Case Studies

Cover image for YouTube’s AI DreamTrack reflects a divided industry

YouTube’s AI DreamTrack reflects a divided industry

Tatiana Cirisano

19 Dec 2023

Business Strategy

In November 2023, YouTube introduced DreamTrack to YouTube Shorts. The tool allows users to create 30-second songs featuring the AI-generated vocals of nine participating artists, powered by Google DeepMind. Users can type in a prompt and then select from the list of artists, including John Legend, Charli XCX, T-Pain, and more.

Cover image for Patchwork / Fortnite

Patchwork / Fortnite

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

12 Dec 2023

Product Strategy

Fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world and provides an immersive world for users to engage with and express themselves. In 2023, Fortnite has been releasing music creation tools within the game that present a new paradigm for music-making.

Cover image for Magnifi

Magnifi

Tim Mulligan

5 Dec 2023

Audience Insight

Magnifi is one of three platforms owned and operated by Mumbai-based SaaS start up VideoVerse (previously known as Toch.ai). The company operates as a white label service provider for the entertainment industry and its core services focus on utilising machine learning algorithms and a video technology ecosystem to deliver video content in easy-to-u...

Cover image for Disney Dreamlight Valley

Disney Dreamlight Valley
Laying the foundations for interactive fan worlds

Ben Woods

23 Nov 2023

Product Strategy

To try and capture a slice of the vast popularity of Nintendo’s life simulator Animal Crossing , Disney created its own game in 2022 that allows players to inhabit a fantasy world based on its infamous IP. In Disney Dreamlight Valley , players can create an avatar based on their likeness before farming, fishing, mining, and cooking in a magical k...

Cover image for Kwebbelkop and WatchMeForever

Kwebbelkop and WatchMeForever
Novelty appeal or AI revolutionaries?

Ben Woods

6 Oct 2023

Generative AI is quickly moving from being a support act for content creation to becoming a content creator itself. AI engines can replicate a human creator’s voice, the tone of their content, and the conceptual ideas needed to sustain a YouTube video or Twitch livestream.

Cover image for Frndly TV

Frndly TV
Going the extra mile for the silver dollar

Tim Mulligan

6 Oct 2023

Established by former pay-TV executives from DISH in 2019, Frndly TV’s founding mission was to serve the needs of pay-TV customers who were paying too much for too many under-viewed channels. While traditional pay TV was aware of this issue and indeed had started reluctantly rolling out “skinny bundles” in the US market, Frndly TV went one st...

Cover image for Dance Cry Dance Break innovates subscriptions with artist storytelling

Dance Cry Dance Break innovates subscriptions with artist storytelling

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Aug 2023

Dance Cry Dance is a boutique record label that positions itself as ‘a young and growing record collective with an equitable profit-sharing model created for artists by artists’. In 2022, the label launched Dance Cry Dance Break , an ‘audio magazine’ featuring new music from independent artists alongside stories and essays inspired by their...

Cover image for Grimes leans into fan creativity with Elf.Tech

Grimes leans into fan creativity with Elf.Tech

Tatiana Cirisano

21 Aug 2023

Fandom

Grimes leans into fan creativity with Elf.Tech When artificial intelligence (AI)-generated songs mimicking the vocals of real artists began circulating the internet in spring 2023, the music industry’s immediate response was fear. Understandably so — it is difficult to discern these so-called ‘deepfakes’ from artists’ authentic releases, ...

Cover image for How Dua Lipa’s Service95 maintains her relevancy

How Dua Lipa’s Service95 maintains her relevancy

Annie Langston

14 Aug 2023

Fandom The New York Times Dua Lipa

As streaming platforms become even more saturated with both music and podcasts, fragmenting consumption, creating a hit single or superstar artist is not as simple as just dropping a new track. Artists are using every tool, including podcasts, to build engaged audiences and amplify their brands.

Cover image for Innovation feature concept

Innovation feature concept
Building a dynamic social ad experience on FAST

Tim Mulligan and Ben Woods

14 Aug 2023

Freemium advertisers Business Strategy

Building a dynamic social ad experience on FAST Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) is currently positioned as streaming free-to-air (FTA) TV. However, the early data is building a compelling case that there are two distinct use cases for the new distribution model.

