For some, sound is forgotten when watching a film or enjoying an experience—and that’s not particularly a bad thing, since it’s is perhaps most effective when its influence is subtle and unnoticed.

But it still has great impact: by setting the emotional state of the viewer or building anticipation, strategic, high-quality sound can make or break a production (think of the opening of Pixar’s Up, which used an excellent soundtrack to portray the ups and downs of a relationship). Our sound team just released a new reel, showcasing an ensemble of musical styles and stimulating sound effects. Switching genres and sounds at break-neck speed, the slick video captures the team’s diverse talents and demonstrates how sound sets the mood when used well.

This is doubly important for building immersive digital experiences, not just film. When we digitized the island community of Santa Cruz del Islote with Bancolombia to demonstrate how a self-sustained community functions, the sounds and chatter of the island’s dense population are what made the Street View-inspired experience feel truly alive. Without it, the silence would be deafening, turning a colorful, tactile digital environment into just another interactive map.

Sound directs subjectivity. “If you switch out the music in a scene for something with a different mood, it will completely change the way you see and interpret things,” says Maarten Meussen, Head of Sound at MediaMonks. “Sound is taking a bigger role in the briefs and budgets that we work on than it used to. With spatial sound, for example, you can point someone’s attention to a certain direction, which really adds a lot to an experience.”

Adapting to New Trends in Sound

Sound’s ability to influence user attention becomes much more interesting when you consider brands’ increasing interest to go beyond traditional content and build immersive virtualized experiences, like mixed reality worlds or installations that use music as a touchpoint for personalization. As these new channels and needs emerge, so too does the role that sound plays.

Just like how we aim to push the visual fidelity of an experience, the MediaMonks sound team believes in transforming a person’s world through sound. One of the most recent ways they’ve achieved this is through work in spatial sound and binaural recordings (that uses a dummy head with a mic in each ear to create the sensation of 3D audio). You’ve probably heard binaural sound before in ASMR videos, though the technology is essential for fully immersing viewers in digital spaces like those explored in AR and VR.

A great example of this is Pharos AR, a mobile experience made in collaboration between MediaMonks, Childish Gambino, Google and Unity. Upon opening the app, a virtual door opens up in front of the user, beckoning them to enter a dark cave where sound and visual cues direct their exploration. As users discover neon glyphs within the virtual cave, the music builds before ultimately transitioning into a virtual performance of an exclusive Childish Gambino track, “Algorhythm,” performed in the digital space surrounding users like their own personal concert.

On a related note, sound can also be used to personalize experiences through user interaction in interesting ways. The soundtrack to the Puma: Run My Way installation—an immersive pop-up that lets users take the form of a virtual puma as they run through mesmerizing worlds—is personalized to build in intensity as they run faster and reach certain milestones. The team had to create an interactive music track for each world in the experience, in four distinct styles.

Sound has also gained new relevance with emerging channels like TikTok and Instagram’s Reels feature. Music plays a big part in this format, and while everyday consumers often make content using some of their favorite songs, brands need a different approach. “We don’t recommend brands use a popular track because licensing is difficult and it’s not ownable to the brand,” says Heather Hosey, VP Client Engagement at MediaMonks. She recommends custom songs with lyrics that reference branded hashtag challenge or a familiar jingle: “We can turn that around with custom music in two weeks.”

Capturing the Sounds of the World

Operating globally, the MediaMonks sound team is well-versed in a wide variety of musical styles relevant to regions and cultures around the world—and even time periods. “If there’s a style we’re unfamiliar with, we can analyze and study it to create something authentic,” says Meussen. “And now that the team is growing, we have more specialists in different genres, making it easier to find someone with a personal connection to the brief.”

But the model also helps the team continually push sound to the limit in lockstep with emerging trends like those above, linking creative and technological innovation. Because their capabilities are in house, the sound team is able to collaborate closely with editors, animators and developers across a project’s development and tackle creative challenges at any scale.

“One of the coolest things about MediaMonks is that all these creative departments are working so closely together, so you can really see a project take shape from the beginning and have input at an early stage,” says Meussen. “I have worked at a studio where clients would just drop in a video, say ‘Do the thing,’ and that was it. Here, you have departments coming together at an earlier stage who can provide a fresh perspective, so you can share each other’s input and can make things sound so much cooler.”

This involvement at the earliest stages of a project is important to ensure greater effectiveness of any given piece of media’s use of sound—ensuring a film, game or experience truly resonates with the audience. From creating sounds and music with a local flavor to enabling dynamic compositions that personalize and evolve based on user interaction, our sound team knows how to strike a chord around the world and across the ages.

Spilling across fan wikis, podcasts and tie-ins, today’s stories are bigger than the sum of their parts. While this isn’t exactly new; the Star Wars franchise has famously spanned not only movies, but also games, comics, novels and several TV series. But the vast array of digital channels and a hunger for content has ushered in a new era of transmedia storytelling.

Transmedia works well as a means of both getting viewers into the world or keeping them inside it. This was the strategy behind “Stories to Go to Bed,” a salacious and seductive podcast that expands the world of Netflix’s new thriller series, Dark Desire. The podcast was produced by both Circus, which merged with MediaMonks early this year, and podcast production company Archadia Media.

