Connecting Music, Brands and Fans.
Posts tagged Maurice Bernstein
Congratulations to the winners of the 54th Grammy Awards
Feb 14th
The 54th annual Grammys’ celebration just marked impressive awards for numerous talented artists. Several 2012 Grammy nominees and winners have been artists Giant Step has been proudly working with in 2011.
Among others, we are very glad to see that Corrine Bailey Rae won Best R&B Performance for “Is This Love” from The Love EP. Such a beautiful tune by an equally stunning lady.
It’s also very nice to see that the late Amy Winehouse won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for her “Body And Soul” duet with Tony Bennett.
The star of the night, without much surprise, was the enormously talented Adele. She managed to snag a win for every category for which she was nominated! She will also be the cover girl for the March issue of Vogue.
Just for emphasis, Adele won awards in the categories of:
Record Of The Year
Rolling In The Deep – Adele
Album Of The Year
21 – Adele
Song Of The Year
Rolling In The Deep – Adele
Best Pop Solo Performance
Someone Like You – Adele
Best Pop Vocal Album
21 – Adele
Best Short Form Music Video
Rolling In The Deep – Adele
Catch the full listing of nominees and winners on the Grammy website.
Gorillaz, James Murphy, Andre 3000 Teaming Up for Converse’s “Three Artists. One Song”
Feb 10th
Converse continues to establish itself as a creator of cool content in front of its audience. Since 2010, the shoe brand has brought together three extraordinary musicians from different genres to create a unique collaboration known as “Three Artists. One Song”.
Previously including various artists such as Kid Cudi, Santigold, the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, members of Vampire Weekend or Best Coast, the campaign is now featuring Gorillaz, former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, and Outkast rapper Andree 3000. The trio is releasing “DoYaThing” which will be available as free download on Converse official website on February 23.
The track also serves as the launch point for a strong collaboration between Gorillaz and Converse. Designed by Gorillaz’ co-creator Jamie Hewlett, a new Chuck Taylor All Star shoes collection featuring the four Gorillaz-inspired designs will be available at Journeys, premium retail stores and online at www.converse.com on Feb. 23. Additionally, a special audio-visual performance called “Gorillaz Sound System” will celebrate the Converse collaboration. Built around live DJs and the Gorillaz discography, the video will be screened at London’s 100 Club on February 15th.
The collaboration is part of a continuous marketing and music trend. Partnerships such as Coca Cola with its Coca Cola Studios or The Red Bull Music Academy show that brands are not just looking to license existing content, they become generators of their own. Consequently, through their positive mindset give back artistically and there will be value commercially, these brands benefit from positive interactions with a broader audience. More to come for sure.
Shazam Audio Tags’ First Big Play
Feb 8th
With its massive audience, the Super Bowl is a much thought after platform to experiment with new technology. This year, the music-tagging app Shazam helped approximately half of Super Bowl’s advertisers to connect their ads to exclusive music add-ons, giveaways, brand items or other related information.
Easier than QR codes, audio tags basically link online content through your smartphone’s microphone. Considering that audio tagging is a fairly new feature, the million audio tags resulting from the 2012 Super Bowl are an encouraging result for marketers.
But beyond enhancing brands’ TV ads, Shazam increasingly engages consumers with TV content they “consume”. Moving from simply watching TV to interacting with it through the “second screen experience” resulting from audio tagging.
During the Super Bowl, viewers were prompted to game stats, polls, merchandise purchases when using the app. The Grammy Awards is the next point of contact for Shazam audio tagging which will strongly link the music on TV to mobile content for fans. We are looking forward to Monday’s awards!
“The Chill Factor – What Makes a Brand Cool?”: Summary of The Creative Mind Salon panel with speaker Maurice Bernstein
Feb 1st
On January 24th 2012, five top marketing panelists were invited by the Creative Mind Salon Series at Soho House NY to debate about a central thematic: “The Chill Factor – What Makes a Brand Cool?”. Hosted by The Round Table Creative Media Group (CMG), the panel was moderated by Round Table CMG founding member Glenn Johnson and speakers included Maurice Bernstein, Founder & CEO, Giant Step, Andrew Essex, CEO, Droga5, Josh Rubin, Founder & Editor In Chief, Cool Hunting, Bevy Smith, creator of “Dinner with Bevy,” and Andrew Pollard, President, Project Tradeshow.
Maurice Bernstein particularly insisted on the importance of personalized and authentic partnerships where the brand-band partnership reflects coherence and mutual benefits. Panelists also insisted on the growing role of social media and the importance to build stories around Twitter and Facebook for driving consumer engagement and participation. Jay Z, Rihanna or Lady Gaga and her 18 million followers were mentioned by Maurice Bernstein and Andrew Essex as being key brand partners behind viral advertising. Finally, Brands which were mentioned as cool and successful thanks to social media included Coca Cola, Moet, Virgin Mobile, Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Puma, and Bing.
MySoundtrack – Guvera’s new Facebook App for Brands
Jan 30th
Facebook shares are a hard currency and social media certainly has brands’ full attention in 2012. What does today’s online community share? Exciting content. So it’s no surprise that more and more brands are looking towards music platforms in order to create engaging social media apps. Licensed to distribute millions of songs from major labels such as EMI & Universal Music Group, the platform Guvera Entertainment just launched “MySoundtrack”.
Unlike consumer-focused platforms like Spotify or Pandora, MySoundtrack allows brands to take the role of content curator. Brands already using MySoundtrack include Grammy Award-winning rapper Ludacris for his Soul Line of headphones and Monster Energy with Monster Energy Music. Happy listening and sharing!
Giant Step CEO Maurice Bernstein Speaking at Creative Minds Salon Series in NYC [Press Release]
Jan 17th
On Tuesday January 24th, 2012 a panel of top thought leaders will come together for The Creative Minds Salon Series, “The Chill Factor – What Makes a Brand Cool?” hosted by The Round Table Creative Media Group (CMG).
The event will take place at Soho House NY (29-35 Ninth Avenue) starting at 7pm with cocktails in the club’s library. Panelists include: Maurice Bernstein, Founder & CEO, Giant Step, Andrew Essex, CEO, Droga5, Josh Rubin, Founder & Editor In Chief, Cool Hunting, Bevy Smith, creator of “Dinner with Bevy,” and Andrew Pollard, President, Project Tradeshow. Moderating the event will be Glenn Johnson, VP and Creative Director, Evins Communications, and Round Table CMG founding member.
