Transcript - Lauren McGuire

Joshua Williams: Retail Revolution is a special, limited podcast created specifically for "Retailing and Service Design," a unique course that is part of the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Each episode features in depth conversations with guest experts in omnichannel retailing with myriad perspectives: technology consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to the short- and long- term challenges and implications of COVID-19 and potential opportunities to rethink retail's future. Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacy, both are Assistant Professors in the School of Fashion at Parsons.

Christopher Lacy: Welcome to another episode of Retail Revolution, where we discuss all topics pertaining to Retail and Service design. Today, we are discussing the power of sound and its impact on service and retailing design. So, with us, we have the president of Manmade Music, Lauren McGuire. Welcome Lauren!

Lauren McGuire: Thank you, Christopher. It's great to be here. 

Christopher Lacy: How are you today?

Lauren McGuire: You know, hang’in. It's a Tuesday that feels like a Sunday or we're doing okay. 

Christopher Lacy:  We are doing okay. I haven't known what day of the week it is for like three weeks now. So, it's.

Lauren McGuire: Nope.

Christopher Lacy: There we go. Lauren, we're super excited to have you on the podcast today because this is a topic that we often overlook, I think in Retailing and Service design with just the power of sound. So, it's going to be great for us to kind of dig deep into this and get your perspective on what's happening in the industry. Now, what you used to happen and really what the cope, the impacts of COVID-19 will look like on this industry. But before we get to that, I wouldn't love to have you tell our listeners about you and your career trajectory?

Lauren McGuire: Sure. You know, my career trajectory was less of a trajectory and more of a rambling path. If you end up looking at it, I spent 13 years in healthcare. Believe it or not, both direct to physician healthcare advertising and then direct to consumer advertising for healthcare brands. And the opportunity came up.

I think I figured out towards the end of that advertising wasn't for me or wasn't what I wanted to do for the long run and this opportunity to start at Manmade Music kind of came out of nowhere from a producer friend. And the founder of Manmade who really came from an entertainment space was looking to understand or know more about how to work as an agency, as Sonic branding became something that he, that we were becoming successful at.

So, I thought, well, let me try this. And if that doesn't work out, I can always go back to advertising. And 10 years later, I am still at Manmade Music and loving every day.

That's awesome. What an interesting career path. And it's great that you know, I, I might end up asking you some questions about healthcare because you know that industry and that's what we're dealing with right now.

But before we might get there, so you said a phrase there, Sonic branding and I love to talk about that. What is Sonic strategy and Sonic identity, Sonic branding. What is this really cool word? What is that? 

Sure. So, you know, the easiest way to think about it as analogous to a visual identity, but the sound aspect of it.

So, brands that are doing this in a really strategic way are thinking about sound as a core piece of the identity. How does my brand make people feel and how do I communicate that feeling or those values or those attributes through the sounds that I put out there as it's connected with my brand? You think about sound and brand and it's everywhere.

And it usually takes us going through an audit of a brand for brands to say, oh my goodness, I use sound everywhere. And I haven't been thinking about it or treating it with the same respect that I do, a visual identity. Everything from call centers and the voices and music that are there to how we sound in a retail store. The sounds that our apps make.

 Our advertising and not only the underscore but is there an identity element that that's through sound that comes up when we look at our visual brand. So, all of those things make up a Sonic identity. And I think that over the last I'm going to say two and a half years, Sonic identity has become increasingly important to brands as they think about, new technology channels, like voice assistance. And how do we show up in these new channels? 

Christopher Lacy: That's interesting. So, voice assistants, do you mind elaborating on that? Cause I find it really intriguing, so. 

Lauren McGuire: Yeah, so it's an interesting. I think voice assistants are the technology that people are looking at and saying, I have no visual brand here. And you know, some brands got there earlier with like the financial company.

So as soon as they saw people paying for things with their phone, you lose that, that moment that we all used to see in ads where the happy shopper was handing a credit card over to the store employee, and you would get that hero shot of the credit card. People are starting to play, pay with their phones.

You lose that moment. You lose that moment of emotional connection with the brand that's providing you with the opportunity to make that purchase. So, the financial companies had started to get there. Now we look a everything that's being done through this technology. One of those things being voice assistants, how are we going to browse?

How are we going to shop through the future and is voice assistant going to play a key role in that for a lot of, for a lot of different companies, it will. People are going to start shopping through voice assistance. So, if you have no visual presence, how do you show up? How do you create connection?

How do you create consumer preference? How do you create memorability in that new environment? and that new environment is not just in homes. It's also in cars. So, we have these interesting models where people are going to say to the voice assistant in their car, I want to pick up milk from this store.

Who gets credit for the ease of that purchase? Is it the store? Is it the credit card that you purchased it on? Is that the car itself that's providing the voice assistant all of these places where our interactions with brands are changing. How do you get credit in those new environments? 

