In this episode, Beto Azout sits down with Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Wolfgang, Colin Jeffery to talk about the journey through his career, how to convince clients to take risks with music as well as AI as a tool and the need for human authenticity.
Hey everyone, I'm Beto Soot and this is the What About The Music Path Guide. This is an interesting moment for me personally because I suddenly realise the power of music and advertising and when you get it right you can do big things.
The one thing that I've personally always kept in mind is to keep the integrity of the music intact. Meaning if you're going to put a great track, whether it's a big known song or a song that needs to be heard,
you need to put on the right piece of creative. So I've always tried to find music. that really kind of compliments what we're trying to do. But also messaging-wise is in sync with where we're going.
You don't want to do it at the expense of the music or the artist, and it can't just be a money play. All right, Colin, thank you so much for coming on, man. It's good to have you here. We finally made it happen.
Yeah, we did. Thanks for having me, better. It's good to be here, man. We've had a great career so far, and I know there's a bunch of stuff you got in the work, so we'll be good to discuss music. And we all know that music is important, right?
And everyone has their process. So like what is sort of like your process when it comes to music and advertising? How does that process start? Like do you start with music in mind or does that come later or does that vary project to
project? Yeah, I mean I feel like you know music obviously is a very powerful tool to create an emotional connection and a bond with consumers, right? And I think through music you can make people happy, you can make them sad, you know?
You can, it's kind of, there's such a broad spectrum of emotions that can... be kind of tapped into through music. And I think part of it is just having a broad range of music in mind, like I think keeping your finger
on the pulse, having an interest in different genres. So just kind of having all this knowledge in your head. So you kind of pulling from past experiences, from your collection, from what you've heard, through life.
And I often will be listening to teams presenting an idea or we're going through cuts. And then you're just kind of tapping into the database and you're hearing you're like, oh shit, this kind of sound
or this song. And I just kind of come to mind. So there's a lot of, I think just tapping into the music that you have stored in your memory bank. So that's definitely a part of it. And yeah, I think you've obviously got to keep things
like the tone of the campaign in mind, budget, scale, all of that type of thing, right? As you go through the process. Yeah, no for sure. And there's also so many players involved, right? Like you have like the agency, you have the post-production partner, you have the brand so many times where I'm assuming, like you have campaigns and... You love this track and then you speak with the brand, the brand wants to go a different direction, things go sideways. So you end up having a plan A, plan B, plan C, you sort of go through the whole alphabet a lot of times, right? This is the idea of demo love, right? So if you go and put a big, a big track on a rough cut or an animatic in clients fall in love with that, oftentimes they can't afford it or it's not quite right. Well, they do to your point have something slightly different in mind. So I think that just kind of. setting expectation up front, but like, hey, we can't afford this.
So this is just for the vibe. A lot of that kind of stuff happened up front, right? Yeah. And it's interesting, your career, you know, a lot of the campaigns that you've been a part of have been have featured just amazing music from up and coming artists to like establish artists. But I'm curious when you first started in advertising, like what connection that you have with music or what led you to like really pursue these like collaborations and partnerships with artists and labels. Yeah, I grew up in South Africa in a very musical home. You know, my sister and I both played instruments as kids. I was not very good. She was phenomenal. The younger sister who had perfect pitch and, you know, I think got her first violin at three years old and could literally, you know, hear a song on the radio and play it straight away and I'd be like plonking away for months trying to learn a track. So, you know, not very good at instruments.
I loved singing. I was in a number of different choirs. I was head chorister of the Bishop's Chapel Choir. I sang in the Cape Town Philharmonic Choir, sang with the St. George's Cathedral Choir. I did a ton of drama, theatre.
