do whatever it is to engage with that, and the simpler we can
35:09
make that engagement, I think more people are gonna want to do it.
35:13
I think it's getting people to know how to
35:15
use it and engage with it, that's a challenge.
35:19
And it's absolutely been a challenge.
35:21
We always avoided apps actually for that.
35:23
One reason is that it's a stop gap, and the fewer motions from the
35:29
user to the end product is the easiest when you're doing any digital
35:33
work, which is also why so many times we go to where the people are.
35:38
We don't try to bring them to us, which was also one of the things.
35:41
So, you know, when, you know, we did a lot of, I don't know, lenses
35:46
in Instagram, lenses in TikTok, lenses, in, you know, Snapchat and
35:51
stuff like that, because people are already there on those platforms.
35:54
It's like when you're using, when you try to break into Discord.
35:58
We're actually looking at Substack right now.
35:59
You know, like at brands on Substack.
36:01
You know, Substack is a really interesting platform.
36:03
Like maybe there's something that that we
36:06
can do there because it's fairly untapped.
36:11
So you're not trying to bring people out of
36:13
it, you try to bring people into it, right?
36:14
So we would always do like just a microsite, and we'd use partners such
36:19
as like 8th Wall to bring AR to the masses easily and simply because
36:27
it would work off your phone, and you didn't need to download anything.
36:30
You could just go to a site and just be part of a digital experience.
36:35
And that's so much easier, so much smarter
36:37
than having download the app, do all that.
36:40
I have a story I can tell you maybe offline.
36:45
I mean like, you know, like if you already
36:47
have an app and you're a brand, right?
36:48
And they're like, okay, let's build this into here, and we'll whitelist
36:51
it, and we'll just, we'll make an AR experience within the brand, I mean,
36:54
like, you know, those digital try-on things have been incredible for brands.
36:58
It explodes sales.
36:59
You always see how it works.
37:01
I always recommend that for any of you know, anything that makes sense.
37:04
I don't think you need a digital try-on for a brand like Lenovo.
37:08
What am I going to do?
37:08
Look at the laptop on my desk?
37:10
When you have a digital try-on and stuff like
37:14
that, that's AR every single time, you know?
37:16
And that's a very simplistic way of looking at it, I think,
37:19
but it's already built into the app that you are already using.
37:24
You're not trying to teach a user something, they're already doing it.
37:27
It's just part of it now.
37:28
So you're trying to build into the things that they're
37:31
already doing instead of creating something new.
37:34
Because trying to draw some people to something new is so
37:38
much more difficult than going into where they already are.
37:41
And it's probably not gonna work as well.
37:43
Yeah, yeah.
37:45
People are lazy.
37:46
Yeah.
37:46
You have to teach a learn.
37:47
You have to teach a behavior versus just tapping into a learned one already.
37:50
And people are lazy.
37:51
People are so lazy.
37:54
Oh my gosh.
37:55
That's always my recommendation when we're
37:56
talking about, how do we link to something?
37:58
How do you share?
37:59
It's like, what's the fastest path?
38:01
That's what you need to do.
38:03
Exactly.
38:04
And you know, like when you do some of these things,
38:05
especially with AI, like legal always loves to jump in
38:08
and you're like, guys, we gotta kill the check boxes.
38:12
You gotta kill.
38:13
It's too many people are gonna just sign off.
38:15
They're not gonna be interested If they have to click three
38:17
things and read seven se seven words, we gotta make it simpler.
38:21
Absolutely.
38:22
Well, very cool.
38:23
Well, I always like to wrap up here with just the question
38:25
of like, what brands are you crushing on right now?
38:29
Is there any brand in particular that you're just
38:31
like really into or really admire at the moment?
38:34
For sure.
38:35
I mean
38:38
there are a bunch of really engaging brands.
38:40
I think the ones that
38:44
are showing up for me are the ones that are unafraid to try new things.
38:49
They're the ones that their whole company gives the marketers power
39:01
to fail and try stuff that's never been done before.
39:05
And it's like, really where I'm looking at is brands
39:09
like Elf, last year, blew up all over the map.
39:12
They were so interesting.
39:13
Elf Cosmetics.
39:14
It was so interesting what they were doing.
39:16
I mean, their partnership with Liquid Death and
39:18
doing like the death mask makeup was so funny.
39:22
It was completely out there.
39:24
They jumped into Roblox, which negotiable on like how good of
39:30
a platform that is for stuff, but like, it's still out there.
39:33
It's interesting.
39:34
It gets talking points.
39:36
Got so that's L'Oreal, right?
39:38
So L'Oreal's doing really interesting things.
39:40
I gotta go back to Coca-Cola always.
