This time last year we were in amsterdam on business…well, not just business.
A day after we returned from another glorious Download Festival, where we saw an amazing headline performance by Tool, we found ourselves (a little worse-for-wear) sitting in City Airport waiting to head out to the ‘The Venice of the North’.
This trip had turned into a combination of business and pleasure. We found ourselves there talking about the potential strategic application of music within Brewing and Banking. First, we explored the way that Brewing could rethink its role in music, by breaking from the ‘tired and tested’ (not a typo) marketing conventions. Naturally product testing was also partaken of. We then explored how Retail Banking could and should be using music strategically. How using music fandom and the unique codes and values within certain genres, can inform the development of products and services that meet millennial and Gen Z audiences needs and expectations.
Now, before anyone messages saying “but you bang-on about Millennials and Gen Z being redundant terms” I still maintain that they are, but through an in-depth understanding of music it’s possible to profile very specific and diametrically different youth groups.
It’s perhaps not surprising that we would be talking about such innovative approaches, for two relatively conservative sectors in a city like Amsterdam, the capital of a country that is happy to embrace novel and unconventional ideas.
And by an amazing stroke of luck (or was it expert diary management?) we just happened to find ourselves in Amsterdam at the same time as Tool where playing a sold out show at the Ziggo Dome! Well, we do work in the music business and when in Amsterdam…one rocks! Thanks to the promotor for getting us in.
Scott Ian of Anthrax
What are the chances of that?
And the picture, well of course that’s the legendary Scott Ian, Guitarist from the mighty Anthrax who we’d seen at Download and then happened to run into again at City Airport. He wasn’t interested at all in talking about Brewing or Retail Banking.
At Sound Effects, we are constantly looking at how we can help different sectors (who may not have thought of music) develop creative ways to use insight and data to make powerful and enduring connections between brands, music and audiences.