In fact, as a kid, I had this... This dream of going to the West End and performing as Gavrosh and Lemma's a Roble. That was kind of my childhood dream Which never happened but I think you know through all of that you kind of exposed a lot of music
I also think being in South Africa as a kid. There was a lot of obviously like local sounds local music South African African influenced so you grew up with that and then obviously there's a big European and British influence
So a lot of music from Europe and then obviously you've got the kind of the American influence which hits all Africa See you have all these different sounds that you grow up with and I think that kind of gives you a really eclectic range of music that you appreciate growing up and then I think I've kind of kept that going right and you tap into that As you as you develop work right you're trying to kind of create those emotional connections with yeah, like you're open to possibilities. You're not, you're not, you don't have like that, you know, tunnel vision and not limited with with options. That's cool. So obviously you mentioned that, you know, you were, you had all these aspirations where you're, you know, growing up and being raised in a music family, right?
Like music was a big part of it. But how did that led to advertising or what was like the moment like yeah, advertising is my thing or how did how did you start in that world. But I was also really obsessed with brands from a young age like I was infatuated with marketing and branding and, you know, I think part of that was just growing up in South Africa in the, you know, the 1980s and 1990s.
We were quite isolated. That was during apartheid. We were purposefully isolated from the world. We just didn't have a lot of exposure to brands and the cool new things and what was happening outside.
I mean, music made its way through, but other brands, you couldn't get the latest Nike's or Adidas, so you couldn't get the cool new thing. They just weren't there. I think that almost sparked this curiosity and this love for brands and marketing.
I would get various magazines and things sent from family and friends abroad. But I just kind of infatuated from a very young age. And then, you know, found my way eventually into marketing. I also, you know, I loved art as a kid.
I should have probably mentioned that. So art and I love painting and drawing. And I actually loved art theory as well. Like it was fascinated with just the history of art. You know, like it's just inevitable sometimes like you have your own background the way you're raised. And it's just like, you know, you have your path and then you just go with it. So it's great that you ended up there. And then obviously you worked in advertising in Cape Town first, right? Like that's where you first started, right? I'm assuming. And then you went on to different parts of the world, right? Right, doing advertising.
And I think one of the first campaigns that I'd like to ask you about is VDUB, the work that you did there. Like, how did that campaign start? And how did you end up with the music that was selected?
Yeah, no, so I moved to, from South Africa via Singapore, we would start to Singapore for a number of years. And then move to the US early 2000s. Yeah, as you said, I moved. to kind of work on and help run the Volkswagen drivers wanted campaign at Arnold. And when I got there, I kind of described it as inheriting something that's working, right? Which doesn't happen all that often in your career. But you get the call, hey, we've got this campaign, it's iconic and it's fantastic and it's got a clear point of view. Do you want to come and help work on it, run it? So I teamed up with Dave Wiest and Alan Puffenbach and joined that team. And Volkswagen had already kind of created this relationship with music. There was obviously Pink Moon with Nick Drake, which was... You know, I'll be one of the greatest ads of all time. It was Mr. Roboto that had been done and Mr. Blue Sky. All these kind of amazing ads that have been done for Volkswagen and the drivers want a campaign that lent into music In 2005 we were tasked with launching the Vida Jetta The campaign that we landed on was all grown up sort of was the line and the idea with the Jetta
It's kind of a car for you know young people kind of starting out in their careers And the line was all grown up sort of meaning like you had one foot in the adult world and had all these Responsibilities of being an adult but you're kind of stuck in the middle because you still were kind of young and wanted to you know have fun and and maybe not take on all the responsibilities of life, right? And one of our creatives, to again, had his finger on the pulse, had brought this band to the table that they were fairly obscure at the time, was this little band called Kings of Leon, and they were playing, you know, playing little gigs in, you know, college towns, and they really were not on the on the on the radar at all. And so this creator said, hey, this is band, they're pretty cool.
They're playing the little gigs and we should look into this track. So there's this track, Molly's Chamber, which we put to, we put to the piece and it was fantastic. Anyway, so. When it was finished, Kings of Leon, we did the deal with Kings of Leon, we put Molly's chamber on the launch of the jetter and it exploded. It was an amazing piece of work. Anyway, so we put this little obscure band on the jetter launch. The campaign was hugely successful, did wonders for the brand, did wonders for the band.
