For years there has been a need for impactful music collaborations and brand partnerships. When artists and brands collaborate, it brings another opportunity for fans to engage with music they love. At The Orchard, our Brand Partnerships team works closely with the Digital Marketing, College Marketing, Artist Services, and Label Management teams to connect an artist’s identity with a like-minded brand in an authentic, meaningful, and thoughtful way, while executing out of the box ideas. During the past ten months, COVID-19 has challenged our teams to combine strategy with creativity, and if there’s anything we’ve learned the past year, it’s there’s strength in collaboration.
Let’s take a look at some recent brand partnerships our team has produced this year.
Instant artist favorites to fans’ doors
Delivery service goPuff launched their first ever celebrity box with country artist Russell Dickerson (Triple Tigers). The goPuff x Russell Dickerson box, available for instant delivery exclusively via goPuff in Nashville, features an assortment of products Russell loved while recording his new album Southern Symphony. The limited time boxes also include exclusive merch and access to a behind-the-scenes making of the album video. Some lucky superfans will also receive a personal surprise from Russell himself via Zoom performance and meet-and-greet as well as the goPuff box this week.
Community engagement
The Brand Partnerships and Digital Marketing teams worked to flip Jekalyn Carr’s (Lunjeal Music Group) album Changing Your Story into changing someone else’s story. Jekalyn is taking part in St. Judes’ “We Won’t Stop” t-shirt campaign to raise awareness around their monthly donation program. In addition to recurring :30 and :60 second radio spots, Jekalyn ran a Cameo campaign to help raise money for St Judes.
Ruth B. (Downtown Records) curated the Apple Music playlist for apparel brand Roots Canada as part of the brand’s Holiday 2020 “Give Comfort” campaign and modeled the collection with her mother. Ruth also took over the brand’s Instagram of 220K followers last month.
This followed Ruth B.’s partnership with STEM and the Ad Council. The Ad Council partnered with Ruth on a virtual, 10 song concert in Minecraft to support their She Can STEM campaign. The campaign’s mission is to encourage girls to use their STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math – skills. By enlisting Ruth B., she was able to introduce a new world of STEM to girls.
Girls were able to start building their virtual concert world in September with the chance for their creations to be featured during the show. The virtual concert was held within Minecraft and live-streamed from the She Can STEM YouTube Channel. Ruth B. interacted with fans through Discord during the event.
Sharing meaningful stories
Cautious Clay (The Orchard Artist Services) is part of the Dr. Martens Presents series. The campaign features creatives’ stories and amplifies their messages across Dr. Martens’ community, and showcases how the brand is embedded in music culture.
Episode 6 interviews Cautious Clay here. In the interview, he talks about the Black Lives Matter Movement and the impact of COVID-19. His live stream performance will premiere on December 20 on the Dr. Martens Instagram. Cautious Clay says, “COVID-19 physically restricted where I could go and what I could do which in hindsight made me focus a lot more on my creative process as a whole.” On his creative process he says, “Writing stories completely outside of the medium of music has been a way to strike up inspiration for the songs I’m currently working on.”
As part of WeTransfer’s social justice initiative, the file sharing company is promoting Ruth B.’s single “If I Have A Son” by making her music video one of their selected wallpapers for a one year period. The wallpaper hosts a Call To Action to donate to the Black Youth Helpline, where Ruth has also been donating proceeds from the single.
