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
Although this year’s lineup didn’t match the likes of previous year’s according to many festival goers, Coachella still managed to sell out within a few days and draw a crowd of 70,000+.
Produced by Goldenvoice (part of AEG Live), it was organized in the Empire Polo Fields in the Coachella Valley, idyllically surrounded by mountains and palm trees, a half-hour drive from Palm Springs and a few hours from Los Angeles. In scorching heat and on beautifully kept lawns, it must be the most vacation-like and tasteful looking festival in the world.
Besides the immense lineup (more than 60 acts during three days), the festival also included an impressive display of huge art installations mainly pioneered by the Creators Project; an honorable contribution to Record Store Day with nearly the complete lineup (!) signing records at the ZIA Records Tent; and a chance to spot anyone from Los Angeles celebrity scene, whether it be Kirsten Dunst mingling at parties, Usher hanging out poolside or Danny DeVito singing and dancing (!!) backstage to Robyn’s performance.
As for the brand perspective, Coachella’s location among vacation homes and chic hotels gave rise to numerous offsite-events; this being why Coachella has become just as much about what goes on outside the festival, as inside. Each day was packed with countless parties and most people went through the whole weekend without having to spend a dime. For the brands this meant competing about doing the best event, having the most notable guests, and booking the coolest talent. For some brands this meant hosting over-crowded parties of pumped up people nervously posing by a pool, and dishing out an abundance of (useless) free products, or, for others, trying to achieve the most excellent experience and perfect brand event, where the branding was subtle yet creative, and the production was so professional that anyone and everyone walked away as a huge brand ambassador.
More specifically on how to get this right, this often meant teaming up with the right creative partner and to give them as much creative freedom as possible, as in the case of Adidas partnering with Jeremy Scott, The Ace Hotel and their collaborations with various labels and creatives, and the Stones Throw x Brainfeeder x Badu day party with DipDive and BlackBerry , which easily brought in better performers, unexpected guests and general good times than any of the two brands could have done on their own.
By Eric Welles Nyström, member of the Heartbeats Movement
Eric Welles Nyström, member of the Heartbeats Movement and our man at this year’s SXSW, gives you the ‘ups&downs’ in regards to bands and brands performing at the much celebrated music conference in Austin, Texas.
SXSW Brands Top Three
The ‘Fader Fort by Fiat’ and how they let Odd Future go totally ballistic onstage.
TDK and their new speakers series that combine 70s vintage design, 80s boombox concept and modern technology, to create the best product across the whole of SXSW.
AOL and their continuous well-thought-out and well-executed events.
SXSW Brands Bottom Three
The ‘Fader Fort by Fiat’ and their lack of new ideas and creativity compared to previous years. Having bands play on car parts was the ultimate low.
Chevrolet, Camel and Marlboro and their lack of understanding on how to introduce their monster products into a creative music festival.
All brands, companies and labels who wasted their marketing budgets on download cards, scrapers, useless gimmicks and flyers that nine times out of ten, were thrown away by whoever received them.
SXSW Top Trends
Brooklyn’s dark electro/art music scene of gothic, witchlike sets and strong influences of 80s synth and old movie soundtracks, received wider recognition with a number of parties outside of Austin.
Esben & the Witch, Glasser, Friendly Fires and Millionyoung continue developing their style with tribal drums.
One common denominator among SXSW’s best dressing artists… hats! Including Totally Totally Enormous Extinct Dinasour’s remarkable dinosaur feathers, Theophilus London’s wool felt cowboy hat, Twin Shadow’s brown furr hat, and Night Jewels traditional Fez…
SXSW Most Symbolic Moments
Theophilus London’s freestyle rap backstage at the Fader Fort, where he made up the ‘The Brand Song’, in the most branded place in the country.
Hanson and their hustle throughout the whole city. One day you would see their new album plastered across major billboards, and the next day you would find them in the audience of panels and hustling keyboard speakers for industry insight and feedback.
As the Saturday night came rolling in and local new media stated that it was the largest full moon in Austin for more than ten years, everyone from Jay-Z, Jamie XX and James Blake, along with countless other major artists (Kanye West, LL Cool, P. Diddy to name a few) and a couple of hundred other bands played free shows throughout the city.
SXSW Most exciting projects for 2011-2012
iTunes project with Green Label Sound
Converse’s new recording studio in Brooklyn, Rubber Tracks
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.
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!
Eric Welles Nyström, who works with artist management and brand consulting for lifestyle companies in NYC, and is a member of Heartbeats Movement, has shared his insights about marketing trends in NYC with us. Read about Eric’s thoughts of shoe brand Keep’s recent marketing campaign, the future of marketing in general and ‘organic’ as a trend, as well as why music is becoming more and more important to reach the target consumer.