And they obviously went on shortly after the campaign. They had this huge success and Molly's chambers went on to be a massive hit. And it was interesting after the campaign launched, maybe a year or so after, they actually attributed part of the success of the song and the band to the Volkswagen jetter campaign, which was super cool coming from the band themselves. It was this interesting moment for me personally, because I suddenly realized the power of music and advertising. And when you get it right, it can do big things. And I've talked about this a lot over the years. At the time, there was this interesting thing where I realized if you keep the integrity of the music intact, meaning at the time bands and labels were apprehensive. to put their music into adverts, because it was seen at the time as like, you know, one of your sellouts and it's commercial versus art, right?
And so it was a little bit of convincing that had to happen to get bands to really put their music on commercials. And the one thing that I've personally always kept in mind is to keep the integrity of the music intact, meaning if you're going to put a great track, whether it's a big known song or a song that needs to be heard, you need to put on the right piece of creation. To take an amazing track and put on a shitty piece of creative, there's nothing for the music.
In fact, it can hurt the music, right? Or the trajectory of the song. So I've always tried to find music that really kind of complements what we're trying to do, but also messaging-wise is in sync with where we're going, right?
So just that's always something I've kept in mind throughout the years, is you don't want to do it at the expense of the music or the artist, and it can't just be a money play. It just goes both ways, right?
It'll be bad for the artist or it'll be bad for the brand and the agency, right? If you put an amazing track with bad creative, you know, it can backfire on everyone. So, but the fact that we're still talking about that campaign right now, so many years later, is amazing. And then that's, you know, brands have the biggest opportunity to be like amazing record labels if you think about it. They have amazing opportunities to collaborate with an artist in ways that no one else can't, right? So those partnerships are, you know, amazing. And the fact that we're still talking about it to this date is proof of the story. for it. It needs to be mutually beneficial. You know, obviously, there's plenty of examples of bands that have just obviously made a ton of money and slapped their music on the wrong piece creative. And, you know, then it just becomes like a payday, right? And I'm not sure that's right for us as creative, just at large. Like, you really want to try and keep the integrity of the creative intact. So yeah, that was a good example of someone in the agency being bold enough to say, hey, like, there's this independent artist. this up and coming artists, I think they're amazing. Instead of going with a composer, like let's just take this risk and just being bold and taking that risk, right? That just definitely panned out. But you've also had campaigns where you went after a little bit more prominent artists, right? So like it's interesting, like the five you've done a little bit of both and when done right, both can be super effective. The other campaign that I wanted to ask you about, like Kia, the Hamster campaign, because I felt that that also was a was interesting to choice the music and the timing of the choice of music as well. Yeah, I mean, the Kia Hamsters is a really interesting case study.
That was when you were at David and Goliath, right? Yeah, so we launched the Hamsters 2009. And at the time, the Scion XB really had a monopoly on that kind of boxy car market. I don't know if you remember the Scion XB, but it was a kind of boxy.
I used to call that a like a matchbox growing up. Oh, that's a matchbox. Matchbox, the toast day, you know, people had all these. Yeah. But they had a very, they had a very clear kind of tone and POV was like gritty and grainy and tattoos and underground and that whole thing. So we purposed and, you know, and I think the clients at the time thought we would. we should chase them, meaning let's do underground and grunge and tattoos and all that stuff.
We just didn't have the budgets to do that, or the credibility to go after them in that way. So we purposefully went the other way and introduced the Hamptas, which were honestly the opposite. They were cute and cuddly and vibrant and optimistic and colorful and all these things. It was a 10-year campaign of music and it became this very close relationship with the labels and we really did explore all sorts of different genres and approaches to using music and advertising.