Christopher Lacy: Wow. I mean, I'm blown away. Cause I think, you know, when you think about Sound and Retailing, you know, I think about my days where it was more about the associates were like, I will, I want Ace to play today. You know, being like, no, it's gotta be nineties throwback. And that was much as we thought about sound in a retail space.

So how does Manmade Music change how retailers are approaching retail design now, and consumer engagement with this technology and with this newfound direction. 

Lauren McGuire: So, you know, it all starts with, we want to start everything at a brand level. Well, so what is the brand trying to communicate? And to your point, there are lots of brands that are still playing, whatever the employees in the store looking to play and don't get me wrong. Happy employees are important. And it's one of the things that we definitively take into consideration when we're designing sound environments for a store. But what's interesting about sound is that all humans have a subconscious response to sound. So, if you walk into a store and the wrong soundtrack is playing, one that doesn't necessarily communicate your brand, but it happens to communicate to the store employees that are there inherently, people may feel like they don't belong.

It doesn't, they may not even know why they feel like they don't belong in that store. That's how subconscious the effect of sound and music is on our brains. But that's what can happen is people feel that they do not belong in this store because of the soundtrack that was chosen. So, what we look to do is we look at the brand, what the brand is trying to communicate: values, attributes, a positioning or mission statement.

And we translate that into sound and music. We're not looking to recreate those things. We just want to translate them into the emotions that come through sound right. And we come up with a strategy. It should be simple. It should be something that says, this is what our brand sounds like and has some core attributes to be speaking to.

We come up with North stars to communicate that. So, there are people who are choosing music or creating sound for the brand can do so. And we roll that all the way through the brand touch points. So generally, we start with large footprints and that a lot of times means retail store. We take a look at what is your strategy and sound of music?

What are you putting out there in your retail stores? Is it day parted? How do your employees feel? It speaks to the company or the brand? If we're going to talk to employees just about music that represented your brand, what would they say? How do we get, the truest, truest testament to your brand through sound and music? And then we look to roll that out in a meaningful way, in a way that it is manageable across all of the most critical touch points. 

Christopher Lacy: Wow. So, you know, when you're doing this for a brand and you know, I think when brands are thinking of their strategies and we talk about brand strategies, it's always you know, certain things like, you know, the normal ad campaigns. When it comes to retail strategies, it's you know the merchandising, you know, clientelling, all those things, which have a direct way, a KPI that that's easily measured can be measured.

So, when we're talking about sound and a Sonic strategy, how do you measure the effectiveness of it? 

Lauren McGuire: Yeah. So, this is something that it took us years to get right. And we work with our partners at sentient decision sciences. They specialize in Behavioral research andneuro science research. It took us a long time to figure out how to get the right measurement.

So, a lot of the research that you're going to see on sound or Sonic branding is about conscious reaction. So, you play a track, you play some sound. People respond, I like it, I don't like it. Yes. It makes me think of this brand. No. Yes, I would want to listen to it again. Those sorts of answers. And from our perspective that doesn't really work.

What's interesting about sound is there's just very few applications where sound is the only input that you are getting. So, voice assistance is one of the few where all we can really, we're all you're hearing is sound, everything everywhere else sound is an ingredient. If you walk into a retail store, Manmade music is cool is not that you walk out and you say, wow, the soundtrack in there was really awesome. It's that you walk out of the retail store and you say, I love that store. That was a really fantastic experience. Sound is something that should be elevating the whole of the experience on a subconscious level. So, what we do is quantitative subconscious research, that's done through something called implicit association.

Essentially it is a tool that between speed and accuracy, we get your subconscious reaction to sound. And whether it is right for the experience that you are going through, and then you combine that with some conscious reaction. So pre-imposed brand consideration has to be conscious. I didn't consider brand X before, but knowing that this soundtrack is associated with them, I would now it does sound like it's for me. Those historical KPIs that point to buying behavior. So, it's a mixture of subconscious and conscious research to get to how successful we think a given Sonic identity, a given strategy is going to be for our brand. 

Christopher Lacy: I'm pausing because I think my head just exploded. That's wild.

Lauren McGuire: Unfortunately, you asked people, what do you think of the soundtrack? You ended up getting answers. They're like, well, I was a drummer in high school, so I tend to like, you know, it's stuff that doesn't matter to the brand. Stuff that doesn't matter to you as a creator or a retailer. What matters is the experience overall and how did they feel walking out of it? And we get that through subconscious research. 

Christopher Lacy: And that's the thing, you know. I mean, just to go into the way, like we do so many things subconsciously from the moment we wake up. Right. And I think, you know a lot like most of the time I've got my headphones in. You know, as a new Yorker you do, or any city where using public transportation or walking.

