Jordy Freed from Sony Corporation of America shared his journey from jazz saxophone and building websites to public relations and marketing. Twists and turns took him to radio, Blue Note, Grey Advertising, and finally to Sony. He shares the stories of his twists and turns and the challenges of managing and growing diverse brands.  Jordy talks about what he's excited about now and what is changing the workflow of creators.

Guest: Jordy Freed, Head of Partner Marketing & Strategy, Brand & Business Development, Video & Sound Products, Sony Corporation of America

As the Head of Partner Marketing & Strategy, Brand & Business Development, Video & Sound Products at Sony Corporation of America, Jordy Freed leads marketing, business development, and communication strategy for the multinational company. A talented sax player who considered becoming a professional musician, the Philly native got his start as a publicist for the jazz firm DL Media, held marketing and PR roles at Blue Note, and made a quick foray into advertising at the top firm Grey. Upon returning to Blue Note in 2016, he partnered with Sony on the creation of NYC’s Sony Hall, the first venue to feature Sony’s immersive music experience, 360RA. This led to an in-house position at Sony, where he became the first U.S. employee on their Brand & Business Development team, with the remit to develop multi-million dollar business strategies. In this role, he has overseen collaborations with Doja Cat, Pink, Lil Nas X, Pharrell Williams, and Alicia Keys, struck deals to reimagine the David Bowie catalog in 360RA alongside immersive activations, led the company’s partnership with Amazon Music, and much more. He now leads marketing and business development for 360RA, as well as global branding activities for a host of sound products.

Mentioned Links

• Sony Corporation of America: https://www.sony.com/en_us/SCA/index.html
• Jordy Freed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordyfreed

Welcome to Innovating Music.

This is your host, Gigi Johnson.

I'm excited.

With today's episode, we have Jordy Freed, who comes to us

from the Sony Corporation of America from the Video and Sound Products

department is head of partner marketing and strategy branded Biz Dev.

He started out in saxophone and up from Philly going

into public relations and radio ended up at Blue Note,

then Gray advertising back at Blue Note, and now it's Sony

and he'll ship a bit of the journey path of how he got there.

And we'll talk toward the end about things like artificial intelligence with music.

We pledged at the end to do a second episode, but enjoy

this first episode with Jordy Freed.

I appreciate someone who has done so much in so many creative fields

and is someone myself who started in PR.

I am very happy for someone who is coming

from PR into leadership in a music tech company

and as someone who also went to USC, I'm excited for someone who is going to USC.

So we have some resonant spaces here.

So can you share because things you're doing a lot of our

our listeners won't know anything about, which always is fun for me.

Can you just start out with

what you're doing at Sony and what the product set is there?

Yeah.

So for context, obviously Sony is a very big company, right?

If we had a lot of different businesses.

So I sit within Sony Corporation of America and that's the US holding company.

So all of our different US entertainment businesses,

Sony Music, Sony Pictures,

PlayStation, they're all under Sony Corporation of America.

It's the extension of Tokyo headquarters, like the mothership

and at Sony Corporation of America.

I am director and head of Brand and Business Development

and also had a part in marketing and strategy

for our personal entertainment business.

And you're probably wondering, so so what is that?

Is everything a personal entertainment?

What is that?

That is specifically Sony's business in the audio and sound space.

So but when you look at Phil.

I mean, of course, that's not me, that's not film.

That's not.

Games.

It's so when you think about headphones,

speakers, pro audio, microphone and studio

headphones, etc., anything kind of mobile sound

related or professional sound related, that whole business

I'm leading the brand for and business development

and how we work with partners, which you know, for me is someone

growing up I always had Sony in the house through family, etc.

It's kind of an honor to have this role.

I mean, it's one of the most iconic businesses within Sony.

I mean, when you think of how Sony started, audio was one of the first.

Right.

And and it touches so many elements of creativity in the music space.

So to kind of be in a role to shape the brand as it sits today

and where we want to go and really develop that business is pretty incredible.

I'm not going to lie.

Now some people come into these spaces

and you were commenting about when you were younger,

but some people come into these spaces as tech geeks, which I was not.

I'm totally not.

I became one as an older person and some came as musicians

and some came as people

who would be playing with devices

or be building concerts for their friends.

What is the I'm a 15 year old Jordy doing with his life.

Were you any of those?