So quickly, the first year when we launched it, when we set up the idea of like, hey, we're all hamsters kind of metaphorically, we're hamsters on the road, going through the daily grind, the motions, and then these cool hamsters pull up in their little brightly colored car, the window goes down, they pop their heads out, kind of look at the rest of us just in the daily grind, in the routine, and then they zip off in their cool little car with the music pumping, right? And the first one, we kind of did an experiment with music purposefully, and it was really amazing the outcome, so we finished it with four different music tracks. purposefully. So there was this other, this small Scottish DJ that no one had heard of really at the time called Calvin Harris, who I'm sure everyone's heard of at this point. So we got a Calvin Harris track for next to nothing. We had Goldfish, which is a South African DJ duo, amazing. We had the pop bellies and then an artist called Mars. And we actually finished it with four different tracks. And when the window came down on the little car, you could hear a different song, right? So we purposely put all four ads into rotation on mainstream media. So when you saw the ad, you saw one maybe with Calvin Harris, the next person saw it with Goldfish, somebody else saw it with Mars or pop bellies. And then we created this kind of debate and this mass confusion online, because you'd be talking to your buddies, hey, do you see that new weird soul here, so I had with Calvin Harris, and I mean, it's not Calvin Harris, you really get this Goldfish. And someone's like, it's not Goldfish, it's pop bellies. So we kind of created this debate and confusion on purpose. No, no better way to drive engagement by creating confusion, right? Totally. Yeah, I know. So that was the beginning. And then for the next 10 years, I said, we just went on this amazing journey with this. And each idea had its own concept, right? Each installment, should I say, had its own concept. The next year we did this or that, the choice is yours by the black sheep. So we went kind of like in a nostalgic with the second one and kind of lent into old school rap. And the beauty of that song is that it's actually it's got a positive message. It's clean. The lyrics are clean. So that worked for us.
And then we went, you know, we did an LMFAO with Party Rock Anthem that was just big and you know, it's one of the 20 most viewed commercials of all time, you know, in an ad week, buddy. I just think it's also the timing, right? That was so good. Because like when you... when you use that, like, it's just the perfect, like when you get the artist at the right time, the right campaign, Wallace, right, how it just pans out, talk about timing. Yeah, well, so when you talk about timing with LMFAO and Party Rock Anthem, so, you know, I have this really, I had this longstanding relationship with Daniel Sinner and Steve Berman at Interscope Records. And, you know, pop in there and listen to unreleased music, chat about trends, chat about what's happening in the industry. And I happened to be at Interscope and, you know, like, hey, we've got this new track. So I listened to Party Rock Anthem that hadn't really, hadn't been released yet. Wasn't on mainstream radio. And I was like, holy shit, this thing's gonna be huge. So we actually got the licensing rights to Party Rock before it became what Party Rock became. So again, it's your point of timing. We were way ahead of kind of the curve on that one. Got the music at a decent price, put it on. And then we actually got the song on the upswing, you know, like I think in marketing, oftentimes, to your point, brands aren't brave enough. to commit early, they usually kind of commit once it's hit peak, right? And then it's almost on its way down. This, we definitely got it on the upswing and got just a shitload of exposure on the back of it. You need to be bold, you need to take risks, right? So I guess, how do you convince clients to take risks with music, right? Because a lot of times, like, clients have a different mindset sometimes. And going through that process, sometimes getting an early artist that is not the most well-known artist, right? I think it's, the power of music is well-known now. And so it's about getting people out of some of the habits of, oh, let me go with an original composition and do... what's easy or with a stock track. You know, a lot of times, depending on how the situation is, like it can be a little bit hard, right? To navigate those waters where you're trying to convince clients to take risks, something that has never been done before. You know, so I'm curious like your experience, like I'm sure you've been a part of a lot of pitches or situations where you're trying to get the artists to do certain things that they would never expect.
You know, I think there's a lot of different ways to answer that this, I feel like there's a bunch of things to consider as an artist, right? So I've had situations where, for example, we were all lined up to do a track with Willie Nelson and the Chainsmokers.
