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- Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
As one of the worlds busiest and most important music events of the year, SXSW has today almost become just as much about brands as of bands. Since starting 25 years ago as an alternative festival in what still considers itself the ‘World Capital of Live Music”, Austin, the conference and festival (which also includes film and interactive), now features +2000 artists, from all over the world, showcases, parties, keynotes and major events taking place in bars, parks, parking lots, hotel pools and basically everywhere throughout the city, during a busy two week period.
In addition to that, Austin is flooded by innumerous brands that through official partnerships with SXSW or independent events try to get a share of the crowd of music fans, consumers and tastemakers. One event is The Fader Fort, a concept developed by The Fader Magazine and its parent company Cornerstone. Always featuring the most talked about talent, top of the line event production and lots of free beer, food and products, it has been the most popular and well-produced event at SXSW during the last few years. Basically, it is here you probably will see ‘the next big thing’ before anywhere else.
Located a few minutes walk from the main SXSW venues the event is open for anyone over 21, who RSVP’s in time. Everyone at The Fader Fort is treated to a range of free products, and bands performing at SXSW are taken care of by special coordinators. As for this year, visitors could grab free hats from New Era, get their music gear tuned in a workshop lounge, play ping pong next to the DJ booth, and enjoy old school movie popcorn and free beer. From a special media lounge, bloggers and journalists helped promote the event to the external world, while Sirius broadcasted live satellite radio from a small booth in the centre. Further down behind the stage, The Fader team hosted interviews and streamed the event online. At the other end in an almost hidden lounge by the exit, VIPs and performing artists could pick up giveaways from Converse and TDK, and jam in a mockup of Converse’s new studio. In short, there were lots of places to hang out, get free swag and have a good time.
For the past few years, the setting of the dusty old warehouse on an equally dusty old street has been ideal for the Fort’s regular sponsor, Levi’s. However, after Levi’s surprisingly dropped their commitment at the end of last year, Italian car giant FIAT became the new title sponsor. Sadly, even though there was a potential of doing something new and original given the car company’s great history and widespread popularity for its older car models, it appeared like FIAT had no clue how to approach the event… The bright and shiny cars, which frequently were polished by teams of non-Italian-but-Italian-looking models, appeared like they had been dropped randomly inside the event without any natural connection to the event itself. Added by a number of oddly placed business reps hanging out in the midst of all the relaxed young festival goers, the vibe of car sales offices and bad Italian TV-shows was getting stronger by the minute. To top it off, a brass band was jamming music beside – using old car parts as the instruments. Previous years have also featured local brass bands welcoming guests to the entrance, but then luckily they have been allowed to keep their own instruments. Hopefully they will get to do that next year as well.
By: Eric Welles Nyström, member of the Heartbeats Movement
Tags: Cornerstone, Levi's, the fader, the fader fort
Posted in Arts & entertainment, Fiat, Marketing, Music, SXSW, Uncategorized | 145 Comments »
- Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
In one of the most relevant and interesting panels at this year’s SXSW conference, representatives from Coca-Cola, BlackBerry, pioneering creative agency Cornerstone, advertising agency McCann Erickson, and Songs Music Publishing discussed how and why brands have become the new record labels.
Whether it be through massive global campaigns (e.g. Coca-Cola breaking the artist K’naan into +100 markets), interactive live events (e.g. BlackBerry’s concerts with Black Eyed Peas and U2, where the fans have been able to chat live through mobile devices to the artists on stage), TV advertisements that have broken numerous young bands (Songs Music Publishing), or the initiative to start long-term (e.g. Cornerstone’s Green Label Sound sponsored by Mountain Dew) or short-term record labels (e.g. McCann Erickson’s spin-off label from a campaign with Holiday Inn), the music industry, its artists and its fans, has developed in a way during the recent years so that brands can step in to help break and launch artists in a number of ways.
This is no secret for most people working in music or marketing, but with more and more brands trying to get involved in the music scene, and more artist looking to launch major deals with brands, the speakers listed a few important points in order to make a collaboration successful.
Key points:
- Fans have become used to, respect and even appreciate the collaboration between brands and artists, and expect brands to deliver them music and music discovery
- Brands can function similarly to a record label in many ways, by breaking artists into campaigns, commercials or more complex platforms and projects
- The content created through brand related events have a longer tail and can live forever online, often leading to high traffic numbers even far past the event is over (e.g. for Coca-Cola on YouTube, traffic related to the music of their World Cup Campaigns surpassed the traffic of videos of the advertisements themselves, 80 mill. vs. 8 mill.)
