The sonic brands are back in town! In part 2 of our episode on sonic branding, Kevin Perlmutter returns to share examples of how sonic branding shows up in everyday life—to guide us, delight us, and annoy our faces off. And actually? This stuff might even save lives.

Brands can own sounds? Yeah, that's a thing. Special guest Kevin Perlmutter of Man Made Music joins today, in the first of two episodes, to explain sonic branding. What is it? What does it include? Is it just, like, jingles? (Spoiler: NO.)

Next week we get into when sonic branding goes wrong, so subscribe to hear part 2.

www.thebrandhole.com

Wht th fck, brnds? Creative strategist Natalie Balthrop joins today to talk about brands dropping vowels and picking up a whole lot of obnoxious brand baggage. From the simple dropped "e" in Flickr to vowel-free BHLDN, we dig into the many ways brands give up A, E, I, O, and U (occasionally Y, sure). Help us put an end to the War on Vowels!

www.thebrandhole.com

THE BEST BRANDS HAVE BEEN RELEASED! That's right, Interbrand's Best Global Brands list of the top 100 brands in the world is LIVE.

Special guests Nora Geiss and Markus Hutchins join Caitlin to question absolutely everything about this list, from its theme to its methodology to the dollar values attached to these brands...and then we all admit that the list still matters and is important anyway.

www.bestglobalbrands.com to see the list and download the report—let us know how you feel about the list!

Today, special guest (and Caitlin's business partner) Paula Pou talks about when brands go too far in service of creating "brand experiences": when they tell their employees, like, how to be a person. From personal hygiene to jaywalking to encouraging criticism of fellow employees, brands try to control how employees look, speak, and behave in ways that create a job on top of their actual job.

Lauryn Bennett of Villain Branding drops into The Brand Hole today, to talk about how brands talk. What's a voice based on? Who should use it, and how? And when does it get in the way of clarity?

It's not even controversial to say that the state of politics today is BAD. Special guest Anjelica Triola, of Skill Committee and Creative Caucus, joins to talk about how politicians and political groups can use the skill of branding to be clearer, more consistent, and maybe even dabble in being relevant to modern voters (too much to ask?).

Brands are notoriously bad at goofs (see: April Fools' Day). Comedian Zach Broussard is good at them. So he joins Caitlin today to talk about some of the best goofs he's done and if brands listen verrrrrrry closely, they might learn something.

For more info on Zach's latest goof, check out the New York Sorta Marathon here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1683069409/the-new-york-sorta-marathon

When a word becomes a buzzword, it's on its way to being meaningless. Comedian and linguist Myq Kaplan joins Caitlin in The Brand Hole today to say goodbye to formerly good words, like "empathy." It's fun!

Today, Caitlin and special guest Nora Geiss give the Kardashians far more respect than they deserve. Nora, Beautiful Mind-style, lays out the universe of the Kardashians and the strategic intent behind each member of the Kardashian clan's brand. (If nothing else, we can admit that the Kardashian family knows what they're doing.)

Will you think the Kardashians are good now? Maybe not. Will you ever be able to look at their collection of brands and businesses the same again? Certainly not.