And, you know, it's more of a conservative brand. Willie Nelson's, you know, habits. And then that combined with the Chainsmokers, just their name was enough for the clients to kill that idea just straight off the bat, right?
It was just dead. So that kind of thing, and then, you know, the personality, the lyrics, the point of view of the brand, I mean, you know, depending on how big the client is, how big the opportunity is, these types of things, like, what are they social following? What have they said in the past? Like, you know, what are they support? What is the name? Like all these things kind of play into it, right? So I think especially talking about bigger personalities and bigger artists or bands.
All of that stuff is taken into account And then obviously if you've got startups or smaller brands that don't that are kind of less Reciphered and want to kind of take risks. It doesn't matter as much right. So it's really just kind of a depending on who it is and what the opportunity is and yeah, but I think it I mean your career is a good example of Not choosing to go like the easy route because the easy route About Super Bowls a lot of times like oh, let me go to Super Bowl
Everyone is gonna watch it. So let's tap into an artist that everyone has heard that everyone knows who they are and You just borrow some of their equity and that's like comes off as a little lazy and that we've seen that so many times
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But I think your career and like the work that you've done is a good example of someone that has said, you know what, like, this is what works for the campaign. And this is an artist that is up and
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coming. Let's work together. Let's make something powerful. And I think that's like a good example of, you know, for other agencies, for other brands, right, that the opportunity, you know, to be a quote unquote like a record label is there. And it's a win-win for everyone.
When you talk about the power of music, you know, one, and if you are going to use bigger artists, you know, we did one in a storm one of the hamsters with Lady Gaga. And again, we listened to new material from her that was again, unreleased. And there was a track called applause. It aligned perfectly with where we were heading with the hamsters. So again, like, not to be lazy, we found we got the track early. It fit perfectly with the messaging of where we were heading. And then we put a ton of time and effort into the actual launch in the media.
So for that one, the first time, so Kia had a sponsorship deal with the MTV Music Awards. And we lined it up perfectly. So the first time anyone ever heard Lady Gaga sing applause was live at the MTV Music Awards.
So she sang this song, finished, we went to commercial break, and the first commercial that came on was the hamsters with the track. So it was perfectly leaning to the music, synced up, and then the hamsters, they action in that one, they get skinny, and they all in the black tie suit thing, and they head off, this little thing. But that was very purposeful, and it made a ton of sense, and it just made the idea stronger and tighter. And again, you've got to put the effort into your homework, try and find interesting ways to keep the integrity of the music, and make it work hard for both the artists and the brat. There you go. No better way to say it. You've worked a lot with brands, but you've also worked directly with artists, right? You know, so I think it's you know, like you've had quite a journey with with John Baptiste, right?
You know, and I think you know the collaboration with him World Music Radio. I think that's just amazing And so we're good to hear from you how that came about That collaboration So we have well mutual friends so Ryan Lynn who's actually John's creative partner producing partner
We've been friends for a long time and so we all kind of met up at capital records years ago headed off, chatted late into the night, and it just remained close friends for years. And we always talked about collaborating on an album together.
And so for World Music Radio, which was John's last album, we got ahead of it. I think one of the things we talked about was the creative process is a little broken when it comes to music, just in my opinion.
And again, this is something I've talked to the labels about for a long time, but it feels like, ultimately, the artists are brands, right themselves. And they can be marketed and protected, and you kind of need to kind of really... fine-tune the voice, the point of view, and obviously can evolve over time. But that needs to be typed. It needs to be protected. And one of my observations is it always just felt a little fragmented.
Someone's just done a music video, and shit, we need merchandise for the tour. Find someone, just make the gear, and it's like a movie poster, tour poster. Somebody makes some posters. I've got a guy, a guy, a designer.
