The Power of Audio in Advertising with Dominic White

Dominic White is an award-winning sound designer, music producer and composer, with experience at leading London studios including Envy and Factory.

As chief music officer at 10 Days, he shapes the agency’s music and sound offering - crafting original compositions, sound design, and sonic worlds that cut through culture. From audio logos and bespoke style guides to social sound effects and playlists, Dominic turns sound into a powerful tool for storytelling and brand identity.

Dominic spoke with LBB about his recent work as well as the changing advertising industry opinions on music and sound.

LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?

Dominic> My normal process begins with the research/inspiration phase – I like to make a Spotify playlist of tracks to listen to whilst looking over the creative, so I can get a feeling for what does and doesn’t work i.e. which instruments feel right, or which tempo etc.,

Then sketching ideas, development of ideas, sending a short sample to the creative director for feedback. Further development of ideas into two songs to present to the client. Then a quick mix and master so the songs sound professional to be presented.

Once a song is chosen and approved, its further refining and sculpting around the edit changes till final delivery.

LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this?

Dominic> I agree, when collaborating with other artists such as playing in a band, you create music in such a different way than you would if you were working on your own.

The mix of playing styles and tastes in music fusing together to create something unique is what I think a lot of composers/producers miss out on these days as technology makes it so easy to be a solo act.

Also, collaboration takes the strain off trying to do it all by yourself and means you can just concentrate on mastering your instrument. Then to have immediate feedback from your peers to learn from and improve is very important.

LBB> Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?

Dominic> Depends on the brief – if the brief is a quick turnaround I find working solo is much more streamlined and makes the process faster. But, if the brief allows for more time then I always prefer to collaborate with other artists.

One of our first ads was an ad for March Muses and the brief was to write a song for their first Christmas ad. Natalie Duvall (one of the founders) has a brother Nathan who's in the group Disciples and she wanted him to sing on the song I wrote. This was a really cool experience working with such a talented musician but also someone I had followed whilst studying at uni. All this happening so early in the 10 Days journey was very special.

Recently, I composed music for a collaboration between a global super brand and a mega film franchise (we have to let you guess who…). To deliver the authenticity behind the composition I worked with an up and coming country singer in Nashville. Being able to collaborate with someone virtually was a new challenge but also great – we got a genuine Nashville sound and now I’m in a position to work with people all over the world.

LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why?

Dominic> The most satisfying part is surprising people when they don’t realise how much music and sound makes a difference to their ads.

We sometimes find that clients might not really have much in mind when they first see the creative in terms of music and sound. But once we get into the first stage of presenting inspiration, often they really realise how much of an impact on the feeling or mood can be created, heightened or even changed depending on this.

To quote George Lucas "sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie". Sometimes it takes a lot to convince a client how vital music and sound is and when they realise, it's a great feeling.

LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?

Dominic> The advertising industry is changing positively for music and sound. We’re now seeing music first briefs and thanks to social media, with TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts, music has become vital to instantly grabbing the viewers attention. Viral audio is the new currency – ads often double as memes or remixes.

Music and sound used to be background elements – now they’re central to brand identity. Sonic branding is also coming back in a strong way – just a few notes is all it takes for a brand to stick in your memory, think Netflix’s Tudum’ or Just Eat’s catchy jingle.

In the world of branding, repetition is crucial for building recognition. On average, it takes a person about seven encounters with a visual logo to remember it. But with sonic branding, that number is dramatically reduced – it only takes three listens for a brand's sound to stick.

This is the power of audio: it’s inherently more memorable and emotionally resonant than visuals alone.

There’s a lot of talk about AI within the industry and this is now moving into the sound and music space. A lot of people in the industry seem to be pushing back against this, understandably! I think we have to try and embrace it and make it work for people within the industry, use it as a tool that can help simplify or improve your process - why not make it do the grunt work and allow more time for you to do the creative part!

LBB> Who are your musical or audio heroes and why?

Dominic> I’m a big fan of the band Beirut. Zach Condon, the leader of the band, is extremely talented and can play multiple instruments – his brass playing and his unique style of singing has always inspired me to create music that has a quirky character to it.

For sound design, Yosi Horikawa has always been an inspiration to me. He fuses sound design and music in such a genius way. To give you an example he composed a song out of the sound of bouncing ping pong balls. Every time I have a project with sound design I always think about how Yosi would approach it and try experimenting with making my sound design have a musical rhythm to it.

LBB> And when it comes to your particular field, whether sound design or composing, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do?

Dominic> Composers Bert Kaempfert and Armando Trovajoli really influenced me.