I was a cross between a tech and a musician,

so I'm totally in the right space right now. Oh.

What are you doing in music as a young person?

So I was a believe it or not, I was a really serious saxophonist

and really into jazz.

And I was gigging a lot and had a band

and, you know, I was building websites,

you know, as a 15 year old for, for myself.

And you know, so I and yeah, I mean,

I was just really into jazz at the time and I was like super into it.

This was outside of Philadelphia. Okay.

So I grew up outside of Philadelphia, born born in Philly, raised right

outside of Philly, neighboring suburb, literally 2 minutes from the

the county line of Philly County

and the first suburb.

Yeah.

So so I was a serious musician as a teenager.

And your parents, what did they do?

My mother had a couple different jobs.

She was

she was a paralegal.

At one point, she worked for Morgan Stanley at one point as an associate.

My father is a structural engineer.

Okay.

So, yeah,

some people come from creative families, but they go, Oh, yeah, it's perfect.

Go into creative work.

Your family is like saxophone playing kid

and techie building websites and thought, Our son is lost.

So I thought, our son will be going to go do so.

Okay, So

to set this up, although my dad's a structural engineer,

super creative person in his passion for music and technology,

he was obsessed with Sony, believe it or not, everything in my house is Sony.

Growing up, everything I knew.

Right from the get go.

This was I was actually really trapped.

It's super, super weird.

So, you know, I love to tell this this anecdote in interviews

that I've been doing.

So he he's an audio file.

I mean, like he would not if it wasn't pristine audio quality,

he wouldn't listen.

He was totally sworn against the MP three.

He had CDs, S-A CD player, he had Macintosh

tube amps, he had crazy five one set ups

and it's funny because some of my colleagues on the tech side

worked on the development of the CD

and my dad knew of then through like message boards and their colleagues.

And technically it's the same panel that pays me.

And, you know, he was just really aside from just Sony in general, particularly

Sony Audio, I mean, he I just grew up having

gold discs around the house that,

you know, he was into.

So average person now hasn't heard anything better than an MP3.

So it's sort of an interesting lens on where we go to as a culture.

But yeah. 100%.

So you know, it, it, it's just really funny how Well,

maybe not funny because like, yeah, you could say, okay, how did these

parents, they're not in the creative field how it is, you know,

how do I wind up doing what I was doing as a teenager? But

a lot of it was my dad, honestly,

who got me into jazz, got me into,

you know, music and

just seeing him interact with some of that technology.

I mean, he would build computers, right?

When I was a kid.

So it was always kind of around.

I was just always fascinated.

I remember going into RadioShack, his seven year old just wanting to play

with every little gadget I could find.

So I was always into technology.

Yeah.

So what did you think you were going to do with this combo? So.

So, you know, you would think, okay,

he's going to go to music school, he's going to become a musician or whatever.

That was never in the plan.

Never wanted to do that, never, never, never.

I just

I think there was more fear than anything else.

I entered colleges. Poli sci major.

Oh, that's. It. I lied.

I love I have friends who are policy majors,

but that definitely is a business is a strategically safe.

Different and different.

Yeah, because, you know, I was into the West Wing and all that, right?

So, you know, yeah.

It just really influenced so many people's lives.

I should go. And I am.

I know.

I want Aaron Sorkin to write my write my daily conversations.

He's the best. He's he's literally the best.

But maybe I did really well first semester.

But I'm, you know, one semester in,

I was like, I'm bored.

You know, this isn't exciting.

I don't want to do this.

And so I was like, okay, I want to start my career now.

I actually want to start.

I was 18. It was January 2009.

I was like, I'm ready to go.

So I found a couple of internships.

I didn't I didn't have anyone make calls for me to get into the music business

or anything like that.

I mean, I knew enough based on connections to the jazz world

where if I wanted to work in jazz specifically.

Knowing where you're going, that's a power play.

You know.

So I got

I was 18 and I got two jobs.

First was I was on the radio

at the Jazz

and classical station in Philadelphia, WRTI.

Not a student station, actual radio station.

The GM of the station had seen me play and knew that I knew jazz.

And he actually hired me to be on the air

for three m to 6 a.m. shift.

I was going to say with the kid on graveyard -- put him on the overnight.

Yeah, I was on graveyard.

Sometimes I did 12 to 3, sometimes did 3 to 6, etc.

