| Title | FEATURING ALEXA |
| Brand | TOO MANY T'S |
| Product/Service | TOO MANY T'S |
| Category |
D02. Interactive Video |
|
Entrant
|
SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
|
|
Idea Creation
|
SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
|
|
Idea Creation 2
|
TOO MANY T'S London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Production
|
ROBIN KAROW Munich, GERMANY
|
Credits
| Alexander Schill |
SERVICEPLAN GROUP |
Global Chief Creative Officer |
| Lorenz Langgartner |
SERVICEPLAN GROUP |
Creative Innovation Director |
| Franz Roeppischer |
SERVICEPLAN GROUP |
Creative Innovation Director |
| Saurabh Kakade |
SERVICEPLAN GROUP |
Art Director |
| Pedro Gropo |
SERVICEPLAN GROUP |
Art Director |
| Standaloft |
Too Many T's |
Artist / MC |
| Leon Rhymes |
Too Many T's |
Artist / MC |
| Savage Henry |
independent / TMT's DJ & collaborator |
Artist / DJ / Producer |
| Henan Wensink |
Henan X |
Music Supervisor |
| Robin Karow |
Robin Karow |
Director |
| Christoph Werner |
Robin Karow |
DOP |
| Marie Kobylka |
Robin Karow |
Editor |
Background
Too Many T’s are an independent, DIY Hip Hop crew from South London, known for their lyrical skills, and creative music videos as well as live performances. Locally recognized, they wanted to make the next step towards a bigger – global, and especially US – audience in 2018. Self-signed, without the big promotional and industry connections of a major label, they have to rely on their creativity.
Describe the strategy
A common way of promoting an upcoming artists to a bigger audience is by “featuring”: inviting an already famous guest artist on a track, usually from the same label. TMT’s don’t have these connections, still they managed to get a feature from one of the most famous voices worldwide:
Alexa by Amazon, #1 AI voice assistant, present in more than 100 million homes around the globe.
Featuring Alexa is the world’s first song in collaboration with the voice of an AI.
Interacting with Alexa via the lyrics allowed TMT’s to demonstrate their songwriting skills and deliver live performances with any Alexa in people’s homes all around the world.
All ingredients of the idea were chosen to maximize media attention:
From the tech hype around voice assistants to referencing the controversial auto-tune effect and its most prominent user Kanye West. The video was shot in one take to prove the authenticity.
Describe the execution
After researching and testing thousands of Alexa interactions, we found the auto-tune command on which the song is based. The story of the song starts with a prologue where TMT’s come up with the idea of copying Kanye West’s recipe for success – auto-tune – to get famous themselves. As naturally, they cant sing in auto-tune, they jokingly ask Alexa if she can, to which she replies with a version of Kanye West’s famous “Heartless” auto-tune chorus. The song starts, and TMT’s fantasize about their now guaranteed fame, interacting with Alexa who raps, sings and drums. She calculates how much plays they need to make a million dollars from streaming revenue, then plays TMT’s album title track in the end on viewers stereos, generating actual streaming revenue.
List the results
More than 83m contacts, generating $25m in free media.
More than 12m combined views on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
More than 1.6m live concerts in 37 countries – meaning: plays together with Alexa, which we know from streaming statistics.
127% more plays, 35% more followers on Amazon Music.