When I started making music for ads I noticed that there wasn’t a style of music that fitted awkward comedy. In general comedy music tends to always sound cheesy and predictable. I wanted to change this and listened to a lot of music from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Songs from this era had a quirkyness that suited comedy so well that I dived into that and started composing some interesting and bizarre music which worked so well for some of our first ads.

LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly sound design or music are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on‘background’ sound and music as you work?

Dominic> Background music has never been a thing for me, I will listen pretty intently to anything if it’s playing. Often without realising, I will be listening to what each instrument is doing in the music and find that I am not concentrating on anything else.

LBB> I guess the quality of the listening experience and the context that audiences listen to music/sound has changed over the years. There’s the switch from analogue to digital and now we seem to be divided between bad-ass surround-sound immersive experiences and on-the-go, low quality sound (often the audio is competing with a million other distractions) - how does that factor into how you approach your work?

Dominic> One of my biggest challenges is making the music/sound design or both sound good on all types of speakers - from big speakers to phone speakers. It's really tough. Most of the time, the client will listen on their phones or laptops so you really have to factor that in to how you mix your audio, because if you don’t it could lead to last minute changes such as having to compose a new song in two hours or even worse the client doesn’t like the creative direction anymore causing big changes to the whole project.

The common problems that occur are phones and laptops struggle to produce bass frequencies and also high frequencies tend to sound harsh so both tend to need addressing to make them translate properly. In the world of mixing, there’s a very well known test called the ‘car test’ where mixing engineers take their song and listen to it in the car, the reason why is it's very hard to make a mix sound good in a car. My version of this is exporting the song and listening to it on my phone, laptops and small speakers going back and forth until it's working across all systems.

LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?

Dominic> My commute into work is two hours and two hours back so I listen to lots of different types of music on the train. Currently I’m listening to Irish and Scottish folk/jazz which has some incredible musicians such as Amy Laurenson, an extremely talented pianist and Matt Carmichael, a saxophonist who blends genres creatively in a modern way.

In the office, we have music playing – with a different person taking the helm each day. It’s a great way of discovering new music and sounds that I may not have come across on my own.

LBB> Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take (are you a vinyl nerd, do you have hard drives full of random bird sounds, are you a hyper-organised spotify-er…)?

Dominic> I’m not a vinyl nerd, my brother Jolyon is but I never got into it. I have hard drives of sounds I’ve collected over the years and luckily had some help when I started from an amazing sound designer who mentored me and very kindly gave me a hard drive of all his SFX which really helped me start my career, I’m very grateful for this as the sound design world is not easy to learn on your own.

I’m also on Spotify nearly everyday curating playlists for my own listening but also playlists for our 10 Days shoots to keep the actors, clients and crew entertained throughout the day - I’ve even made personal ones for clients off the back of these!

LBB> Outside of the music and sound world, what sort of art or topics really excite you and do you ever relate that back to music (e.g. history buffs who love music that can help you travel through time, gamers who love interactive sound design… I mean it really could be anything!!)

Dominic> Outside of music, I enjoy watching and playing sports, especially rugby. The contrast between the two is so different that it allows me to have a break from music, which really helps when I feel like I’m stuck on a brief.

In contrast, being at a live game is something you have to experience to understand. The crowd singing and chanting creates such an emotion, whether it’s cheering on and lifting up your team or booing and jeering at the opposition – it’s fun and fascinating. Especially when you have a crowd of people who individually may not have the best singing voices (no offence!), when they all come together in unison somehow it becomes tuneful and weirdly beautiful!

LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do – I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?

Dominic> Last year I went to Chicago for the first time. I went to the Chicago Blues festival and experienced some awesome music but also how passionate the people of Chicago are about music.

On that same trip, I saw the Chicago Philharmonic which was very inspiring as I hadn’t seen an orchestra before which was very special – and also saw ‘Jersey Boys’ which was a completely contrasting experience!

LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with sound and music changed over the years?

Dominic> I definitely have noticed my music tastes change over the years. I grew up listening to very mainstream music so I’m very grounded in pop music and how those songs are built around a hook and follow a tension and release style arc which makes songs so popular to the masses.

I then moved into hip hop/rap and nu metal in my teenage years and when I was in my 20s I went to jazz college and was introduced to the world of jazz which has really shaped my composing and playing style. The course I was on was very similar to the film ‘Whiplash’, very intense.

Onto uni, I went up north and got into drum and bass, house music and dubstep. So I’ve moved through a lot of genres and, although I enjoy all those still, now I’m older and in a different part of my life, I tend to keep my ear out for any type of music that I can learn from and use to approach a brief.