Bring The Noise

ANATIC How brands & rights holders can use music to get more from their sport partnerships

BRING THE NOISE

Sport and music are without doubt the two biggest passion points on the planet. They are deďŹ ned by the same fundamental intense emotion, devotion and engagement.

They give fans a sense of identity, belonging and escape.

They transcend nationality, race, language and gender. Both create hugely inuential, hyper-connected fan bases that share the things they love. No other medium can evoke the same emotions on the same scale, or is more powerful in terms of shared experience. What else can make young girls scream and grown men hug? Adding music can be an explosive addition to any sport tournament, campaign or partnership..

THE OPPORTUNITY: AMPLIFYING A FAN BASE Music is moving from the fringes of sport presentation to the heart of promotional campaigns.

The NFL has built more profile around half time than the actual game; Dr. Dre used sports stars love of music to sell a billion dollar business to Apple; The fastest selling football away shirt in England’s history was launched on the back of a rock star. The days of dodgy football anthems are over

and brands and rights holders are beginning to realise that music can be the engine of a promotional campaign that hits a completely new audience and moves fans up the scale of engagement, getting them to spend more energy, time and, most crucially, money on a sport or product. By creating music partnerships with the right artist or genre these networks can be overlaid without competing, driving awareness, conversation, profile and buzz. Essentially, by tapping into two passion points, a chain reaction can take place pushing both partners beyond their normal reach.

THE OPPORTUNITY: MOVING SPORT FROM THE BACK PAGES TO THE FRONT Live music is now a staple part of sports presentation. Music adds a level of dynamism and energy to a fan zone, halftime show or global broadcast. However, rather than a standalone live performance squeezed into intervals, clever brands are integrating music in a more holistic way. Coca Cola have been the most strategic in their use of music around major tournaments. Each artist is selected, briefed and contracted years in advance with Coca Cola execs playing a hands on role in the creative process.

It’s no surprise that K’naan’s 2010 World Cup track echoes the sound of this year’s David Corey Brazil anthem. It’s because Coca Cola view the composition as an opportunity for audio branding with arrangements and signature notes consistent across tracks.

The idea is when fans hear a Coca Cola song they will subliminally associate it with the fizzy soft drink, driving consideration and purchase.

Essentially the presentation of sport is changing and becoming more of an entertainment model.

In addition to this, music can add longevity to a promotional campaign. It lives in a completely different space to sport and occupies a wider range of channels

...from radio plays, to live streams, charts profiling to global tours, music is always on the airwaves.

This can help give sport a new frequency, taking stories from the back pages to the front. One of the phenomenon’s we have seen with the explosion of social media has been the growth of the trackvert. In previous days of media buying, expensive ad time quickly hoovered up budget. However, the YouTube generation is sharing music content more than any other type, driving huge eyeballs on music branded content. Columbian hip shaker Shakira was the biggest music hit of the Brazil World Cup with over 100 million views.

The track was commissioned by Activia as part of their global CSR healthy eating campaign with the video promo featuring the world’s biggest footballers. The exposure that was generated helped both parties with Shakira becoming the first ever person to acquire 100 million followers on Facebook.

It’s no surprise the second person to join that club was Christano Ronaldo, again demonstrating the unique power of sport and music to mobilise massive groups of fans.

Shakria

100M+ FOLLOWERS

Ronaldo

100M+ FOLLOWERS

FIFA

5M+ FOLLOWERS

* Facebook followers

OUR RULES

At Ear to the Ground we have worked on numerous music partnerships around sport working with artists including Mark Ronson, Liam Gallagher, Professor Green and Kasabian.

We’ve helped brands like Heineken, UEFA, Umbro, Nike and Manchester City negotiate everything from live performances at opening ceremonies through to rights deals around music usage for ad campaigns. We’ve commissioned tracks, designed integrated music campaigns and created innovative shared revenue partnerships all around sports platforms.

Based on our experience, we have created our top Rules for how you can use music to get more...

RULE / 1

If you are commissioning a track, picking the right ‘sound’ or genre is fundamental.

More people listen to music than watch sport, and music is being played across far more channels more regularly than sport.

However, like sport it’s made up of many tribes all of whom define themselves by their passion. Picking the wrong sound can damage the credibility of a campaign or not get noticed at all. To leverage a global property, you may need a genre with a global reach. For example, EDM (Electronic Dance Music) or mainstream hip-hop transcend geographical boundaries although they may alienate tastemakers or influencers.

