Published February 10th 2016
Australia’s Universal Music Group has partnered up with creative agencies One Green Bean and HOST, to start a brand new advertising company called BRING. With this, they want to create great content in a collaborative way without falling back into the usual patterns of product placement in videos or sponsorships.
Universal Music Group starts BRING
Universal Music For Brands
This objective is not necessarily new to Universal Music, if you look at it globally. About two years ago, I had an interview with Universal Music Netherlands, during which, they told me how innovative their New Business Development department actually was in seeking out partnerships.
Business Development
This department had always been there and were responsible for all kinds of promotional campaigns. Regardless where you are in the world, I’m sure you know them too. It’s those campaigns in which you can get a free single or download with your cola or potato chips.
With music sales decreasing, Universal Music Netherlands noticed there was more of a future in this. After all, music is universal, no pun intended and many brands could benefit from hooking up with what’s cool or exciting.
Music Is Content
Seeing music as content, is not a new thing either. Music publishers have known this for years and it’s been their job to get their music catalog publicized as much as possible. But record labels have always seen music as a product that they had to sell, and they needed a moment to switch to a new time, where music is seen as content they ‘have’ to share.*
*off-topic side note: To say ‘have’ feels a bit weird to me, because it’s still strange how we, as consumers, want to have all the music in the world without having to pay (much) for it. It’s the infamous ‘bread’ discussion: When you go to the bakery, you expect you have to pay for bread. There, you don’t expect that the advertisement on the packaging is picking up the tab for you. Somehow, there’s still something off about the way the music business is forced to seek its income elsewhere, while it’s also strangely exciting.
Get Yourself Noticed With Music
In 2014, Universal Netherlands set up a mailing list for (potential) brand partners, in which they could receive the latest opportunities for partnership deals. This ranges from getting notified about spots for product placement in the new videos to come, brand endorsement in behind the scenes TV productions, as well opportunities to have a major celeb appear at your business event.
Yep, it’s not just music or videos that is on offer. We all know that ‘selling’ the artist’s presence has also become a booming business in this new time. Just think about these madly expensive VIP/Meet n Greet packages for concerts nowadays.
Shareable Content Creation
While all of these examples are still very traditional, it’s BRING’s goal to create shareable content from the consumers perspective. They want to approach the matter from the bottom up, rather than top-down, so to speak. For that, they have to keep up with what’s going on and use that to push a brand and an artist in the content they’ve created in a joint effort.
Alongside, they are allowing artists, being creative themselves, to also come up with ideas for brands.
It’s a great idea and I can’t help being excited about it, because I too try to make businesses aware of the benefits of using music in their marketing strategies and in their content. Labels making such moves, show me that the times are really changing and I’m actually on the right path too.
It’s A Universal Thing
This new way of thinking is a worldwide thing for the record company. Universal Australia follows in the footsteps of their French offices. Universal France launched something similar last year and the UK is actually offering the same services in-house, sort of like Universal Netherlands.