They did like four weeks of board up training and then boom, I was on.

And then in parallel I found a PR firm,

like a national PR firm that you know, worked with.

Some of my favorite musicians

based

in the Philly area just happened to be,

ironically, this PR firm

was in a part of Philadelphia

that was literally down the street

from where my parents had been married

like 20 something years earlier, and my grandparents had a house.

So I'm Jewish.

We call that basher. Meant to be, I guess, right?

Synchronicity at the finest.

Yeah. Yeah, totally.

But you ask, right?

So you're not waiting for permission.

You're not waiting to finish college.

You're making the journey.

How did you meet the PR company?

I'm always back into how to make choices.

So to. I can film.

So I.

Okay, I was such a nerd as an 18 year old.

I would go on jazz musicians websites and look at the contact pages

and see who works with them.

And I found I kept coming across this firm and I looked at the address and, Oh

my God, it's in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, so I know exactly where that is.

The grandparents live there.

So I sent cold

emails to every single employee, Oh.

I love this. Love, love, love. Okay.

And then one of them responded, and he's like, Sure, you can come in.

We're not like looking for an intern. So. And I didn't have a car.

I didn't have a driver's license.

So I took a train like 40 minute regional rail and walked three quarters

of a mile in a blizzard for an interview.

For a job that didn't exist.

Yeah, Yeah, totally.

And I was 18 and they were like, Great.

You know, you seem to know a lot about jazz,

you know, when you can, you know, let's bring you in for the summer.

And this is January oh nine.

And then I started my summer internship February 27, 2009.

This summer, doing careers can be made there, right?

Certainly.

So a lot of people think that they're supposed to be waiting

till they're done with college and then they're waiting to apply.

And then, you know, meanwhile there's people

who just walk in the door going, Hi, I know you.

Here's all the research I've done.

Here is why I'm the right person for it. And magic happens.

Yeah, sure doesn't happen in the fifth one happens.

But yeah, yeah.

I worked for free for like

maybe 6 to 8 months and I was.

Here's a thing you might say.

Oh, well, he's privileged, you know, he had family help.

First of. I didn't have family help.

Second of all, I was actually making money from the overnight radio gig. So

I was doing the

overnight radio gig while doing the PR internship.

And and then it turned into a part time job, then full time job.

And I did that all throughout undergrad.

So I was working full time.

I would do class from 8 to 10.

I again, I didn't have a car driver's license till I was 21,

and then I would take the train and then I would work ten.

I worked like 11 to 7

every day.

And I did that all through undergrad. So.

So working with brands back then, working with creators back

then, what was marketing like then?

I mean, I, I think of my PR time

was a decade or more earlier where most of what we were doing

was emailing people, calling cold, calling

people, following up on press kits,

tracking down who

is doing would put into their marketing for events.

What was that?

What was the technology and what was what was the job?

It was so interesting at that time because it was such a weird,

awkward transition in media and also the music industry because,

you know, you were seeing the dip of, you know, regional outlets going away.

You were seeing shrinking and consolidation of,

you know, genre vertical coverage in music.

You were seeing, you know, fewer journalists,

but the journalists that they're covering a lot more.

And then you had the whole thing that was social

and blogs and message boards and,

you know, direct to consumer and guerrilla grassroots, online camp and influencers.

Facebook, it called influencers.

They weren't influencers.

They were, you know, people who were really passionate about something that,

you know, influenced other people.

Yeah.

So like, I remember in oh nine, like doing face targeted Facebook ads for shows

and doing weird promotions with, you know, landing pages that were made on like,

you know, like Max, you know,

DIY website builders and like,

I remember like doing

press releases where you would set up

like clips for like streaming and excerpts of the music,

you know, But this was before Spotify, and it.

Was a way to, in your case, to sonic.

Bids and yeah, totally.

It was a weird, awkward time.

But like I'd say,

what helped get me in the door

was a lot of transition in media and just a lot of experimentation.

No one knew anything of what they were doing

digitally because, you.

Know, we're still at this stage.

I had stopped, so I stopped because I was like, okay, I need to

I didn't want to be perceived as the person who was like, okay,

I'm going to use this job to help my playing for all the musicians

and going to get to know I was like, my dad always like, you know,

you have to like, immerse yourself and put yourself in

the way.