“Building up to the World Cup in 2010, Coca-Cola took K’naan to 83 gigs around the world, to countries like Mexico, Thailand, China, among others where it’s very difficult to introduce a new artist into new audiences. In the end, he topped the charts in more than 18 countries…
…However, I don’t think that brands are the savers of the music industry, they aren’t silver bullets. But, they offer a very effective way to enhance the marketing needs you have for your artist. The industry understood that 15 years ago, how efficient it was just to add a song to a commercial. The winds are changing on both sides and people understand the need to collaborate. The fact that 75% of people try to avoid commercials and 80% of people engage in music daily is a sign of that match.“, said Umut Ozaydinli, global music marketing manager of the Coca-Cola Company, during the panel discussion.
To listen to the whole panel, visit SXSW’s live recording here.
By: Eric Welles Nyström, member of the Heartbeats Movement and our guy at this year’s SXSW
Tags: BlackBerry, Brands as the new labels, Carianne Brown, Cornerstone, eric welles nyström, Jeff Tammes, K'Naan, Kerri Cockrill, McCann Erickson, Mike Boris, Songs Music Publishing, Umut Ozaydinli
Posted in Coca-cola, Marketing, Music, SXSW, Uncategorized | 355 Comments »
- Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
In January, Diageo GB, which owns the Smirnoff brand, increased its year-on-year digital spend for the spirit by 115%, to build on the Nightlife Exchange Project (NEP), launched last year.
The NEP was a global initiative, which discovered and celebrated the best nightlife from around the world in one night, on 27 November 2010. Following the launch of the NEP in London, Smirnoff will now be hosting three more events in the UK.
Agency RPM, the event planner of the project, has approached students from Hatfield University and given them £4,000 to create a bespoke area at the Hatfield event, which will be held this Saturday (25 March). The project will also go to Edinburgh and yet another location that will be voted on through Smirnoff’s Facebook page in the UK, www.facebook.com/smirnoffgb.
“The Smirnoff brand is all about originality and creativity, so what better place to look for inspiration than with imaginative students?” said Chris Lock, marketing director at Smirnoff.
The Smirnoff NEP successfully involves its consumers by inspiring them to partake in the shaping of the best brand experience, created by the brand and shared with the consumers.
In a move to cement its brand positioning around nightlife and music, Smirnoff is further staging a dance music event in the UK, which will be held in London on 13 August, featuring acrobats, lightshows and sets by well-known DJs.
Tags: NEP, Nightlife Exchange Project
Posted in Alcohol, Arts & entertainment, Marketing, Music, Online, Smirnoff, Uncategorized | 116 Comments »
“Now, in days where content scarcity no longer exists, experience is the product…Content is no longer king. Its throne has been taken by experience. Yet how many music services really focus on experience?”
I read this quote by Mark Mulligan (Forrester Research) a while ago, and find it to be quite true. Just think of it… How many music services do we have, that really focus on the music experience, aside from the listening part?
Research has shown us that today people listen to music on more platforms than ever before (Millward Brown BrandAmp Study 2007). Another study lets us know that youngsters listen to music approximately 3.66 hours per day (Why do we listen to music?), and yet another, more recent study, tells us that people consume music three times more via YouTube than via legal downloads (Nielsen and Midem Study 2011). This tells me that there’s room for more music discovery in people’s lives, and that the door to that room is open, especially to services and music sites that let music consumers experience what they’re listening to, while they’re listening.
If you have a look at the Music Website Heatmap from 2010 (US) it shows that music consumption on the web is increasing as a whole (with one contributing factor being that the percentage of people that have internet access is growing, but still…), it also lets you know that watching is the new listening (again). Approximately 31% of YouTube videos are music videos. Roughly estimated, its size is more than 3 times everything else combined on the map.
This makes me believe that there’s a door open to new music services, or improved existing ones, that focus more upon delivering greater music experiences to consumers. What consumers would appreciate is not yet another streaming service that offers them a monthly listening subscription. What they would appreciate rather, is a music service that allows them to experience the music as a whole. Why not a service that takes them as close to a real gig as possible? Why not a service that offers pictures and high quality videos from gigs, festivals and perhaps documentaries as well?
Just think of it… If for some reason you missed out on a gig last night, or tonight’s gig is taking place on the other side of the globe, wouldn’t you like to experience that gig anyway?
