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3 Music Companies That Successfully Innovated During Lockdown
The music industry is one of the most innovative ones when it comes to establishing a strong connection through new formats.
It has been strongly impacted by the lockdown and had to quickly find ways to replace live events.
Here are 3 examples of companies that managed to innovate to stay connected to their audience.
Defected Records’ Virtual Festival
During the first weeks of lockdown, most artists and labels started to stream live videos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitch. After the initial excitment, there has quickly been a disinterest and users were looking for a more exciting format.
But Defected Records did things differently. It’s a UK house music label that has a strong community of 5 million followers across all its social channels.
From the beginning, Defected Records offered a more complete experience with its virtual festival. The first edition was held in March in a club without audience, and for the next ones, artists were recording their sets from home.
The results are very impressive: 18.5 million unique views from 91 countries, 1 billion organic reach. The average watch time was 33 minutes, which shows how engaged the audience was.
Defected made a donation to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and placed a button on the stream enabling viewers to make a direct donation.
Some keys to success:
- Events were happening on Fridays, when people were feeling like going out
- Each edition was bringing a special guest, such as Bob Sinclar and Calvin Harris
- The label was organising several initiatives around the streams: interview, playlist, media features, contests for upcoming artists…