Like if you need to operate as a business person, yet you got to lock in.

So I, I didn't want to play anymore.

I hung that up and I dedicated myself to,

to PR and what's funny.

So I didn't know what PR was, but I was a really famous going.

You don't know it.

No, no. No one does.

But here, here's what's interesting.

So math wasn't my strongest suit growing up.

Writing was and I was the editor of my school paper.

And the qualities that you need

or needed to be in communications or a publicist,

I just by chance possessed those qualities

and I stumbled into it honestly without even knowing that.

Yeah, like as a comms major for undergrad, that's perfect for, for me.

And it's funny, so

the job actually, I wasn't a communications

major in undergrad until I started as a publicist.

I switched, but

oh, like if you look at the macro of the evolution, it really started

for a passion for jazz in music that led to a passion for PR.

And that passion for PR, really like with changing media, pushed me for a passion

for new ways of looking at integrated marketing, digital marketing, etc.

That then that led to another job that was a proper marketing job

where I really got to control a lot of true direct to consumer at scale.

So that was. Yes.

And that was that was Blue Note.

And of course, Jazz Blue Note totally makes sense.

How did you make that happen?

Did you walk in the door in saying you should hire me?

No. At that point I had relationships that I developed and, you know,

one thing led to another and got connected to the owner of Blue Note

through a friend who was working there, got a job there.

And at that point I had five years of experience.

I was, say, Sammy, known to an extent in

whatever that small jazz circle was or is.

But yeah, the blender job really allowed me to flex

marketing, you know, and real PR at scale.

I mean, it's an international brand and, and it really opened my eyes

to, you know, something truly consumer facing.

It's interesting when you're doing

I was doing artist PR right out of festival PR whatever

at the firm

you know it's not like

it's not true consumer brand like yeah

people know who artists are, but it's you know it was smaller scale.

Yeah, great jazz musicians.

But when you work for a company like the Blue Note, you know,

that's when you get into okay, like people actually know this brand.

A lot of people, even people outside of, you know, core music

because it's a destination in New York City, right?

So I really got to flex to marketing chops to be able to control,

you know, not just PR and communication strategy for that company, but,

you know, how you market to individuals,

how you leverage own touch points to, you know,

spark action among a constituency or acquire new customers.

Right.

Or listen. To customers. Right.

So yeah. Totally 100%.

You've got a long thread to pull and sort of what as the business around

you is changing and music and the tech around it

that that it's not just an individual event action

and then knowing the press for that geography it's really a longer thread.

Yeah for sure.

And I was what was really interesting is

what started really opening my eyes to that broader world that is marketing

brand development was I was involved in a lot of the company expansion.

So when, for example, the company

opened venues in Hawaii in China,

I got to lead the integrated

marketing and comms rollout for that.

Obviously different partners in those two markets and multinational

launch, you know, customers in in different markets.

And you know, that really started

getting me interested in a world outside of music, honestly,

into general kind of brand development from a global perspective.

And I'm sure you saw that I left L.A..

I was going to say for a guy who was just

jazz, just jazz music, music.

Great. Yeah, yeah.

I got really tired of it.

And there was one specific

experience that really opened my eyes to so that

that rollout for Hawaii in Napa, Hawaii in China now was wild.

But yeah.

Well, I did the blue note Napa and Brazil to say

I did all of those.

I got connected to folks at the New York Stock Exchange

because I was trying to get a closing bell,

triple, you know, and ultimately I did when I came back.

And we'll get to that.

But I remember I toured the floor

in May 2015.

I've been a couple of times, but that was the first time and I was just in all

during the floor of the stock exchange.

And that's what really got me interested

in a world outside of that small world that I was operating in.

So I went to great and I wasn't there for long.

I was working on some incredible projects, so I did the PR

for the National Park Service Centennial Campaign,

which was awesome.

I did some work with Cannon and Ron Howard,

you know, on some branded entertainment integrated

marketing campaigns and

honestly, without that experience, I wouldn't be where I am today

because I just opened my eyes to everything that I needed to connect

the dots to be able to come back to Blue Note, after which I did,

and build what I built to actually get the job that I have now

and really have the experience that I have.

No, and.

I love how you frame that because for a lot of people

they think that it's a linear, a linear pathway

and not kind of a repurposing that I keep drawing with my hands.

