TikTok’s Trojan Horse Strategy
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 29.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More and more companies are paying to develop a “sonic identity” – a series of sounds, songs, and micro-jingles to help maintain a unified brand.
In this episode, in conjunction with the sound design podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, we hear the backstory to possibly the most successful audio branding campaigns in history. It’s a tale of guerilla marketing and the power of sonic suggestion.
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This adapted episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Dallas Taylor. It was produced by Casey Emmerling and James Sneed. The episode was edited by Jess Jiang. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Planet Money from NPR. |
| 0:05.9 | Dallas Taylor, host of one of my favorite podcasts, 20,000 Hertz, would you like to say hello? |
| 0:10.8 | Hey, Kenny. |
| 0:11.4 | Dallas's show, if you're not familiar, covers all things sound and sound design. |
| 0:16.3 | That's right. |
| 0:16.6 | And he and I are going to play a little game here in part to prove a point. |
| 0:20.1 | We have agreed to surprise one another with a video that we're currently very into from the Internet. And Dallas, since you're the guest here, you want to go first on this? I would love that. Any setup that we need to know? Yes. So I got this video from Instagram, from a friend of mine. Okay. And I'm a child of the 80s. I am too, yes. And the point of it is to connect the dots between the voice of Shredder. From the teenage mutant ninja turtles. From the teenage mutant ninja turtles. And the voice of a very popular actor from a really popular sitcom. So what I'd like for you to do is while you're listening to it, try to figure out who this voice is. And then we'll take it from there. All right. Three, two, one. I must congratulate you. So that is the voice of Shredder. I recognize it. But you're saying this is a famous person I should know? Yes. So I'll play a little bit more. You passed your test with flying colors. Do you know how... So here it is from the show that you should know him from. To have a son who can't swim. Wait, is it Uncle Phil? It's Uncle Phil. It's Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Is Shredder? The voice of Shredder is Uncle Phil. Get out of here. I will destroy my enemies to turtles. And then the world will tremble before the shredder. |
| 1:29.6 | Okay, $100 a ball. |
| 1:32.1 | Did you not know this either? |
| 1:33.5 | No. |
| 1:33.9 | Oh my gosh. |
| 1:34.7 | And I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan. |
| 1:36.2 | This is very cool. |
| 1:37.1 | And a huge fresh prince of Bel Air fan. |
| 1:39.4 | Never put two and two together. |
| 1:40.8 | That's a very good one. |
| 1:42.2 | Okay, so for mine, this is something that I found on Reddit, |
| 1:46.2 | and just a little bit of background. So there's a popular trend where people will post |
| 1:51.3 | videos of themselves at potlucks. You know, I'm Kenny and I brought seven layer bean dip cut to, |
| 1:58.3 | I'm Dallas, and I brought Ambrosia salad, right? |
| 2:01.3 | Like this is, okay. |
| 2:02.0 | So what I have is a video by a content creator named Shea, who acts like a judge |
... |
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