Crafting the Sound of Wet n Wild's Clingy Primer Campaign

Client: Wet n Wild · Music Direction: Josh Kadish · Music Supervision & Sound Design: Penrose Audio — Davies Aguirre

Project Context

Penrose Audio provided music supervision and original sound design for Wet n Wild's Clingy Primer campaign, with Davies Aguirre serving as Music Supervisor alongside Music Director Josh Kadish. The brief was clear: find music that matched the campaign's playful, Gen Z-targeted energy — upbeat, fun, and sharp enough to amplify the visual comedy without softening it. The Clingy Primer concept is built on a single very specific joke, and the sound needed to be in on it.

Conceptual Approach

Gen Z humor tends to be dry, knowing, and slightly absurd — it lands when the execution is precise, and falls apart the moment it overexplains itself. The music had to walk that same line: infectious without being frantic, confident without being airless. We looked to artists like Doja Cat and Dua Lipa not as references to imitate but as markers of a particular quality — productions with groove and personality, music that sounds like it belongs to the moment it's in.

The sound design brief was even more specific, and, frankly, more fun: make the primer feel as clingy as it claims to be.

The Work

Original Track

Rather than licensing an existing track, we crafted an original composition built around the campaign's core energy. The track was shaped to feel current — bright, driven, with a rhythmic backbone that keeps the visuals moving without crowding them. The production leans into the glossy aesthetic of contemporary pop: layered synths in the upper-mid range, a punchy low end, and melodic elements with enough personality to register but enough restraint to serve the edit. The goal was a track that felt native to the Wet n Wild world — not imposed on the brand, but grown from it.

Sound Design — Sticky, Jelly, Velcro

The sound design layer was built around a small set of very specific textures: sticky, jelly-like sounds and Velcro-inspired effects that literalize the product's name in audio form. These were not stock sounds — they were designed from the ground up, layered and processed to feel tactile and slightly exaggerated without becoming cartoonish. The result sits in a register the audience feels rather than just hears: something that makes you wince a little, laugh a little, and immediately understand what the product does.

Each sound effect was timed to its corresponding visual moment with precision, giving the edit a rhythmic texture that runs alongside the music. The two layers were mixed so neither overpowers the other — instead, they create a single, coherent sonic experience.

Results

The campaign delivered a sonic identity that matched the Clingy Primer's concept with specificity and wit. The original track brought the brand's playful personality into sound without leaning on generic upbeat-ad energy, and the bespoke sound effects gave the campaign a tactile dimension that audiences felt directly. Working with Josh Kadish on music direction sharpened the final result — two perspectives on the brief producing something more precise than either would have alone.

Comedy, like sound design, lives in detail. Get the timing wrong by a frame, and the joke disappears.