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05-06 Tools YouTube Analytics for Artists 07-08 Campaigns Marshmello, Ellie Goulding, Ashnikko, Tove Lo 09–12 Behind The Campaign- Shalmali Kholgade JULY 22 2020 sandbox ISSUE 257 | Music marketing for the digital era Making camera effects connect FILTERTIPS The appeal of these custom filters – most readily associated with Instagram but also available on Facebook, Snapchat and (more rarely) TikTok – is easy to understand. Filters are eminently flexible FILTER TIPS and can be used to reflect an artist’s particular visual aesthetic, be it Prince’s Making camera effects connect purple universe or Slipknot’s disquieting masks. They can be funny, artistic and The camera filter is an essential part cute – plus they can also be used with of life on social media – sometimes to music. Gracey’s Instagram filter features an instrumental passage from her polish looks, but mostly to have fun song ‘Empty Love’, which the user can with. Musicians are, somewhat inevitably, manipulate in various ways. all over them – from new acts like Gracey, through megastars like Taylor Swift and Social media, goofiness even heritage behemoths like Pink Floyd and filter ubiquity Oliver Muoto, the founder of Metablocks, and The Beatles. Labels, too, are using which specialises in digital marketing for them as part of building their own brands. the music industry, says that the use of AR We look at how they work, how much filters reflects how young people currently they cost to make, the platforms they use social media. “We all know that the perform best on, if they are worth the vast majority of the young population are now on Instagram and messing around investment and, ultimately, if they can with their phones is just something young last the distance. people do these days,” he says. “Go to a restaurant or go to a line and you have n 2020 you’re nothing in the music people there with their phones, taking industry without your own custom pictures, interacting with each other.” IAR filter, layering brightly covered digital swirls over camera displays. Legendary artists such as Prince, Pink Floyd and The Beatles have all launched their own filters on social networks – the Prince estate offering a Purple Rain filter on TikTok and WMG’s Firepit Technology creating Instagram and Facebook filters based on the artwork for classic Pink Floyd albums – while new acts are also jumping on the filter craze, from Gracey’s ‘Empty Love’ to Ale Aguirre’s ‘Soy un Robot’ Instagram filters. 1 | sandbox ISSUE 257 22.07.2020 COVERFEATURE they’re being served an ad and for lots of not really surprised it’s not super easy to artists that’s not the most effective way to do that [create a filter].” reach your fans,” he explains. TikTok says that it is possible for artists and labels to get bespoke filters Not all social channels are built made – such as the Prince one – and equal: why filters are easier to make the best way to do that is to contact the on some platforms and not others company directly. But this is not exactly For marketers, meanwhile, filters are the open access to tools that Facebook relatively easy to create, thanks to the and Snapchat offer. The launch of TikTok’s Spark AR Studio which allows users Branded Effect programme in June 2020, to make AR experiences for Facebook’s which lets users activate “exciting visual family of apps, and Snapchat’s Lens effects such as a brand logo or brand Studio. Facebook’s head of music label product in user’s videos”, will be interesting partnerships, Megan West, tells to watch in this regard. Music Ally that “custom artist effects” Timothy Armoo is the CEO of influencer interactive experience that hardcore fans on Facebook and Instagram allow fans Reinforcing existing aesthetics marketing agency FanBytes , which has will love,” he says. “The breadth of the to interact with an artist, track, or album or building creative springboards worked on filter campaigns for Deezer, format doesn’t really have any boundaries.” “in a fun, dynamic way while expressing in their own right among others. He believes that filters tap This interactivity is key: rather than themselves personally and artists can Most custom filters into the essential frivolousness of social passively consuming filters, fans interact build buzz for a project”. fit into one of two media, especially with Snapchat Lenses. with them and this helps the idea that Bespoke filters on TikTok are, for the distinct categories: “The reason why lenses work so well is the filter is promoting to stick in the moment, a lot rarer. those that mirror a that they give you an opportunity to be a fan’s head. Juniper calls this exchange “TikTok hasn’t rolled out a lot of stuff to song or album artwork bit goofy,” he says. “People go on “a mutually entertaining and beneficial people,” says