For the people who are not seeing this

or who are listening to it and watching it on YouTube, that

there tends to be almost a replica

or a looping back to to real sort of build skills.

So you came to Sony

with a promise for them and for you to, to do what?

What is what is kind of your joy of this right now. So

I, I had a

a long standing relationship with Sony before I started.

So when I came back to Blue Note, I built a business with In Blue

that aligned Blue Note with different brands

for business ventures and brand marketing activities.

And the biggest one that I did was a partnership between Blue Note

and Sony Corp headquarters to open a venue called Sony Hall in Times Square.

So I had this idea with Blue Note.

We were thinking about opening a venue at the time,

a new venue in New York, and I said, Well, what if we make it

because I had my PR hat on?

Okay.

But it was also from a marketing it's down perspective.

If you open a venue, what's distinctive about it?

What's the story with the connective tissue?

How how are you going to really distinguish yourself?

What's going to be different about it compared to say, okay, it's another venue

in New York and I just kept coming back to technology, right?

What where is the live experience going?

Who could we align with to tell

a unique story and offer something unique to customers?

And I got connected to Sony Corp in 2017,

and within less than a year we did a deal and opened Sony Hall.

And so I was working across the company

for almost two years

on the Blue Note side,

creating opportunities to activate and integrate within,

you know, the Blue Note ecosystem and Sony Hall four for Sony.

And they were looking for.

So this division that I work for, the sound team was looking for someone

as they were expanding their activities and they knew me and

you know, it's funny.

Yeah.

I mean it just it happened.

And they're like, Yeah, let's

do you want to work for us?

So let me just didn't exist. This job didn't exist.

It was

there was no you know, it's funny, I probably shouldn't have been saying this.

Technically, I don't think I applied.

But have you played for anything that you've done?

Gray I applied for Okay.

Yeah,

that's actually interesting deal Media.

I didn't apply for Deal Media.

I didn't apply for a Blue Note.

I didn't apply for Gray.

I applied for

and I've only applied for one job and that was great.

Well, yeah, So let's shift gears into innovation.

So yeah, so a lot of people tend to think the innovators are the creatives.

The innovators might be the

engineers creating the new product.

You been innovating around brand connections, activations,

but now you're in an innovating space also.

So what is your current lens on

innovation in personal audio

and also innovation overall as it's happening right now.

It's really the the knocking down of boundaries and limitations.

That's really what it comes back to.

And I can cite a couple different examples selfishly for some of the things

that we're working on, whether you're innovating and pushing the boundaries

of audio experience to do more in the canvas that you have as a creator.

So when you look at spatial audio, 363 Audi audio,

for example, or Atmos or whatever, to be able to expand those limitations

that existed from normal stereo to do more

with your creative canvas, I.

Wanted to share because this is an area, first of all, of my heart beat,

but also some people may know of Atmos,

they may know of of Sony 30, 63, but they possibly don't.

I think the flag goes up of spatial audio.

They don't yet get it.

So can you dig a little deeper? Sure. So

we've been listening to music in stereo for the past 40 years.

It's left channel, right channel.

Everything you've listened to for decades has been stereo.

You may not even know it, but it's pretty much been stereo

unless you've been in someone's really nice den with a bunch of speakers

that's probably not stereo, that's five one.

You hear certain things together on the left side,

certain things together on the right side, and there's no depth, there's no

element where you feel like you're

surrounded by the music spatial.

What that does is gives you, in essence, a true sense of space.

When you hear things a little bit more precisely,

you might hear certain instruments in certain locations

that you didn't hear before, so you might hear bass

in one section of your headphones and see vocals

in another section of your headphones, and you feel enveloped in the music.

That's essentially what spatial audio is.

So I'm still listening with my two ears, of course, and I'm probably listening

that devices on my two years, but there is the perception of items

within it moving in front of me behind me

by using

placement.

Yeah, exactly.

It's it's a mixing process at the end of the day.

So when music is created for those don't know,

for those of you who might not be aware,

you know, you record music, you

then need to mix it in a particular way to get the levels right and sound right,

and then you master it to refine, you know, the work.

And then that's a finished product.

So, you know, after music's recorded, you have all these different

sounds that have been recorded

that make up what is called a mix, and then you can mix that content

most mixes

have been stereo, but with spatial you can take the individual

sounds into your point and place them in different locations.