There is probably a huge market for new music services, far beyond what we can imagine, and I welcome any new service that lets me get as close as I can to experience the real stuff.
Right now I’m actually a bit excited, because there is a service on its way that might meet my wish. It’s called Noisey.com, an online music discovery platform centered on concert videos. It’s launched by Vice, Intel and Dell and will be released at SXSW later on today. Will the site meet my expectations? That remains to be seen…
Written by: Sara Zaric
Tags: Noisey.com
Posted in Arts & entertainment, Music, SXSW, Uncategorized | 135 Comments »
- Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
By day, thousands of SXSW registrants will network in the halls of the Austin Convention Center on their way to do business in the SXSW® Trade Show, sit in on informative panel discussions featuring some of the industry’s key players, gain insight from legendary keynote speakers, or plan out their abundant party schedules. By night, SXSW will showcase hundreds upon hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on over eighty stages in downtown Austin.
Our man at the event is Eric Welles Nyström, a member of Heartbeats Movement, working with artist management and brand consulting for lifestyle companies in NYC. Eric will serve you with fresh news through our Twitter account (here). Don’t miss out on the latest news from Fiat Fader Fort, American Apparel fleamarket and much more… It all starts tomorrow!
Tags: american apparel, eric welles nyström, fiat fader fort
Posted in Marketing, Music, SXSW, Uncategorized | 98 Comments »
- Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
David Chang is a member of the Heartbeats Movement and founder of inmD Inc., the first and biggest social media marketing agency in Seoul, Korea. They work with many Korean leading brands, such as Samsung Imaging for social media marketing. David also leads the publishing of ‘Sounds like Branding’ in Korean. Below he shares his insights on marketing and social media with us.
Get your copy of Heartbeats Trend Report : Seoul
Tags: David Chang, hallyu, inmD Inc., music branding
Posted in Heartbeats International, Music, Online, Reports & surveys, Uncategorized | 174 Comments »
The Music Void interviews media-futurist, blogger and strategist Gerd Leonhard on how the web has changed the media industry, as a whole, altered content and how content is now consumed. Gerd Leonhard also talks about file-sharing, how people discover new music in an ever-changing music landscape, and the key difficulty in separating the good stuff online from the junk.
Watch Gerd Leonhard and Jakob Lusensky, CEO at Heartbeats International, chat about the media of the future and what we can learn from the days of Gutenberg here.
Tags: gerd leonhard, jakob lusensky, music, the music void, tmv
Posted in Computers & technology, Music, Uncategorized | 71 Comments »
- Friday, February 25th, 2011
While music services typically bombard users with millions of songs to choose from, a new worldwide music retailer, WeeklyIndie, has opted for a curated subscription model, delivering hand-picked indie songs to subscribers each week.
What sets WeeklyIndie apart from many other services, is that independent artists are invited to submit tracks. Submissions are screened each week and after selecting the tracks WeeklyIndie like the most, distribution deals are signed with the artists. Subscribers then receive a link to listen to the 10 chosen tracks on a weekly basis. With services like this, consumers are able to discover new music, and musicians get exposure and payment for their work.
We’ve seen similar services before this though, e.g. the quite un-known Ramen Music which hand-picks new tracks from independent & underground artists and delivers online issues every 2 months. Also, the more famous music service Songza has offered curated music lists under the name Songza Sets, now integrated into the new version of Songza.
The idea of offering curated music isn’t that new. When CDs rocked we got to see plenty of compilations offering a selection of what’s “best”. Now we can find these kind of compilations online (Hôtel Costes, just to mention one example). However, what’s new with WeeklyIndie is that there is no record label between the artist and service. Any artist can submit a track. Then it’s up to WeeklyIndie to choose what to send out to its subscribers, based upon WeeklyIndie’s preferences of what’s good indie music.
Certainly, there is an abundance of good music online, but at the same time there is a lack of high quality. But what is it that guarantee us that services like WeeklyIndie knows what’s best, except that people will quit subscribing if the service isn’t delivering? Also, do people want curated lists like this, or do many still prefer to discover music by reading about it, searching the web, or getting tips from friends and people whose taste we trust?
As mentioned, there’s nothing new about curated music lists, or curated subscription, except that it has moved online. I though believe it is here to stay, however in new forms with more interactive solutions, where music e.g. is selected by professionals together with subscribers as ourselves. What do you think?
Written by: Sara Zaric
Tags: curated subscription, ramen music, songza, songza sets, weeklyindie
Posted in Music, Uncategorized | 95 Comments »