It just felt a little bit like that over the years. And I'm just generalizing, right? But it felt a little bit like that. So in talking to John... And Ryan, I was like, look, if we can get ahead of it, and we've worked with other artists over the years, but I was like, look, if you can invite us into the creative process, your creative process earlier, the music, the making of the music, which is ultimately the anchor for an album, invite us in early.
Let us be part of the process, the journey from day one, and we'll surround you with amazing designers and writers and directors and strategists, and we can kind of create a very cohesive, integrated look, feel, point of view for the album.
So that's what we did, man. We spent a year and a half working with John in hotel rooms, in recording studios, and everything, helping just kind of create the overarching point of view for the album.
So World Music Radio came out of really talking to John, hit the time he was frustrated. with even the way he was being seen. It's like this, he's like the jazz guy because you know, he comes from a very prominent jazz family,
New Orleans, but he's like, yes, I'm a jazz musician, but I'm just a musician. I can do anything like I wanna prove to the world that I can make pop music and rap music and classical music and don't put me in a box.
He felt very pigeonholed. And that conversation led to us talking about being pigeonholed and marginalized. And we started to talk about the term world music as a definition of music. I mean, you ask people, what is world music?
It just doesn't sound for what it really is, right? And you know, there's so many genres and rhythms and sounds and... you know influences from where those come from and so the term world music it just like putting it in a box.
That's exactly it, right? So we were like it's exactly it's marginalizing. I think when you at face value It's like oh world music. It's inclusive of the world. I'm like no, it's not inclusive of the world. It's literally a term that's created for sounds that aren't from the US or a couple of you know countries in Europe And then the rest of us South Africa South America Asia and whatever you just kind of lumped into this like World music I'm like no, no, it's just pop music from Africa. It's just like a it's like a lazy term It's like oh, this is not pop rock or hip-hop. So let's just call it world music Yeah, exactly so so that became kind of the theme of the album and then we created you know with John the music certainly became super eclectic because of that So if you listen to that album, there's literally every genre and there's these amazing collabs with artists from you know South America and from Europe and Africa and Asia and there's different genres Little Wayne's on there. There's a like a rap track fireboy from Nigeria's on there I mean, it's all these different sounds and it's pop and it's rap and it's classical and it's, it's big bang, you know theatrical. It's got everything in there And purposefully so right so then when we created the look and feel for everything. We did the same thing It's kind of pulling from different cultures flags fabrics from around the world and we gave it a very honest Look and feel there's a lot of stuff that was shot music videos on You know 8 mil 16 mil film 35 mil stills Hand tick type collages. We just kind of gave it this very real organic honest feel that was in line with the music and then that is throughout if you go and look at that campaign Purposefully super cohesive. We wrote real headlines and real body copy and like a language is a real point of view on there you know stereotypes with types crossed out, all the different genres listed on posters and the social and then all scratched up and just world music left. We really kind of try to create this very cohesive campaign with a point of view, with the look, and then John blew that out across everything. So whenever every touch point felt the same, it felt like a strong point of view versus fragmented.
It's a great album, but it's like for me, it's, you know, when we were talking about it, it's the fact that you know pigeon-holding to to something that You know like bossa noa is is bossa noa. It's not world music you know you look you look at you know kumbia from Colombia. It's it's kumbia. It's not World music like all like it's more like in a way like it can be Insulting you know to some degree to all the history and culture that comes from it, right? Like a lot of people think of world music as sometimes like just elevator music too. So it just the term doesn't do it justice. Artists can do so many good things. Artists are uniquely positioned to like break through culture in a lot of ways. So like it's it's great that you worked with John on that album. He actually has a new album that's he just released the first single. Well, it's like a teaser piece, but he's got a new album called Beethoven Blues, which was inspired by I don't know if he saw his interview, the CNN interview where he played for Lee. It's amazing. He's taken that and it's blown out as an album, which I actually haven't heard the full album. I'm super excited to. to hear it's on pre-order right now. But that's him zigging, right?