But it also is for those of us who are playing in VR and other things,

it actually could be actually placing the audio

in What then is moving objects in a VR space and air space,

a immersive theater, and that stuff's all growing like crazy.

It's not growing like crazy. It'd be nice.

It was growing like crazy, but it's in a growth mode also.

That's very similar, though.

I mean, so if you look at our software, for example,

it's a ProTools plug plugins.

A ProTools is for those of you who don't know you know what many,

many folks in recorded music use to, to record music.

Right.

And makes music and there's a plug in for that

for 360 for example where if you enable this plug

in, you see a sphere on the screen and it gives you 100

something locations to place those different sounds in the sphere.

So you are virtually placing sounds, right?

Similar to what you might do for a VR metaverse play.

But yeah, that that's essentially the process.

So, you know, back to your your question, I mean, that's one example of

of kind of breaking down some of the limitations.

Another example outside of spatial audio.

So one thing we actually just announced

literally now and last week, it's something like 360

virtual mixing environment.

And what this is, is

the idea that you can mix in a studio without being in studio.

So you can, for example, go into a studio

that you would want to mix in or normally mix in.

We would measure your listening attributes.

So we would take some measurements.

And then using software, you can literally be at home with your headphones.

And when you are mixing right as a creator,

you get the same acoustic experience and profile in the headphones at home

through the software that you would as if you were in the studio.

So mixing things in your gesture

was also are you are you measuring the piano as well

or your ear and you're shaping your ear to go with it, as well

as the acoustic representation of the actual room space?

100%. You hit the nail on the head.

So that's exactly what we're doing.

And so, for example, if you're a professional engineer

who is traveling the world in an artist calls and says, Hey,

I need a mics tonight, we're all working in the studio.

I know you can't get there. Can you do this mics?

You could actually do the mics and maintain that acoustic integrity

and authentic experience as though you're there.

Or let's say you're an aspiring DIY creator that wants to mix in, you know?

Germano hit Factory, right?

Iconic recording studio in New York City.

But you could never get in there.

There may be a way for you to actually do that.

You might need to come in and get some measurements, but

without, you know, spending hours and hours in the studio,

you might be able to

mix it all, you know, like the people you look up to.

So again, it just comes back to

really breaking down those boundaries

and expanding limits, if you will, that kind of enable

more possibilities and just it's kind of unlocking more creativity.

And just like I think without some of these things are more shackles, right?

So we're trying to take more shackles off for creators

to basically allow them to do more.

I would also say, though, and getting into what is changing workflows, right.

So so, you know,

selling B2B marketing, B2B awareness, B2B still is a crowded space

and people are rethinking all the ways they're working

all the time by who else is tapping them on the shoulder.

How are you staying with the innovators

who are also having other people tap them on the shoulder?

It's a really good question.

It's true partnership at the end of the day.

So, you know, you have to you can't do this in a vacuum, right?

You need to look at these alliances from a true collaboration perspective.

So, you know, when we're trying to scale these technologies, right,

we are working with those

at the forefront of their fields

to really better understand the application of those technologies

to what those masters do,

and then work with those masters to spread the word.

And you could say, Oh, well, isn't that a fancy word for their influencers?

No, they actually aren't, because influencers aren't

necessarily giving input on product development.

So do you have a physical lab that that that's music and audio

creators and technicians come into to work with you guys?

Is there kind of a a physical workspace or play space or tinker space or,

or are you guys going into other people's workspaces

to kind of see digital workflow and physical spaces?

Do you have anthropologists on staff kind of sit in through other people's

creative processes?

We it's a really good question.

We generally I mean, I've seen it both ways.

We have folks that come to Tokyo, right?

Everyone, I mean, who doesn't want to go to Tokyo.

So we're happy to host people and we do,

but we spend a lot of time in the field because at the end of the day,

like this is it's you're not going to have Andy Warhol come to your place.

You know, you're going to go to Andy.

With the food and alcohol is.

But that's I'm sure sure.

You're going to go to the creator, right?

You're going to go to them.

Understand their element

and understand what they need to do, what they do.

So our team spent a lot of time going to creators and

and again, keep in mind, I'm just talking about one side of the business.

I'm just talking about the pro side.

There's a whole nother side of the business

we haven't even talked about.

That's a consumer side.