So, I guess for us, we have our own soundtrack. That's kind of going when we go into a place or engage with a brand. So, does that make it a bit difficult then to really measure effectiveness? Because now you have people that are kind of on their own devices. 

Lauren McGuire: You know, it's going to be very different. So, for most of our clients, they're going to be a mix of urban environments and not urban environments.

So, you're going to have to take both into account that as New Yorkers, we have a very different experience than people in most of the country. And I think that’s you know, something that we always have to remember. What we always say about sound is you need the opportunity to opt into it. So, if somebody walks in with their own soundtrack and that's what they prefer, that's okay.

That's cool. But if they don't have that, you want to create an environment that feels right for the message and the feelings that you're looking to put out in this current world that we're living in and this coronavirus world. I was on a panel this week and they said to me, If people are going to be having these experiences digitally versus in person, should we be bringing the sound of the store to them on the websites?

And right now, my answer is like, absolutely not. You know, I don't think that this what we're going through right now is big enough to change the rules of engagement on retail websites and eCommerce sites, because people do not want websites yelling at them. You know we all, we've all had that experience when you go to a website and there's suddenly unwelcomed sound coming at you.

I don't, that's never going to be the recommendation that we put out there. There are certain environments where you expect sound like when you go to Netflix and you're in a world where you're looking for entertainment, that's when it's okay to have sound coming at you. But not when you go to an eCommerce site, we will all be back at work one day. And when we're in our cubicles, we don't want. Everyone to know that we just went to, madewell.com. 

Christopher Lacy: Right. Like don't tell my business! 

Lauren McGuire: Don't tell my business. No, and that's not going to change. There are certain places where we have permission, mobile phones. So, any apps we have permission because people tend to, if they don't want sound, they turn it off. Great.

People who do like sound, people who do want the immersive experience, they're opting in by turning the sound on. So, we're always thinking about these places. If people opt in, what are they experience? If they opt out, that's okay too. But it's about, doing as much as we can to create an experience for consumers that really elevates the brand overall.

Christopher Lacy:  You mentioned the current crisis and you know brands asking you, should we make this part of our eCommerce experience and you know, as you just said, you were like, no, that's no, we need to have this knee jerk reaction in this way. But I do want to ask you, what are your thoughts on the current crisis and how it's going to impact the customer engagement in physical locations?

Lauren McGuire: Yeah. You know, I've been thinking about it a lot and it's the answer is I don't know the answer. And I'm looking forward to seeing research and understanding the tests. There are a couple of ways that you could imagine the psychology of this going. One is that we are in this place where we are void of human interaction for a very long time.

And people who are choosing to go back into retail environments, they want that interaction. They want the buzz; they want the music turned up and the optimism and the connection and the buzziness of those environments. On the flip side, we could have people who are very cautious, and you know what? I just want this to be calm, this is the first time I am going into a retail store after going through this experience. I want to be comforted. I want the soundtrack to be low. I want it to have a tone of optimism but be very light and feel. It could be that we are all really looking for the sounds of nature. You know, that we want to be, we want to get back outside that we are looking to like, Oh, you know, the sounds of birds and healthy environments and the highs and low frequencies that as humans, we're trained to hear as healthy environments, we want that. We want to hear the low rumble of water moving and a high pitch sounds of insects.

I think it is, I think that people are going to have an individualized reaction. I think that we're going to have to feel out what is the best way to make people feel comfortable. And then I think that's going to continue to be a moving target as we move away from the crisis. If I was going to guess, I'd say that our approach may be different in the first three months than it will be in six months as we get farther away, and people become more comfortable. And we go back to the norms of retail spaces.

Christopher Lacy: It's interesting that you know, you were saying about how we hear things in a healthy environment. Like the sounds, let us know if it's a healthy environment and that's just in us, in our DNA from the time that we were hunters and gatherers. And I just, you know, you saying that made me think about, I've done an amazing job of self-isolating and quarantining as I think many people have, I needed to order something.

And the thing that was terrible is that it was such a long wait for it to either be delivered or for me to even have curbside pickup. And I was like fine, I'm just going to have to go and go and really fast. And I went in and it was, it was interesting because I noticed right away that it was absolute silence.

There's no sound and I started, I reached out to a few people. I was like, have you been out at about, you know, did you have to go anywhere? And they, they were smelling. If there was sound, they were like, there actually wasn't an, it felt so eerie because you know, people were walking around with a mask on and then gloves and then there's also no sound.

And while I didn't have anxiety through, I haven't had it through this whole process, I felt I had anxiety in that moment. 

Lauren McGuire: Yeah. Yeah. I think what struck me is, you know, I was at the grocery store, which I had to do. But this model of everybody going by themselves to the grocery store, that in itself, I was like, what's so weird about this because the music was still playing. There were still people there, probably not as many people as there would be, but it was the conversation. So, you know, generally when I go to the grocery store, I'd go with my kids. And there is just like chitchat shit. She ain't no chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, and conversation is a part of what we experience in retail spaces.