So I feel like you go here and I'm like, I'm making pop music and I'm making rap music with little Wayne and I'm doing these kind of cool collabs. And just when you think I'm off here and this is a, because it was an experimental album, you know, and then now I'm back making classical music with a jazz soul funk thing, but it's awesome that he can do that, you know, just keep kind of evolving. I mean, it's discovery, right? You have to take risks and do things that other people are not willing to do. I mean, right now it's, you know, with AI, it's just music production has become a little bit stale. And nowadays the way music is being made with all these loops and all these samples and all these sounds that you can get from different places online, it's just like, it just goes against to something like John is done, right? Like he's actually a music connoisseur and he'll go in and take deep and... just try to do something real, right? I like to say like, don't panic, it's organic, right? Like I think a lot of times like whenever there's tech, people wanna jump in and use whatever tech is available. But just the fact of, I think for me, it'll always be underrated when you can get, you know, real people playing real instruments. I think that's where you get a lot of that magic. Like when you bring people together, that's powerful.
Now I'm with you, maybe I feel like the AI thing will and is already affecting some of what we do, right? And we're seeing more of this kind of lo-fi content created, right? Whether it's UGC or lo-fi for social directly.
And I think that stuff, we've kind of struggled, like how do you do that and still create that emotional connection with people, right? And some of it's a little more transactional. Some we've found ways to create a motion through some of that sort of form content. You know, I want to, I give this a great example of it. And I think we've seen more sense, but when the ocean spray, Fleetwood Mac, being on came up with that, you know, the dude dog face on the skateboard and. Like, that was so raw in terms of the visual approach, right? Just him holding a phone and you could feel just the pure joy of just cruising the vibe, right? You could feel that. And then that coupled with the Fleetwood Mac track kind of just created this amazing little moment. And that's a good example of it doesn't all have to be high production super crafted.
But it was just, I'm like, okay, so you're seeing this raw approach to filmmaking. There's tons of it out there. And I think sometimes the budgets aren't there and clients don't want to spend money on the music and then we're going to lean into AI for a lot of that. It's snackable content and maybe doesn't need a real track. You know, we can use AI for those types of things. But then to your point, I feel like there's also the other side of it where we're going to want more human connection. Like we want real honest human moments and AI can never give you that, right? So while there'll be a place for it in what we do in certain instances, there's also going to be a time where it's like as people we're going to want. to feel real honest human connection again. And it's never gonna just be one or the other. I think at this point, like, yes, we're gonna do more and more AI, whether it's gender and AI with stills, whether it's with video, whether it's with music, whether it's with voice cloning or whatever. Obviously, 11 labs are doing a lot of that stuff already.
Like, you're gonna see more and more of it, but there's a cause and reaction to this stuff, right? I feel like the need for human connection and real human moments will actually get... become greater, like people want more of that as we move forward.
And I think everyone is a little bit tired of, oh, another podcast that people talk about AI, right? But it's just like the reason is because like no one knows what's like how far will it go? No one knows what it'll do.
For me, it's like on the on the brand side, whether it is a social campaign, whether it is a TV broadcast campaign, how big it is, the other day you want to create engagement, you want to create conversations, you want people to feel good, you want them to talk about whatever the message is that you're pushing. And the more authentic the music is. the production feels the creative feels the more you can get there and so like Because people are savvy these days people know if something sounds like a stock track or not right or like an AI track even to me I'm not that worried about it like I feel like we need to you need to be on trend You need to you need to get your head around it and you know be I think there's two.
There's two kind of schools of thought to you got people that are just intimidated by and got the head in the sand And I like you know don't want anything to do with it And then the rest of us sort of lent into it and are like heavily you know training our teams up on it and getting new beta tools from all the leaders in the space and trying to get, you know, trying to stay on train and trying to keep up with it. And it's exhausting. There's so much to do and it's intimidating, right?