39:42
It's like, it's such a marketing powerhouse.
39:44
Nobody markets like Coca-Cola, and I don't mean that like, in a way
39:49
that there are great marketers, a lot of other companies and I'm, and
39:53
you know, some of them are my clients, some of them are my friends, but
39:56
like, just the entire structure of Coca-Cola is built around marketing,
40:01
and everybody gives power to the marketers to try new crazy things.
40:05
I mean, like we work, you know, we've worked with the head of innovation over
40:10
there basically on stuff, and he is, gets to do like the most incredible things.
40:18
He made that, you know, they made that AI commercial.
40:23
Say what you will about.
40:24
It got a 95% positivity score from
40:30
consumers, you know?
40:32
And an AI Santa and just like really crazy stuff that's never been
40:38
done before, and they're allowed to push that envelope, and I'm
40:46
so embedded in that world, unfortunately, but like,
40:50
it's so crazy 'cause no one markets like they do.
40:53
They're always at the cusp of everybody, every, they're
40:56
always doing something different and new and so many
40:58
different things so that everyone always knows Coca-Cola.
41:01
That's why it's the number one brand in the world, basically.
41:03
Oh yeah.
41:04
I mean, when you're up so high, I mean, like
41:07
you said, number one brand in the world.
41:08
I mean, when you are so well known everywhere, it's like how do you push the
41:14
envelope to where people still remember that you're relevant and you're present?
41:17
I mean, I literally out this window right here to my right, have a
41:21
Coca-Cola painting that mural that's on the wall of the building next to me.
41:26
So, I mean, you can't get away from it, but it's one of those things
41:31
where it's just fascinating to see how they always do something different.
41:34
I mean, I remember as a kid going down to the, we're in Knoxville,
41:38
Tennessee, I don't know if I've told you that, but we're in
41:40
Knoxville, Tennessee, so driving down to Atlanta, Georgia to see
41:44
the you know, the 1996 Coca-Cola City, everything they did there.
41:51
I have fond memories and very vibrant memories of going
41:54
there and the branding and the styling and everything, and
41:57
they've just, they've just always been with it like that.
41:59
I mean, it's easy to talk.
42:00
I mean, obviously that's probably like low hanging fruit.
42:02
I'm in Atlanta, right?
42:04
So it's probably low hanging fruit because like
42:06
it's just, it's one of the easiest ones to grab.
42:10
But at the same point in time, like you gotta be impressed by
42:13
everything they do, and everything they do points to marketing.
42:15
I mean like their PR team is one of the best in the worlds.
42:18
They're like just everybody, their C-suite is
42:22
always like, yeah, let's try something new.
42:24
And they support that culture.
42:27
It's pretty fascinating watching them work, and I get
42:30
to work with them all the time, so it's always nice.
42:32
Absolutely.
42:32
They didn't let New Coke get, get the better of them.
42:35
No.
42:36
85 New Coke or the relaunch that they did about like seven years ago?
42:41
You remember?
42:41
You know that?
42:42
Yeah.
42:42
I got one up on my wall back here.
42:44
Yeah.
42:44
They relaunched it for like a month or two for fun.
42:47
I think it was in partnership with Stranger Things.
42:50
I think they did a collab because it was
42:52
in Stranger Things in one of the seasons.
42:54
Brilliant.
42:55
It's so brilliant.
42:56
But.
42:57
Awesome.
42:57
Well, Alex, thank you for your time today.
42:59
Where can people learn more about you?
43:01
Where can people learn more about Sounds Fun?
43:05
How can they get connected?
43:06
Well, that's great.
43:07
Yeah, no thanks Chris.
43:08
It was wonderful talking to you, of course.
43:10
And Sounds Fun.
43:11
You can go to our website, soundsfun.co.
43:14
We're not a comm yet, we're still at .co.
43:16
You can also find us on LinkedIn.
43:18
We do a lot of posting there.
43:21
Sounds Fun creative studio, and we have a newsletter that we
43:27
send out every now and then, and always has the stuff that
43:31
we're thinking of, things on the cusp, things that are drawing
43:35
our attention, both cultural, both innovation, all the pieces.
43:40
All the things.
43:41
And I have a personal website as well.
43:45
alexgangi.com, but I'm not here to plug myself as much as I
43:47
am my team because without them I wouldn't be as much as I am.
43:52
So it's great
43:53
Alex.
43:54
Well thank you for your time today.
43:55
It's been a pleasure talking with you.
43:57
And yeah, hopefully we'll get to chat again in the future.
43:59
Thank you.
44:00
Thank you, Chris.
44:01
I hope so.
44:02
Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand.
44:05
Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe on your player of choice.
44:08
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44:13
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