Adi Azran, head of marketing (or a general artistic social media primarily to goof off and experience for artists and their fans”. for Flighthouse Media. “The API’s closed, aesthetic); and those if lenses can give you a form of escapism “Young, savvy audiences know when there’s not a lot of data you can get. So I’m that take a looser that’s quite cool.” and more creative approach. Beyond ads: filters offer a new “Sometimes the form of connection idea of the filter is a Beyond this, of course, filters also work more natural fit with on a more commercial level. Ed Juniper, whatever the content junior digital marketing manager at Polydor or single artwork Records, says that filters are especially around a single or powerful because the audience connects album is,” says with them in a more meaningful way than Muoto. “If you look at they would do with a standard digital ad. Ale Aguirre’s single “You can create something with a [‘Soy un Robot’], that novelty or shareable element to drive is the aesthetic; that is awareness for big tracks where you need the graphic, a picture to see immediate results or expand the of her with a robotic world of an album or music video into an silver face. So – bingo! 2 | sandbox ISSUE 257 22.07.2020 COVERFEATURE artists they represented. Muoto is a fan of these quizzes, which he says “really play off the AR elements” of filters. Armoo, however, is not so convinced, arguing that quizzes only really appeal to core fans. “We haven’t really seen that sort of thing [quizzes] work that well,” he says. “Because the people who tend to do that tend to be people who base it on the artist. They tend to go: ‘What type of Ariana Grande fan are you?’ That only really works if you are a very strong Ariana Grande stan.” Super-serving existing fans versus creating new ones Here, perhaps, is the nub of the filter debate: do they appeal only to core fans who you don’t really need to market to so much? Or can they reach a wider audience? Most marketers, as you might imagine, are convinced it’s the latter. “If a creative implementation ‘hits the nail on the head’, in terms of the campaign aesthetic We are going to let people replicate that.” implementation was an absolute bullseye over your head and if you stick out your and the audience demographic, then And that is precisely what her Instagram for the creation of face filters, being as it is tongue or open your mouth then fire the viral impact is huge,” says Saunders. filter does, superimposing a robotic visual associated with the AR creation of existing engulfs the pyramid.” Juniper, meanwhile, says the reaction to effect onto the user’s face masks, which are the band’s incredible the Gracey filter “helped to deliver the Slipknot have their own hugely trademark,” he says. Quizzical attraction: the Q&A filter strongest single launch for Gracey so far”. recognisable aesthetic in their trademark As for the wider creative approach, Muoto There is also the recent trend for As with so many things on social media, use of masks. It made sense, then, for mentions an Instagram filter that his company Instagram filter quizzes in which users artist support is important, encouraging Warner to use this when it created a set created for label ConceptHa.us, which uses answer a series of questions to discover fans to try out filters and share the results of Facebook Camera effects for the band the song ‘Illuminati’ by Lil Pump and what kind of fan/character/musical without coming across as too heavy- which allow fans to virtually try on the Anuel AA. genre they are, with the results typically handed or obviously commercial. band’s masks and share the results to “We did a filter for ‘Illuminati’ where displayed on a panel over their head. “The filters we have done, the ones that social media. that’s more just around the symbolism US dance label Astralwerks recently tend to work better, the artists go out and Josh Saunders, head of Firepit and the concept of the word ‘Illuminati’,” launched an Instagram filter quiz in which they do something, they post it out there Technology at Warner Music, says that he explains. “So it’s not exactly the cover users could discover what electronic music to their fans,” says Muoto. “Some people the reaction to the Slipknot masks was artwork, but most of us are familiar with genre they were closest to while dubstep are creative and they do contests and “overwhelmingly positive”. the Illuminati triangle. The idea [of the label Never Say Die produced a quiz where competitions or they just feature and “The Slipknot mask creative filter] was that there is a triangle floating fans could discover which of the label’s highlight the most creative content.” 3 | sandbox ISSUE 257 22.07.2020 COVERFEATURE It’s all about the ROI FYI effects rather than post-production.

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