Visual Storytelling for Spotify’s A1 Hip Hop Playlist
Client: Spotify Australia
Type: creative development / production / post production
Deliverables: Online social content
Spotify’s A1 hip hop playlist features some of New Zealand’s most prominent hip hop acts, and Spotify wanted to dive deep into the stories behind them. They came directly to us for a four-part video series, which would be amplified on the platform as well as through paid digital media.
Challenge
To build and contextualise Spotify’s position as an authority on contemporary New Zealand hip hop. And, put simply, to attract bass hip hop enthusiasts to the playlist. Spotify came to us with a loose idea of what they wanted, and the rest was over to our crew, from creative concept to execution. It was our mission to develop the A1 hip hop brand, drive the discovery of upcoming hip hop artists and create general fandom around the culture.
Solution
The concept at the heart of this campaign would be the artists’ personal stories. We worked with hip hop artists Jess B, Mellowdownz, SWIDT and Church & AP, each who had a single soon-to-be-released onto the playlist. We wanted to give some insight into their creative drivers, and the process behind those particular tracks.
Result
2m+ social engagements
230k+ playlist subscribers
1.2m video views
Behind the scenes
When we set out on this project we always wanted the process to be as collaborative as possible. Collaboration not only between us, the client and the artists, but collaboration with crew. We elicited the help of photographers Reagen Butler and Joe Hockley to help us pull together the vision. This brought a true element of authenticity to the end product.
Documentary-style, just the way we like it. We loved being across the whole process: deciding what to spotlight, seeing the vision and bringing it to life. The strategy got results, and everybody was stoked.
Dir. of Photography: Scott Cundy
Director/Producer: Jacob Brown & Scott Cundy
Photographers: Reagen Butler, Joe Hockley
Lighting: Kyle Von Tonder (Low Key Lighting)
Editing: Brewery
Colouring: Reagen Butler