But at the end of the day, if we all have access to these tools, then it becomes parity, then it's a level playing field. And then as creators, we just have to find new and interesting ways to use it.
And to me, there's no different to like processing speed on computers or memory. You know, this shit evolves, right? Or the 100 meters, if you think about it, human progress, like we all, everything moves forward. Like the 100 meter record keeps getting broke it, right? Every, every, every year or two, it is. We keep getting fostered because the benchmark just got raised. So then we have to play here.
So if now if all the tools are here, then who's going to take it to the next level? Who's going to show us how to do better, cooler things with that piece of tech? And I feel like that's what it's going to be.
It becomes another outlet, another set of tools. Yeah. And for me, it's like, how can you get something that's already authentic and then use AI to. enhance it or create an alternative version. Like for example, we were working on a campaign and we released that campaign and the brand loves so much that song, but they wanted to do a Spanish version for the Spanish market. And so we were providing like alternate tracks and they were like, shit, we really like those tracks that you're sending, but this one does feel great. And like, you know, they didn't wanna. They didn't want to go to the studio and because of time, like it was time sensitive.
They didn't want to record and do all this, like get a singer to sing in Spanish. We got an AI model to basically use the same song and then record that original vocal in Spanish. And then we got the artist to approve.
So it just provides flexibility. But when you start with an authentic piece of art, it's even better. Totally. And you've seen it. We've actually dabbled with this as well with we've got celebrity talent and they're busy and we can't get to them. And we've actually like started to play with like, you know, when you play with voice duplication and whatever, you can't really tell the difference. When you saw those early experiments with like David Guetta when he did the Eminem track, right? That that concert a year ago, whenever it was. Like you couldn't really just. Decipher if it was real or not, but at the end of the day, there's going to be so much value in human real authentic Creative moments in the future, right? And there's only a few of those things that can really exist So if you imagine to me the value of sport live sports Is gonna go up in the future because it's one of the few things that we can't mess with if we can't mess with sport if if we can keep if we can keep performance and hot drugs out of sport And you go to watch a game of basketball. I mean like the women's final the series now was amazing.
Last week, you know this week just phenomenal huge crowds huge viewership It's phenomenal and you see that happening and you go that's that's special. That's one of the kind of lost the last things we can't mess with. It's like it can't be affected by machines. It's the same with music. You know, when you look at the numbers on Taylor Swift's era tour, it's ridiculous because people love that human interaction, it's real.
And it's, you know, you're there and you experiencing it. I don't think AI can give you that. Like they can do a lot of the things you mentioned the day to day and it can replicate the staying, and da da da.
But at the end of the day, the more we do that shit, the more people are gonna value real human interaction, real human moments, you know. the more we use it, the more people will crave, you know, those natural moments.
Like no one is gonna wanna watch like basketball game with robots playing it, like it's, you know, that's not gonna happen. No one wants to see like the BJ tour version with, no, like that doesn't happen.
So I couldn't agree more with that. I couldn't agree more. You know, I have teenage kids and there's this been this wonderful resurgence of like 90s alternative music, right? I'm obviously Oasis with their tours being created like this has been crazy hype around the tour. And both my boys are vinyl record players and are buying up these crazy collections of old vinyl and wearing, you know, old 90s and 80s, rock T-shirts.
And I feel like all that stuff, they're shooting on 35 more old. you know, Canon AE-1 cameras. And in fact, all that stuff in nostalgia, I can't help thinking that's almost a reaction to the technology.
Like there's only so much of it we can deal with and we need to kind of reverting back to things that make us feel, you know, a little more analog. Yeah, for sure. Colin, this was great man. What a great conversation.
You know, thanks so much for the time. No, thank you for having me. It's always great to talk about music and, you know, hit on the future. As you said, I think the AI conversation's getting a little tired. Everyone's like, okay, no one knows where it's going, but, you know, it's good to hit on it. That's why people talk about it, because no one knows, even though they say they know, no one knows really.