Talks
Talks by Daniel M. Jackson
Four talks on sonic branding, music and the future of brand identity. Every one is heard as well as seen: the work is played live in the room. Each can run as a keynote, a panel contribution or a hands-on session, tailored to your audience.
Machines That Generate Emotion
Why the most powerful brand asset is one you can't see.
Roger Ebert called cinema a machine that generates empathy. Music and sound are machines that generate emotion, and the brands that understand this own a place in people's memory that logos never reach. Drawing on more than 25 years since he founded Sonicbrand and wrote the first book on sonic branding, Daniel shows why melody beats every other brand asset: it is distinctive, ownable and endlessly flexible. With live listening from Shell and CEER.
Ears, Not Eyes: Brand Identity After the Screen
When the customer's interface is a voice, your logo disappears.
Voice assistants, AI agents, podcasts and audio commerce are building an internet with no visual context. Daniel argued in 2018 that brands without a sound and a voice would lose relevance in a screenless world; that moment has arrived. This talk covers what a brand sounds like when it can't be seen, and a five-step method for choosing a brand voice, from psychometric profile to 14 vocal attributes.
Pulse of the Land: Sounding a Nation's First Car Brand
The story of CEER, Saudi Arabia's first homegrown automotive brand.
How do you give a nation's ambition a sound? Daniel takes the audience inside Sonicbrand's work for CEER: a 32-pulse rhythm inspired by the Kingdom's founding year, more than 40 in-car sounds, brand music, an album with MDLBEAST and a main-stage debut at Soundstorm. The work won Gold for Best Audio Brand at the Transform Awards MEA. A case study in building a sonic identity that carries cultural weight.
Hit Brands: How Music Builds Value
Music as identity, engagement and revenue.
Based on Daniel's book Hit Brands, this talk sets out three ways brands create value with music. Music as identity: melody you own. Music as engagement: culture you join. Music as revenue: assets that earn through arrangement, licensing and royalties. Practical and commercial, it also covers why brands should license rather than buy, and why spending time in the studio with the work changes everything.
Book Daniel