So because again, what's interesting about Sony is,

especially compared to some of our competitors

and in this general category, and something I'm really proud of

is when you look at music and music experience, we are truly end to end.

You know, it's rare to find a company

where we make the gear that's used in the studio

by the creators and then provide technology for mixers, etc.,

And then have hardware that's also used by end consumers as well.

And again, that's

even separate from owning a record label, etc..

I'm just talking about the core audio business, right?

It's very rare to see that,

to have that role in the end to end creative consumption process.

Does that make the

marketing harder, though, and the and the and the thinking about innovation

because you've got the the the big Sony brand, even Sony Audio brand

where people who make it either stuck in old ways of thinking or not

see the innovations because they're buying the end consumer good

that is more mass marketed or they don't see the innovative side.

I mean is

how do you sort of and you've spent a lot of time

looking at brand points of view with other folks as well.

How do you keep a brand fresh and innovative as well as trusted?

That's an excellent question.

And something that we discuss quite a bit.

And we are taking certain actions to address that.

And it's all I mean, it is part of it is how you approached

the integrated business development side to join these things together.

And some of it is

the marketing communication side in terms of how you're telling the story.

So when you look at partnerships

as you can't think about and I'm speaking in general terms, right,

you can't you can't think of things as siloed.

You have to look at what do I have, what what chess pieces do I have

and how do these all connect?

And then when you're looking at partnerships, you know,

what is that through line and connective tissue to the various businesses

that demonstrate a true integrated partnership

to develop the brand on consumer and professional?

And then on the marketing side, same thing.

You know, what is the underlying message, right?

That carries over into and what do we represent as a brand

and what do our products represent but really as a brand, Right?

What do we stand for in this space?

And then how do we connect the dots in how we storytelling

across different touchpoints to its audiences more.

Than just like your dad was when you were growing up,

that line of their house and everything.

So that's one.

So that's here's what's interesting.

That's one segment though.

So on the consumer side,

we might need more people like my dad and other customers as well.

But we're also working later first, too.

So at the end of the day,

and I think you'll see more of this, right, in terms of what we're doing,

if you look at some of our Marcum content recently, it's so creator focused.

I mean, we are going in a market on the consumer side

with artists like Souza and Collide and Whitney Houston.

And these are the faces of what we're doing.

And it's not from a celebrity endorsement perspective at all.

We have no interest in doing that.

All of these activities are real partnerships with their respective teams,

and the artists are getting involved.

If they're alive and and if they're not alive,

the estates are getting involved in how we

elevate the music experiences for fans.

And you'll see some very interesting things this year

in terms of what we have coming down

the pike that also do represent a lot of innovation.

But it brings back to the essence of what

music experience is supposed to be.

And we're really leaning in, you know, is is a brand

that is for music

from an audio experience perspective.

So it's yeah, that we're thinking about it end to end basically.

So so you are yourself a jazz

fan, an audio file, a technical geek

separate from the adventures and innovations at Sony.

What might be a couple other things you're excited about that you're

either seeing coming up the pike or that you see need to come up the pike.

That's a man you have great questions.

I'm inspired by.

First, we feast on listening, creating great questions.

Sorry, I'm a.

Visitor is really, really, really great questions.

I want to reflect on this for a minute.

I mean, this is going to be I hope it's not

a cliché answer.

I am absolutely petrified but completely fascinated

by what's going on with A.I., and it's really, really, really scary.

So we are presently.

Recording this in April of 2023,

after the week of the weekend and Drake A.I.

then, then blew up with songs

and the question of if if UMG,

who has who has who has done takedowns on all this stuff.

But what then are the roads to stand on if you're actually having a new track

with someone who is identifying as A.I.

but represent Drake in the weekend and the Rihanna work and every

this has been a big weekend for this question.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

And that's just in one industry, right?

Yeah.

So, like,

you have to think about every industry and, you know, today's headline April 18,

2023 on LinkedIn was

how chat about he is analyzing stocks.

And when I was

reading a couple of days ago about how Openai one of one of their platforms

is taking databases

of clothing patterns with professional B2B side

so that literally go I want you know, this, this, this, this

and the pattern pops up at the other end and can go right to the manufacturing

and you're kind of going maybe there were people on that entire grade.

Yeah, that were the ones who created patterns and

and you know, where, where then are all those creative roles And then what

what do they need as to equipment to manifest the next stage of this stuff.

