Financed and produced by Intel and Vice, The Creator’s Project has been amongst the most ambitious and creative marketing initiatives in America since it’s launch in 2010. In a similar capacity to Scion’s Audio Visual, the new Levi’s Film Workshops, and Converse’s coming recording studio Rubber Tracks, it attempts to give unique user experiences by aligning with the forefront of the creative industry.
So far, it has done very well. Constructed as a multi-year program and working across multiple platforms of technology and interactive media, The Creator’s Project is a program that is truly dedicated to showcasing creativity at the highest level. It doesn’t just identify leading artists across various media and formats, but also enables them to showcase their works in a way that is truly inspiring and appealing to a wide range of people.
One good example of this was seen at this year’s Coachella, where the presence of The Creators Project literally couldn’t be missed. Amongst many projects, some of their most significant installations included Interpol Under Surveillance for Interpol’s concert on the festival’s first night. Here, The Creators Project brought together a collaboration between the band, David Lynch, Andi Watson, HPX, and Wieden+Kennedy to present a “visual juxtaposition of the seen and unseen”. Through live manipulation by HPX and animation of Lynch’s “I Touch a Red Button” and track “Lights”, the audience was given an incredible live experience.
Another one of my favorite works was the light and sound installation Untitled by Jonathan Glazer and J. Spaceman, which was created as a physical manifestation for Spiritualized’s legendary track Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space. Throughout the festival, the anonymous looking tent had gathered queues of several hundred metres long, of people who actually no idea of what was waiting them. Curious to see what it was, I asked one visitor who said it was ‘like taking a journey through the unknown´. Intrigued, I wanted to see what was inside this massive tent and arranged to meet up with the installation’s architects, Bryan Flaig and Alejandra Lillo of Undisclosable on the festval’s last day. They explained “The sound of the installation centers around Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space, which has been broken into five different tracks. Some are vocally driven, some are instrumentally driven. As the tracks go through the narrow dispersion speakers, the sound is focused into these beams of light.”
At the end of the interview, Bryan took me for a short walk through the tent, which you can see here. When watching, try to note how the noise of the festival calmly transcends into silence, before the sound of the installation takes over and the music then changes as you enter the different areas of light.
In addition to that, the Creators Project consisted of collaborations between between Animal Collective and legendary noise rock band Black Dice, booking the festival’s first ever bands from China, Brazil and Korea, and a special Creator’s Project Tent with works by Feng Mengbo, Mark Essen, Hujong Song, Lumpens, Miles Regis, Brian Quandt, and Aldebaran Robtotics. Besides the work at Coachella, the program has included The Studio, an international event series, a TV documentary series, multi-disciplinary collaborative projects and the video website, TheCreatorsProject.com
Check out artist Theophilus London spontaneously performing “The Brand Song”, shot backstage at Converse’s gifting lounge in the Fader Fort at SXSW, Austin. Backed up by the guys in The Weekend, Theophilus captures the essence of this music and marketing festival in just a few words…
By: Eric Welles Nyström, our man at this year’s SXSW
FastCompany’s editorial team have evaluated thousands of global businesses to create the complete ‘World’s Most Innovative Companies’ list, with a goal to highlight companies that “dare to be different, emphasizing not just revenue growth and profit margins but also progressive business models and an ethos of creativity.” The music category is broadly defined to include major brands who use music creatively, alongside artists and traditional music companies. No record labels made it to the chart, but the inclusion of Hello Music and Songbird in Top Ten Music is an affirmation of their contribution to the latest iteration of the evolving music industry. The winner of the whole category is Pandora, for “bringing its custom-curated music mix to a new venue: cars”. Two brands that stand out are the first runner-up, Coca-Cola, and Converse, who made it to seventh place. Converse for “building a recording studio that’s also a goodwill-generating machine” (Rubber Tracks in Brooklyn), and Coke for its “daring marketing model that redefines the relationship among consumer brands, record companies, and artists”. Neither of these brands are considered as traditional parts of the music industry. Below is the Top Ten in Music list.
01 Pandora
For bringing its custom-curated music mix to a new venue: cars
02 Coca-Cola
For a daring marketing model that redefines the relationship among consumer brands, record companies, and artists
03 Big Champagne
For developing a more modern business measurement that factors in social media
04 Arcade Fire
For turning the music video into an individualised user experience
05 Terra.com
For a multipronged, and profitable, music-focused content model
06 Hello Music
For helping aspiring artists concentrate on their art without losing out on the business side
07 Converse
For building a recording studio that’s also a goodwill-generating machine
08 Sonos
For making one of the easiest-to-use, best-sounding, affordable wireless audio systems
09 Songbird
For creating an open-source music-management platform that’s way more personal than iTunes
10 Weezer
For customising its own business through unusual record and marketing deals
Footwear company Converse is well-known for its projects focusing on art, music and culture. This time they pay tribute to influential musicians by promoting indie music genres with street art.
Recently Converse partnered with graffiti collective Monorex to paint the city walls of the UK, paying tribute to influential British musicians such as Bernard Sumner and Paloma Faith, amongst others. London, Brighton, Manchester and Glasgow are getting their murals done.
Converse also got indie artists to record four versions of the song Didn’t Know What Love Was. As well as that, they are putting on a series of free parties throughout the UK. The parties take inspiration from iconic genres of British music, from punk to Britpop to dubstep, with support from Vice.
Not so long ago, brands wanted nothing but the big bands – to promote their (often big) brands. Today however, global companies such as Diesel, Mountain Dew (Pepsi) and Converse have adopted the ‘exploration strategy’, to reach the crowd and build their own fanbases.
Many things have changed within the music industry during the last fifteen years or so. The business is growing increasingly diverse as music fans enjoy a wide range of platforms to consume music. In the 80s and 90s most brands strictly wanted the big bands to promote their brands, because only they would generate the desired customer attention and raise sales (brand managers thought). Now however, brands have started to adopt what we at Heartbeats refer to as the ‘exploration strategy‘. Instead of spending loads of money on our time’s counterparts to Michael Jackson, Prince or Madonna, brands choose to promote new and up-coming talents, the superstars of tomorrow.
An early adopter of this strategy is fashion brand Diesel, with Diesel:U:Music (D:U:M), launched 10 years ago, as a yearly unsigned music talent award and a worldwide support network with new artists, labels, radio stations, journalists and producers across the world. Recently D:U:M partnered with Sonicbids, a music gig discovery and booking website, to launch Diesel’s Stupid for Music World Cup in celebration of D:U:M’s 10th anniversary. In World Cup style, indie bands battle for a chance to win not only prizes from Diesel, but a professional PR campaign, music video production and recording session as well.
Another brand that has adopted the ‘exploration strategy’ is Mountain Dew (Pepsi) with record label Green Label Sound, where the brand gives away free downloads and promotes new artists and bands - giving their audience something more than just a soft drink.
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Yet, another example of a brand exploring undiscovered artists and musicians is Converse with its Get Out Of The Garage contest, as well as its global creative project ‘You’re It’, launched earlier this year.
New technology has definitely opened the door for these kind of marketing strategies. However, it’s not enough to only be present at places where the audience is, or own a platform. Rather, marketing needs a higher purpose. A number of brands have understood this, and they are now building the fanbases of tomorrow, yet there are many that still have a long way to go… The ‘exploration strategy’ is one proven path to take.
More and more brand marketers are playing with original music to engage their customers. Our last example was Coca-Cola and how the beverage company successfully used music (K’Naan’s Wavin’ Flag) during the World Cup.