Fundamentally, you need a track that your fan base, the artist’s fan base and the media will love. This is a potentially dangerous territory with issues around creative control and a huge amount of subjectivity around what constitutes ‘good’ in the creative process.

Fundamentally, you need a track that your fan base, the artist’s fan base and the media will love.

RULE / 2

Crucially, you need to understand the fan base of an artist to ensure they will overlap with the sport and any brand partnerships. Clearly, an expletive-prone hip-hop artist may not fit with a family orientated campaign or activation.

More importantly, you need to know the numbers. We use a number of metrics tools to measure an artist’s footprint in any given market and demographic.

This is based on everything from social media shares through to radio plays.

Sometimes this throws up surprises. As a case in point, a number of UK music industry commentators expressed surprise at the inclusion of PitBull in the World Cup anthem ‘We Are One (Ole Ola)’ believing he didn’t really “sell”. In actual fact, this was based on Pitbull underperforming in the tastemaker UK market place. In reality, at time of release Pitbull had the fourth highest social media reach on the planet. FIFA got their artist selection right.

...you need to understand the fan base of an artist to ensure they will overlap with the sport.

RULE / 3

Picking the right artist can make or break a campaign. Ideally, the artist will have an authentic relationship with the sport. At the recent Nike Winner Stays campaign we joined up grass roots urban London music and football.

The synergy was summed up perfectly by one of the artists “...we all want to be footballers and they all want to be rappers.�

The key to successful music sport collaborations is credibility and authenticity.

When we convinced Liam Gallagher to launch the new home shirt for Manchester City his love for the club meant he was a genuine fan and ambassador. More importantly, it became an emotional relationship rather than transactional. His cover of club anthem Blue Moon generated huge coverage topping 300 million media impressions, taking Umbro from the back pages to the front of national media. Fundamentally, we helped Umbro use their Manchester City partnership to engineer a deal with a rock icon, unlocking new assets that were outside of any deal they had with the club itself.

...we all want to be footballers and they all want to be rappers.

...brands can get much bigger traction by weaving artists into their sport stories.

Rather than a straight endorsement, brands can get much bigger traction by weaving artists into their sport stories. One brand who have truly revolutionised sport and music collaborations in terms of ‘leveraging fandom’ is Beats by Dre. Continuing on the trail blazed by Pepsi in bringing sport and music assets together, Beats have changed the game through turning the concept of heroes meeting heroes into a truly integrated concept which permeates everything they do.

Joining up sport superstars like Lebron James with rising rap idol Kendrick Lamar is part of an inspired move to join the two biggest passion points on the planet in a credible and authentic way. Possibly the most unique partnership we ever brokered was to launch the England World Cup shirt – ‘Away’.

We managed to convince Kasabian to launch it onstage in Paris in front of 3,000 boo-ing Frenchmen.

It was just what we wanted to show the rivalry between the two nations and get us media coverage as far as North Korea. It was a great story that spoke to fans in their language.

RULE / 5

UNDER STAND THE INDUSTRY

One of the many challenges is that there are so many stakeholders, from publisher to agent, manager to label...

One of the things that we need to do with most of our sport clients is explain to them just how complicated the music rights landscape is. One of the challenges is that there are so many stakeholders from publisher to agent, manager to label to brand partnerships team that all claim to be able to deliver deals. In reality, all of the above need to be managed in the negotiation process. We always advocate a soft collaborative approach based on relationships and shared benefits rather than cold commercials. The key thing to remember is that any deal is only as good as the spirit it’s written in. You need to speak to artists and entourage in the language of the music industry.

Too much brand chat will alienate the team. The key is to speak to them with a clear outline of what’s in it for them, which will probably feature a mix of cash, exposure and excitement around a brilliant opportunity to benefit both parties.

If you can design a brilliant concept, show great shared benefits and tap into the fandom of an artist, you really can use music to get more out of a sport partnership.

If you’d like to speak to us further about how we can help you get more from your partnership, please contact us, or visit our website for more details

LONDON 10-11 Archer street, W1D 7AZ t. +44 (0)203 131 2992

MANCHESTER 11-13 Spear street, M1 1JU t. +44 (0)161 237 9786

www.eartotheground.org