But yeah.

Yeah.

It's scary as a tactic.

I am completely astonished and fascinated by it.

And I spend every day on Bard and chat CBT in some way or another.

To be honest.

One amazing application for me has been

it's actually been a

great learning tool as I'm going through my MBA.

If there's something I don't understand fully,

you know, it doesn't always get something right.

And at the end of the day, you know, I still have to take tests myself

and you can't use it for exams, etc..

But when you're when you're studying and there's a concept you don't understand

to be able to plug in, you know, what is X

me, you know, on a balance sheet, right?

That is pretty amazing

to have it spit out right away or and look at how you sell for,

you know, a correlation coefficient in statistics course, right?

So as a learning tool, it's actually been amazing.

Well, if you have to do a competitive analysis for either job or class,

you can pre do the competitive analysis and then ask the question and then you go,

Well, there's three companies

I didn't realize and this confirms everything I already did.

I'm working right now with a group of people.

We're building a VR escape for a museum game.

Long story, but half the team is using some elements of generative

AI to supplement their work and then bringing that back to the group

saying, Here's what I got out of generative

AI that I've then added in gameplay, competitive analysis,

puzzles, whatever that.

So yeah, it you know, it's interesting thinking about the I always go

so now what's the competitor of advantage

if all of us can be playing with this stuff

and is it play well or is it replacement.

Right.

Well okay so this is something really interesting

and this comes back to some of the stuff I've worked on in my MBA

in this like analytics section that I'm in now, and it comes back to,

you know, if we all have the

same data or same tools, the differentiation is the

the human creativity, resource and capital to interpret and apply at that point.

So yeah, yeah, totally.

So it's it you know, there's always going to be a human element.

It's just where that margin of error is closed

is, is quickly diminishing

and yeah,

I mean, I'm just completely fascinated by it.

I'm just blown away and

I feel like right now there's definitely major, major

tectonic plates shifting in the Internet

as we've known it for the past 20 years.

And new people who are become creators

because they will have pieces of that puzzle under the hood,

which has been under the hood in tools for quite a while.

Right? Yeah.

I'm assuming there's some machine elements in your 360 hour product.

I'm assuming that there is, you know, pieces of the puzzle

in a lot of things people haven't seen and won't see under the hood.

But I do think it's going to open a whole new series.

Like in drug discovery.

Yeah, a whole new series of combinations of things we haven't seen yet.

We have. Talked.

For a while now.

We're at the end of our conversation.

Jordi, is there anything we haven't mentioned

that you'd want to make sure we put on the table?

I think you've covered most of it, to be honest.

I you know, I wish we had like another 2 hours to talk

because I've really, really enjoyed this particular conversation.

I wish we could do a part two.

We totally can do a particular I did sign up for a part two

and we'll look back and say, What was that generative A.I.

thing that back then or you know, what's happening.

I would love to talk internationally in many ways.

You have a nice lens into that and innovation in music.

By the time this goes live, we'll have launched actually

with one of my entities, a whole Spain innovation program.

And there's interesting things happening around the world that

we tend to talk from a

but for lack of a better term

sort of Western bias to what's happening with innovation in music.

Be great to talk about that because you guys touch all of those elements.

So that would be great to follow up on.

Jordi, do you need people to reach out to you for anything?

Who would you like to reach out and how can they reach out?

I would say LinkedIn is a great resource to be honest,

so you can type in my name j

o, r, d, y, f, or d on LinkedIn.

I should pop up hopefully.

But that may be shown that.

Maybe you need chatbots to to send you there.

I don't know.

To remind you that I talked to and tell.

But, you know, if you are fascinated by this space,

I mean, what I love about it is kind of multifaceted space I'm in.

So I always say like entertainment, music, marketing and technology is kind of

like the the trilogy for me, like the, you know, the hat trick.

So if you're interested in any of those spaces, want to talk more, great.

If you're a potential business partner, great.

If you're a creator, great.

I'm pretty open,

so I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

But that's a.

Whole other thing, because you've got a new baby coming soon.

By the time this goes live, it will have come about in the world.

So hopefully not going away.

So, yes.

Knock on wood, everything's good in the world. Yep.

Excellent journey.

Thanks for joining us.

And we will do a part two.

Yes, thank you.