And that is just gone. Everyone is going by themselves solo and that's a weird. You know, that's weird. Our brain registers it as weird. I think, you know that as we think about health, there was we do a lot of talking about hospitals and how they can be very noisy and that, that takes away from healing.

And that's absolutely true, but there was a trend in hospitals recently and we've had, you know, had one or two of these experiences where hospitals came to us because they over-corrected on sound. And now they're too quiet. And if a hospital hallway is too quiet, it feels wrong also. It's a different kind of wrong.

It feels, you know, not to be overly dramatic, but the space feels dead. Which to your human instincts reads is, as incorrect. So, I think that all of this you know, if I were going to choose like, thinking about the perfect decibel level, the perfect amount of chatter, you know, if I was going to be opening, reopening my retail store and consider just the sound of kids laughing or people laughing as a very light underscore element. We've registered that and we hear it and we say, Oh, this is okay. You know, subconsciously we say, this is okay. Like people are okay here. People are happy here. People are optimistic here. And all of those elements, I think that those cues of human interaction are going to be really important when we go back.

Christopher Lacy: That's really interesting. And I think, you know, that, that leads me to me wanting to ask you, I know you were like, I know you said you can kind of can't predict how customers might engage in the future. But thinking about, you know, bed sound of healthiness and what that looks like, I guess, putting the consumers at ease. 

Think about brands. And so, everyone is trying to strategize and think things out. How do you think Sonic strategy can help them recover and bounce back after this is all over in six months? And how can these sonic strategies be something that they should be thinking about to you know, really bring that business back and bring that feeling of warmth and security back to for their consumers.

Lauren McGuire: So, exactly the two, the word that you just used, which is warmth. I think is going to be really important. And again, the way that we think about our jobs, music is emotion. You know, emotion is loyalty when it comes to buying behaviors and music is emotion. For most brands, they are going to have to really think about warmth.

And then reconsider what they play in their spaces. And a lot of brands, you know, cool is the way to be. And that may be the playlist that generally comes through their overhead system. And they may want to reconsider that just for a minute, just say, all right, what do we need to communicate in this moment? And then remember the power of sound in creating an environment that their shoppers are going to say. Yeah. Okay. I feel safe in this. I think that of all the things they're going to have to consider what sign is you put up about how we're cleaning the stores. How do we think about interactions with our colleagues in the stores?

Face masks, what do those look like? And do we wear them and what space do we take and how do we interact when it comes to cards and processing? All of these things are going to need to be considered. But if you think about sound as being one piece of the ingredient, that's going to make for a warm, welcoming environment, how would you take extra time and consideration to do that properly?

Christopher Lacy: Wow. Wow. So, it's going to be a big deal. 

Lauren McGuire: I believe it's going to be a big deal. Yeah. And I think that people will be paying extra close attention and you know, it's I'm worried about it for the folks who are running your stores, because they're going to have a lot to worry about, you know. So make one piece of their job a little bit easier, which is setting the emotional tone for the space that says that, okay, we're through this and we're here to welcome you.

Christopher Lacy: And it's important that, and I love that you said emotional tone. Because you know, and we had a conversation with someone who Stacy Greco, she does behavior psychology. And one of the things she pointed out is we make more emotional purchases than we like to say or admit that we do really.

We think that getting everything and it's a logical thing that we do, but it really is emotional. So, the space itself has to be the right emotion for us. And sound, definitely plays a part in that.

I want to say this has been a great conversation. And I think that our listeners definitely want to stay informed about what you and your team at Manmade Music are doing so. How would they be able to kind of keep up on what's happening there? 

Lauren McGuire: manmademusic.com is our website where you're going to see a lot of our work, you know for a music company. We started in entertainment. We still continue to do a lot of television. But at this point we're working on everything from retail spaces to theme parks, to the robots that will be in your house, in the future and the electric vehicles that we'll be driving. So, sound and the role it plays for consumers continues to evolve as technology evolves. And that's where the most up to date work is. 

Christopher Lacy: Fantastic Lauren, I appreciate you taking time out of a very busy day that I know you had to speak with us and to give your expertise to our student population. I hope that in the very near future, everything will be different, and we can see each other face to face and actually have you on campus in person. 

Lauren McGuire: Christopher, I look forward to it. I'm sure it will be. 

Christopher Lacy: Thank you so much and have a great evening. 

Lauren McGuire: Thank you.

Joshua Williams: Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution. A very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible, our guests are students and fellow faculty, a Parsons School of Design, especially in such an extraordinary and unprecedented time. Our theme music was composed by Spencer Powell.

Be well and stay tuned for our next episode.

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