By redefining the “bedtime story” for an adult audience, Netflix wanted to not only make the show’s promise clear to new viewers, but also make people feel connected to the show’s world through a little bit of extra content. “The brief was: how can we expand the experience of watching this show, not only in the streets but in how people consume everyday content?” explains Yaneth Velázquez, Global Head of Client at Circus, noting that the standard approach of out-of-home activations had to take a backseat due to the pandemic.

“It was very interesting to extend the show’s universe,” says Sofía López, Sr. Creative at Circus. “We were creating fiction upon a fictional story. For Netflix fans who always want more from their favorite show, this was like a gift for them.” The team aimed to seduce fans with a provocative podcast that highlights the show’s trademark erotic intrigue, narrated by some of its ensemble cast, including Maite Perroni, María Fernanda Yepes and Alejandro Speitzer (Erik Hayser also makes an appearance in Fernanda’s episode).

Each is well-known for their previous roles in telenovelas—and what could be more enticing than listening to a favorite actor or actress whisper in your ear? Not much apparently, because the modern take on the radio play—best enjoyed with headphones, preferably with candles lit—has proved incredibly popular with audiences. The series quickly rose to the number one spot on Spotify’s Top TV & Film Podcasts chart for Mexico.

Since then, the podcast has been fully downloaded over 70,000 times and continues to be relevant almost four weeks after its release with around 300 people listening to it daily; its impact was concentrated mostly in Mexico, but LATAM countries like Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Brazil enjoyed the podcast as well. It also deserved a shout-out from “Escandala,” the largest LGBT+ news platform in LATAM.

Take an Insight-Driven Approach to Transmedia

When it comes to expanding a narrative, there are so many channels available: mobile games, web platforms, side series and more. How is a brand to choose—and why did Netflix ultimately decide on a podcast for Dark Desire?

After Netflix identified its target audience, its media agency brought together a list of insights on what resonates with them. “They pointed out that the audience loved listening to radio and podcasts during the morning and at night, once their children were at school or asleep,” says Israel Rojas, Content Lead for Title Marketing at Circus. “That was the moment they had for themselves, so we decided to let the idea live in that space.”

The project’s success shows the benefit of having a media and creative team work so closely together. “Instead of us coming to the media agency with ideas, we request their insights first, and then we start thinking with those things in mind,” says Velázquez. “In this case, this is where the audience is consuming the most content. We needed to appeal to what they enjoy, even if it’s not in the place you would first expect.”

The format also allowed for added learnings and data. “The podcast got more than 60,000 downloads, so it’s interesting to consider how many are downloading to listen to it later when they’re alone,” says Velázquez. “These consumption behaviors are new, if audio hasn’t played a role in your strategy before.” Data from Spotify also provides insight on the audience’s musical taste, which can further enhance creative collaboration or targeting.

Enable Collaboration Between Agencies and Showrunners

The podcast is valuable for offering fans a space to linger intimately within the world of the show—which means the show’s characters must be portrayed authentically. In creating a series of exclusive storylines, the Circus team worked on the podcast’s script, taking inspiration from the show’s dark and erotic themes. “We had the idea that everyone has a dark desire and something to hide,” says Rojas. “We created three stories that people won’t see in the show to expand the narrative—three moments to give the fandom something extra.”

The idea was discussed with the showrunner of the series, who trusted in the project and gave some interesting thought starters for the story. The final scripts were approved and greenlit by the Netflix Content team, but the Circus team was still anxious about what the actors would think: “There was a chance they would read the script and say ‘no’ because they would have to awkwardly moan and recreate sexual scenes, but they read it and loved it,” says Rojas.

“It was a challenge to capture the same eroticism of the show without using footage,” says Elizabeth Beltrán, Creative at Circus. “We let the user’s imagination complete the journey.” But for Rojas, this experience became hilarious: “There’s nothing like spending an hour recording an actor making moaning noises,” he says with a laugh.

Differentiate in the Medium to Heighten Immersion

With actors spread apart internationally and due to restrictions from the pandemic, the team had to get creative in how it would record each episode: one actress recording her episode from her car and another from a closet. “Ideally, you would record everything in a studio using the tech there, but we got scrappy and made it work with a premium sound quality.”

One way they boosted the listening experience was through binaural recording, which uses two microphones rather than one to create 3D stereo sound (if you’ve ever watched an ASMR video wearing headphones, you’ll know what it sounds like). This recording method resulted in a fully immersive listening experience—and gives listeners another reason to pick up their headphones besides privacy. “We invite people to listen with headphones while they’re listening to this 360-degree experience,” says Velázquez. “You might think that audio-only is an ancient way to tell a story, but we try to bring the full experience out of it.”

As entertainment franchises continue to extend beyond a single channel or stream, brands and their partners can deliver irresistible, seductive content driven by consumer audiences and insights. This way, brands are primed to engage better with audiences across channels in new and more immersive ways—and satiate their audience’s craving for more, no matter how forbidden.