07-08 Tools AudioMob 09-10 Campaigns Lil Nas X, Daði Freyr, Hans Zimmer, AJ Tracey 11–16 Behind The Campaign- Bring Me The Horizon APRIL 21 2021 sandbox ISSUE 274 | Music marketing for the digital era Music Ally’s guide to making and selling an NFT (And should you even do it?) OMGNFTsWTF? Sandbox Summit Global is aimed at anyone in the music industry who is interested in keeping up to speed with the latest developments on how to build and engage audiences digitally. Event includes: • Keynote interview with Seven League’s Richard Ayers, digital • Panels on How to market a live stream and Tipping Economy adviser to the world’s leading sports bodies including FIFA, and Memberships UEFA, Premier League, NHL, NFL, NBA and football clubs including FC Barcelona, Juventus and Leicester City • Music Ally Learn Live sessions where you can learn who are the most important companies for opportunities in the • Presentations of inspirational campaigns from other sectors gaming world and how to make the most out of Short-Form Videos – including the amazing haptics-based interactive LEGO UK campaign • Presentations from Warner Music Group & Global Records on marketing in Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe • Keynote interview on NFTs with Crypto.com’s Joe Conyers III • Panel discussions on Classical Music and Posthumous marketing • Premieres and Listening Parties with YouTube’s Kathy Baker and Lee Martin founder of Listening Party • Your chance to vote on the Music Ally Campaign of the Year Award • Songfluencer on the Global Impact of Influencer Marketing Book now for your early bird tickets at just £69 + booking fees See more details at https://sandboxsummitglobal.com/ Sandbox Summit Global 2021 - A Music Ally Event in association with Linkfire, Vevo and Songfluencer and supported by Colabox 25-27 May 2021 | From 3pm BST/4pm CEST/10am EDT CONTENTS In This Issue: After two excitable months, the wild, get-in-on-the-ground-floor hype around NFTs is starting sandbox to abate somewhat, and while interest - and cynicism - remains high, now is a good time to find out what we have learned so far. So here’s Music Ally’s analysis and guide to making and selling NFTs. What did people who made them find out? Why should (or shouldn’t) you sell them - and how do you do it? Meanwhile, in Campaigns, Lil Nas X becomes a twerking class hero; Daði Freyr gets holographic; Hans Zimmer makes a ringtone; and AJ Tracey makes an infectious game. In Behind the Campaign, RCA’s Edd Blower and Will Stevens explain how they worked with Bring Me The Horizon to create a release campaign that allowed fans behind the scenes, and applied a pop-style, always-on release strategy to the metal world. Finally, in Tools, we talk to AudioMob, which inserts audio ads – with accompanying clickable banner ads – into mobile games, and find out how it has worked for artists who have used it so far. ➜ LEAD FEATURE ➜ CAMPAIGNS 2 NFTs: The rise of NFTs has been a confusing two-month 9 Lil Nas X becomes a twerking class hero; Daði Freyr gets sensation. So what have we learned so far? Plus: holographic; Hans Zimmer makes a ringtone; and AJ Tracey Music Ally’s handy guide to making and selling NFTs makes an infectious game. for musicians. What are NFTs anyway? Why should (or shouldn’t) you sell them - and how do you do it? ➜ TOOLS ➜ BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN We talk to AudioMob, which inserts audio ads – 11 RCA’s Edd Blower and Will Stevens explain their work 7 with accompanying clickable banner ads – into mobile with Bring Me The Horizon in creating a release campaign games, and find out how it has worked for artists who have that allowed fans behind the scenes, and applied a pop- used it so far. style, always-on release strategy to the metal world. 1 | sandbox ISSUE 274 21.04.2021 COVERFEATURE Music Ally’s guide to making and selling an NFT ➜ Actionable takeaways • NFTs could – potentially – be an (And should you even do it?) important source of income for musicians, allowing them to monetise storytelling. • For all the hype, NFTs should have solid thinking behind them: don’t just sell an NFT because they are new. • It is best to look at NFTs as an exclusive offer - don’t replicate with NFTs actions or offers that already work on other platforms. • Think hard about whether you want to offer “just” an NFT or bundle your NFT with something extra. Collectors probably prefer the former. NFTs for sale, with more items being offered by the day. Perhaps wary of the new technology, several of these NFT sales have included other, more traditional goods: Jacques Greene’s NFT Promise included the song’s publishing, while Kings of Leon offered various incentives, including “Golden Tickets” for their live shows. On the whole, they have been a success too: 3lau made $11.6m in NFT sales, while Aphex Twin’s NFT sold for $128,000. In promotional terms, too, NFTs have provided an interesting story for media OMGNFTsWTF? who are lapping up anything NFT based. he speed with which NFTs – non- hottest thing under the artfully rendered quick to embrace the new technology. In (Music Ally included, of course.) But they fungible tokens, but then you digital sun. February 2021, Grimes sold $6m worth are by no means a blanket success: the Talready knew that – have made For artists, NFTs represent a potentially of NFTs via online marketplace Nifty auction for the Kings of Leon’s NFTs, their way into music industry thinking enduring new stream of income, with Gateway and the floodgates opened: for example, was extended beyond its has been nothing short of sensational. most sales platforms offering secondary since then Aphex Twin, Jacques Greene, initial deadline, which suggests potential Two months ago, most had probably sales fees for the re-sale of their art. It Georgia Anne Muldrow, Deadmau5, teething problems. never heard of them; now, they are the is no surprise, then, that musicians were 3lau and Kings of Leon have all offered All the same, interest for NFTs - and 2 | sandbox ISSUE 274 21.04.2021 COVERFEATURE cynicism about NFTs - remains extremely high within the music industry. So here’s Music Ally’s handy guide to making and selling NFTs for musicians. What have we learned so far? What are NFTs anyway? Why should (or shouldn’t) you sell them - and how do you do it? But first, a little context... What is an NFT, and why has the music industry lost its collective mind over them? One reason for the frenzy around NFTs is that they represent something that the music industry has been looking for - perhaps subconsciously - for years: digital limited-edition digital file. The NFT itself scarcity. In many ways, the rise of digital is a “digital token” that refers to the digital music has been positive for the music artwork: typically digital imagery, audio, or industry, opening whole new markets for video, or some combination of the three. artists and labels and giving consumers Thus, the owner of the NFT is considered access to a dizzying variety of music. the owner of the “original” digital file. But at the same time it has created a problem: if my MP3 (or Wav or Flac or NFTs could be an opportunity what have you) can be copied, at the click to “monetise storytelling” “You don’t see that that often [now] my album with a human who can cherish of a mouse, to create another, identical file Joe Conyers III , EVP, global head of because it is not very profitable to invest the meaning with proof of payment than - then what value does it have? My copy of NFT at Crypto.com, who is running its that much money into a complicated with a tech giant corporation that pays your MP3 is just as good as your original recently launched NFT platform, says that marketing campaign like that. 0.004 cents a stream and couldn’t give file - so why on earth would I bother NFTs allow musicians to build worlds, to “Only the biggest bands can really pull a fuck about the message and music, spending any money on it? Streaming, collaborate, to appeal to the collectors’ something like that off… You can have beyond cold machines sending them down meanwhile, has seen the music industry go market in the digital age and - perhaps a much smaller artist who can actually a mindless feeding tube and stripping its beyond the ownership model, where users crucially - to “monetise storytelling”. monetise their story through these personality and rarity through the process”. pay for access rather than ownership. “I think about some of the greatest collectibles in a way that we have never Underground music culture has, he said, NFTs presents a solution to this records that really had a story-telling really seen before.” been hurting for a past several years, with problem. Without getting too technical, attribute over the last two decades, I think In the era of streaming, particularly, COVID only exacerbating the situation. NFTs are unique, non-divisible and non- about things like Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts, when many artists see music as being “The streaming monetisation model interchangeable, with their ownership and I think about how they built all these undervalued by DSPs, it is easy to has devalued music sales to such an written into the Blockchain. videos, this alternate reality game around understand the appeal of selling an NFT. extreme degree that it is mainly the small What this means, essentially, is that it,” he says.