Cover image for Nobody Sausage

Nobody Sausage
A masterclass in relatable content from a virtual sausage

Ashleigh Millar

24 Jul 2023

Rihanna Samsung TikTok

From its simplistic beginnings in 2020, to its now established online presence, the cartoonish (albeit with realistic hair and clothing movement) sausage, Nobody Sausage, is taking the social media world by storm. Nobody Sausage launched into stardom on TikTok during the Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequently other short-form video platforms such as Y...

Cover image for Streaming TV meets local

Streaming TV meets local
Amazon’s UK creative industries investments

Tim Mulligan

5 Jul 2023

Business Strategy

In a press release on June 21st, 2023, Amazon announced its impact on the creative landscape of the UK, a territory both similar and uniquely different from its US domestic market. The headline number was the £4.2 billion pounds ($5.1 billion) invested by Amazon into the UK creative industries since 2010, with the pace of investment doubling since...

Cover image for How Max is already closing the audience gap

How Max is already closing the audience gap

Annie Langston

1 Jun 2023

Business Strategy Audio

As consumption and consumer attention fragments across platforms, it is increasingly important that subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services maximise reach by offering related on-demand content in other formats, which can include podcasts. Many major platforms already produce companion podcasts as additional content for their most popular TV sh...

Cover image for Taylor Swift and the art of building a fanbase

Taylor Swift and the art of building a fanbase

Hanna Kahlert

1 Jun 2023

Fandom Audience Insight

Fandom is about more than just content. Audiences consider the music they listen to as reflective of who they are, comparable to the clothes they wear or the places they go. Fans consider their scenes to be communities of like-minded people where they can be themselves.

Cover image for The Kings League

The Kings League
A sporting competition for the lean-in generation

Ben Woods

1 Jun 2023

Video YouTube Twitch

After a prolonged period of the sporting calendar being dominated by the same storied competitions, new technology and a need to stoke fandom has ushered in new sports challengers. Formula E has started challenging Formula 1 with its electric racing series targeting eco-conscious viewers and sponsors.

Cover image for How Coachella put the power of UGC livestreaming on display

How Coachella put the power of UGC livestreaming on display

Tatiana Cirisano

1 Jun 2023

YouTube Music Business Strategy

YouTube’s official livestream of the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival captured the event through both a long-form, professional livestream on YouTube, and short-form video user-generated content (UGC) on YouTube Shorts. YouTube partnered with influencers to document their festival run on Shorts, taking advantage of the growing trend ...

Cover image for An AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd collab is shaking the music industry

An AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd collab is shaking the music industry

Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert and Tatiana Cirisano

2 May 2023

Music

The rapid deployment of musical “deepfakes’’ on social media illustrates just how quickly artificial intelligence (AI) is already reshaping the music industry. Deepfakes are a type of AI that can create convincing replicas of real people, whether in the image, video, or audio format.

Cover image for PlayPilot

PlayPilot
How social media behaviours can tackle the tyranny of choice

Ben Woods

2 May 2023

Video

Video on-demand services (VOD) are acutely aware of the difficulties that audiences face when choosing shows. The fragmented nature of the streaming TV industry makes discovery challenging. Shows are spread across a myriad of subscription and advertising-funded services that vary in scale and focus.

Cover image for Covers.ai and why Universal Music Group’s call to keep AI away from streaming platforms may be too little, too late

Covers.ai and why Universal Music Group’s call to keep AI away from streaming platforms may be too little, too late

Hanna Kahlert

2 May 2023

Media and Marketing

After a song featuring the voices of Drake and The Weeknd, generated by AI, went viral on TikTok and was posted across streaming platforms, Universal Music made an open appeal to streaming platforms to remove AI-generated songs, and to stop allowing the bots to train on their catalogues.

Cover image for Markiplier’s podcast breakthrough sets a new precedent for games creators

Markiplier’s podcast breakthrough sets a new precedent for games creators

Annie Langston and Kazia Rothwell

3 Apr 2023

Spotify Games Markiplier

Over the past decade, YouTube, Twitch, and other social platforms have become hotbeds for games creators. They have transformed the culture around games by creating a new level of community and connection among gamers, streamers, and the games themselves.

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