DLMDD Meets: Mike Brightley

Sounds Of The Unborn is the debut album of Lupa Yupanqui, and was performed while she was in her mother’s womb. Her parents, musicians Elizabeth Hart and Iván Diaz Mathé, used biosonic MIDI to record Lupa in utero. The couple produced the album through tracking and transcribing Lupa’s movement and electrodermal activity into MIDI data and further feeding this data into synthesisers.

This groundbreaking project is interesting not just from a music perspective, but also from a health communications perspective.

Mike Brightley is a Creative Director at Publicis Langland and has been working in health communications for over 15 years, masterfully combining his biochemistry background and creative flare as guitarist-songwriter. We caught up with Mike to thank him for introducing us to the unborn album, and to get his thoughts on how this project could spark some interesting ideas in the healthcare industry.

E: Where are health brands currently at when it comes to sound and music?

M: The sonic element of branding is massively untapped in pharma. We focus so much on visuals and creating interesting visuals to engage people. And, of course, getting the written content right. Unfortunately, you don’t often see the same level of diligence applied to audio.

If we look at videos for explaining a condition or a drug, most if not all brands are using a stock backing track – everyone is using something similar. If you’re talking about the same condition and you have the same class of drug, and your campaign might look a bit similar, you’re competing over a percentage here or there about how effective it is… we have to think ‘what else could we do to differentiate’?

So traditionally sound is not thought about upfront. Coming from a music background myself and knowing how important it is, I want to bring that thinking about sound further up the chain of importance.

E: What has your experience been so far? And I’m sure you’ve had a busy year with, need we say it, the pandemic. What do you think will happen on the other side of this in the health industry?

M: The pharmaceutical marketing industry is a relatively conservative and understandably risk-averse industry. Overall, they’ve not been fast to adopt digital technologies from a communications perspective (unlike in medical practice, where they are often early adopters).

One of the good things that I hope will come out of the pandemic is that it will kickstart the health industry’s embracing all of the digital things that they should’ve been doing before; better web presence, more interesting digital engagements and broader use of channels.

Podcasts are the number one, growing source of information for a lot of people – doctors and physicians are no different, and they get a lot from podcasts. Conferences are another big thing; traditionally these were mass face-to-face meetings but that’s changing now. So we’re already seeing a lot more digital engagement on different channels – and sound could be a common denominator across all of them, so it’s exciting to think about using it in more interesting ways in these environments.

E: Sound has incredible benefits in healing and wellbeing, is this something you’ve explored?

There is certainly a therapeutic element with sound and music. It’s been proven to help people with Parkinson’s disease or movement disorders, helping them to walk better or calm their tremors, and is used sometimes in therapy for patients with brain injuries. In general, music is a powerful tool for our overall wellness – having a more calm and positive mindset and reducing stress is conducive for any form of recovery. I’m more involved in the communications side of health, though.

One of the highest profile examples of creative use of sound in health comms was the ‘Breathless Choir‘ initiative for Philips, by Ogilvy & Mather. It featured a choir of patients with the lung condition COPD, led by vocal mogul Gareth Malone.

E: Why do you think sound should be more important for health comms, specifically? We talk a lot about sound when it comes to fashion brands, food brands, with a real emphasis on taking a multi-sensory approach to branding in general. How can sound be applied in this highly regulated, functional industry?

M: Aside from therapeutic options, there is a huge untapped opportunity in health comms to use sound to differentiate brands and to make them more meaningful: to resonate more with their audiences.

For example, three of the same new class of drug will come out at the same time and you have to find these points of differentiation, and they’re often on functional, scientific things. What they really need, however, is to find an emotional element to the brand as well as the functional differentiator; this is where I think audio, music and soundscapes can really elevate the content that we’re creating.

E: Any ideas?

M: Well off the back of the Sound of The Unborn album (which was brought to my attention by the wonderful Dan Chichester), I got very excited about the different directions we could go. For example, to make something both distinct and authentic you could focus on creating sounds that are actually derived from the condition itself.

Can you represent a Parkinson’s tremor in sound? Can we track heart conditions sonically? The potential is massive.

You could make an entire soundscape based on breathing sounds specific to respiratory conditions – or even create diagnostic tools based on the sound. Can you represent a Parkinson’s tremor in sound? Can we track heart conditions sonically? The potential is massive.

If the soundscape is derived from or inspired by the condition itself, it’s going to make everything you’re doing more authentic and meaningful.

E: How would you like health brands to approach sound in the future?

M: Not only could sound be used to connect with audiences and distinguish brands through using sounds specific to health conditions, but it’s currently being overlooked as a great way to create consistency. Sound, music and voiceover are usually addressed on a project-by-project basis, rather than saying “here’s some consistency for the voice of your brand, or here’s a bank of sounds for the brand to use”.

If the soundscape is derived from or inspired by the condition itself, it’s going to make everything you’re doing more authentic and meaningful.

So it ultimately comes down to three things. One is differentiation: you want to be ownable and unique. The next is consistency: whether you’re being shown a video, listening to a podcast or clicking through a website, you should have the same sound cues, the same as you have your logo or brand colours. The last is emotional relevance, and the authenticity or specificity of it: how can the sound be intimately connected to the condition we are talking about?

There is so much potential here with sound in the health industry. It could be really exciting.

Mike Brightley is a Creative Director at Publicis Langland and can be reached at michael.brightley@publicislangland.com 

The debut album of Luca Yupanqui is set to be released via Sacred Bones in April 2021. Here’s one of the pre-released tracks: