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We dig Greenpeace Energy
We proudly announce, that DigThis Media will support Greenpeace Energy with implementing their upcoming fall campaign. We're taking care of media buying/ planning and will try to get the maximum out of a minimum budget - eager to grow attention for GPE's mission and products and the long overdue energy turnaround. It's awesome to be able to contribute to such an important cause. Stay tuned for updates!
The Critical Mass // Of kitten hats and native ads (Part 3/8)
A “critical mass” is usually defined as “a mass of people you need in order to achieve a certain goal”. The “critical mass”, that just rocketed SoundCloud into the Top 10 of the fastest growing sites in the US, derives its name from “being critical” as well. Critical in a positive sense. Critical in terms of being mature and self-confident, not just about creation and how creation is dealt with on ‘their’ social audio site, but about freedom of choice in their audio- (i.e. media-) consumption. Frankly the users’ identification with the platform frightened me in the beginning and I still have the deepest respect for the community-team, dealing with a 7-figures number of visitors and “shareholders” each day.
Users feeling like being a part of and therefore “owning” a platform, is obviously one of the most tangible external signals for having built a real social network. Something that matters. Something people care about, and thus complain the shit out of you, as soon as you change the color of a button, the shape of a visual or even the terms of service. From this state of identification, it’s only a small step to “becoming a verb” and thus ascending to social media Olympus. Don’t get me wrong: This is a good thing. This is actually the best thing, that can ever happen to you, if you’re able to deal with it, take the critics seriously and treat everyone who soundclouds as an eye-level partner, when deploying new features or even re-launching the whole site, like SoundCloud did in October 2012.
SoundCloud is a role model for companies that grow by treating their community members with all the respect and love they deserve and constantly improving the product in order to make it even more compelling and user friendly...whilst having the marketing guys locked down in the basement.
All the joy does (of course) come with a challenge: How do you implement a functional and profitable US advertising model on a site, which has been ad free for 5 years and is “owned” by the most critical, “hardest to get” (and therefore most desirable) audience you can imagine. It took us only from December 11 to December 12 to finally decide, which formats to start with. Seriously, regarding the complexity of the general task and the risk, which might be higher than the potential gain (you might remember, there was a MySpace before JT), it was a fast, extremely dynamic and intense process. In a regular old-economy company, the protagonists would have given up half way and turned their minds towards a new scope like selling t-shirts or starting one of these good old printed lifestyle magazines.
There are basically two poles, that matter and in between which the project’s shareholders’ convictions and hearts gravitate.
1. Standardization
pros: quick start, hook up to network, least effort for agencies, no need for sales- team
cons: low cpms, no control, potentially huge community backlash,
2. Native Advertising
pros: organic evolution, less community backlash, no pricing dictate, full control
cons: slow start (“evangelize” market first), biggest effort for agencies, in-house sales-team needed
A brave call
After weighing all pros and cons, creating myriads of mock ups, calculating countless business cases and gathering megabytes of intel from all available sources, we finally made a simple, but brave decision: Let’s do it our own way. The SoundCloud way.
Well, you might ask what the hell this means. SoundCloud’s VP Community once put it in a handy phrase: “We act as custodians to a community that we haven’t built, rather that has built itself. We are inviting brands into the mix to come and play.” Still everyone has to play by the community’s rules and all members are equal, regardless whether their names are Skrillex, CJLea or Red Bull. On this understanding our offer quickly took shape - at least from a philosophical point of view: Like everyone else, who is interested in sound, brands can become a part of the SoundCloud community to inspire other creators, be inspired by them, create and share original sound and even get famous. Regarding inspiration and fame brands and artists are not that different. Both need to touch people’s hearts or minds in order to to become relevant parts of their lives.
Making yourself heard is not about being the loudest speaker or playing the biggest drum set. It’s about inspiring someone to listen, not about forcing him to.
“The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them and sometimes it’s an ad.” - Howard L. Gossage
As a matter of fact, people don't listen to stuff, that doesn't interest them either. Some might say, native advertising on the world’s leading sound platform had to be audio advertising. Seriously...it does not. Native advertising, or let’s say “native communication” within in a community driven by sound is in deed audio (based), but it is not necessarily audio ads. Imagine a community of sound creators, sound lovers, sound experts and other (as I mentioned above) critical enthusiasts being shouted at to “Buy Michigan’s cheapest car insurance”. After having been forced to ear-witness a fake agent getting hysterical about “the lowest rate in the whole state” for the fifth time, 1% of the victims might even decide to sign in order to be left alone again. 99% would probably delete their account and try to cope with MySpace’s horizontal scrolling and get themselves excited about “Justin Bieber getting naked for his Grandma”. Well, on a second thought, maybe they wouldn’t. What they definitely would do though is lose their faith in the guys who “act as custodians” to the community and subsequently the community itself. The nature of a community always is, that it is self-cleaning. If you force someone or something on to the community, that cannot be swept, you damage the community’s main functionality. This means - stated in a positive way - if a message or a piece of content shall live and grow within the community, it has to be accepted and supported. It has to be inspiring.
We dig illphonics
We proudly announce that DigThis Media joined team illphonics tonight. We've been constantly looking for thrilling partners in the music and entertainment space to round out our portfolio. Hence we feel greatly honored to get the opportunity to act as official European representatives of the highly awarded St Louis based HipHop fusion pioneers. Stay tuned for updates and the full story. In the meantime check out "Love's a Bitch" taken from illphonics' awesome self titled 2013 debut album:
Project Noise // Sennheiser UK
Yet another great campaign utilizing SoundCloud is coming your way - at least, if you are in the UK. Sennheiser teamed up with London based producer Labrinth to bring you Project Noise, an exciting collaborative approach to creating new music.
DigThis Media advised executive agency Billington Cartmell on how to leverage SoundCloud.com and the SoundCloud API the best way possible regarding campaign assignments and user experience.
As Sennheiser UK already has a decent number of Facebook fans, their corporate timeline and a Facebook APP are supposed to be the hub, where the promotion starts, submissions are showcased and users interact with sounds/ tracks. In order to implement a seamless sound-driven campaign on all of their social channels and guarantee maximum 'shareability', i.e. amplification, of the content, using SoundCloud sure was the right (and only) choice. After going back and forth on the various ways to record, upload and share sounds using the social sound platform's API, we finally decided on the most traditional, yet easiest way, which is sharing by e-mail. Even though this implies some moderation effort on BC's end, the solution provides them with maximum control and minimum susceptibility to errors. In order to streamline the user journey they created a Facebook APP, which makes use of standard SoundCloud features and guides fans, who like to contribute, through the process. The result is a perfect example of 'community-sourcing' your corporate sound on the social web. Why buy expensive licenses and associate your products with random music, if you can rather produce something unique in collaboration with your fans? The technology to make it happen is already out there, you just have to know how to use it.
As a side effect, the SoundCloud HTML5-widget provides Sennheiser with some extra branding, whenever a Project Noise sound is shared. Just mouse over the cover artwork above and see the magic.
Btw...if you happen to seek a cool digital creative agency in the UK, you should check out Billington Cartmell. These guys rock!
Levi's #makeourmark
After months of negotiations and preparation Levi's #makeourmark campaign finally launched on SoundCloud last Friday. The remix contest is part of the public arts project Station To Station, which is currently happening in the US, made possible by Levi's. DigThis Media acquired the campaign for SoundCloud in cooperation with SF-based agency nativ.ly. Executive agencies for Levi's are OMD and AKQA. It was a huge effort to tie up all ends and shape the contest's userflow and the promotion media, so I am relieved and a little bit proud to see the campaign finally come to life.
The "raw material" for the remix contest is automatically uploaded from web enabled instruments installed on the STS train. In addition to these sounds, Pitchfork contributes "sparks" created by collaborating artists. SoundCloud Creators, who want to participate download the sounds from the #makeourmark ProPartner Profile and upload their submissions to the corresponding groups, which are used as "dropboxes". In order to promote the contest within the SoundCloud community, OMD booked profile- sound- and dashbox-promotion.
Levi's #makeourmark marks the end of DigThis Media's intensive work for SoundCloud. I created, implemented and finally launched the brand revenue program "Pro Partner" with them and acquired first partners such as Red Bull, The Grammy's and Levi's. Now that a sales infrastructure in the US has been installed and all sales-business has been committed, it is time to move on. It has been a pleasure and a great opportunity to work for such an awesome company. I'm looking forward to seeing the ProPartner Program thrive with more brands discovering the power of sound in general and the beauty of SoundCloud in particular.
Heute neu und nicht überraschend. Trotzdem wie immer einen Blick wert.
Saturday night Maik premiered on German sports tv-station Sky Sport News HD.
Maik wird Fernsehstar
Die Entscheidung, neben Musik, bzw. Audio, Fußball zum Schwerpunktthema von DigThis Media zu machen, bringt weitere Früchte hervor. Nach der Auszeichnung von FC St.Pauli FM mit dem zweiten Platz beim deutschen Marketingpreis für Sport, hat die intensive Zusammenarbeit mit den Kollegen von Sky Sport in den letzten Monaten dazu geführt, dass Maik am Samstag nach 17 Jahren zum ersten Mal wieder vor einer "echten" TV-Kamera steht. Ob wir das Vermakeln von Geschäftsführern an Medienhäuser langfristig zu einer offiziellen line extension entwickeln, diskutieren wir gerade noch. Fest steht bereits:
1. Maiks rastloses Engagement für die Braunweißen hat ihm (und somit uns) offenbar einen guten Ruf in der Welt des Sport(marketing)s beschert.
2. Wir haben mit fcstpauli.fm und den Kollegen von plan p den Beweis erbracht, dass ein Fußballportal, auf dem alles außer Fußball thematisiert wird, funktionieren kann.
3. Stadionrock geht auch ohne Gitarren.
Wir freuen uns darauf, in naher Zukunft mit weiteren guten Neuigkeiten vom Sportplatz aufwarten zu können. Jetzt aber erst einmal einschalten: Maik auf Sky Sport News HD, Samstag Nacht um 24 Uhr und beinahe jederzeit auf fcstpauli.fm. Nicht vergessen: Wichtig ist auf'm Platz!
