What a week. I spent it at Midem – one of the most well-known music business conferences organised every year in Cannes. Before I’m off to Sonár+D this week, I thought I’d type up a little update.
About 10 months ago, Midem‘s conference manager got in touch with me to see if we could put a panel together. We landed on the topic of chatbots and Messenger apps, because I think the trend signifies an important shift to a new generation of user interfaces (especially considering voice-activated UI, which will quickly be permeating our daily lives).
It was so great to finally be able to have all these people in the same room, and talk about what they’re doing, get their thoughts out, get them discussing with each other. And the line-up was awesome.
Panel: Messaging Apps, Bots, AI & Music: A New Frontier of Fan Engagement
A quick look at the line-up:
- Ricardo Chamberlain, Digital Marketing Manager, Sony Music Entertainment (USA)
Runs a very interesting label bot, which includes messages from artists such as Enrique Iglesias. He also worked on the CNCO campaign with Landmrk, which I’m a big fan of. - Luke Ferrar, Head of Digital, Polydor (UK)
Launched the first chatbot with Bastille. - Gustavo Goldschmidt, CEO & Co-Founder, SuperPlayer (Brazil)
Runs Brazil’s biggest streaming service which not only recommends music through a chatbot, but also builds chatbots for artists, which then drives fans to their service when they want to stream something. - Syd Lawrence, CEO & Co-Founder, The Bot Platform (UK)
Launched the Hardwell bot, which is probably the most well-known example of chatbots being used in music. - Tim Heineke, Founder, POP (Netherlands)
Used to run a cool startup named Shuffler.fm which turned blogs into radio stations and became a kind of StumbleUpon for music discovery, and also co-founded FUGA. - Nikoo Sadr, Interactive Marketing Manager, The Orchard (UK)
One of the most brilliant minds in digital marketing, in general. Previously with Music Ally.
FULL VIDEO:
WRITE UP:
Messaging, bots, and AI’s music evolution by Music Ally’s Eamon Forde
Run The Jewels’ Marketing Panel
A few weeks ago, I was asked if I could also moderated the RTJ marketing panel — which would have been a no-brainer anyway, but having a personal connection to this, made me so excited to do it that I forgot to even introduce myself during the panel.
My first real music business job was with a startup called official.fm. As a student, I listened to a lot of underground and indie hiphop, which made me a big fan of the Definitive Jux label, which put out music by Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, RJD2, and El-P (also one of the founders). The other founder was Amaechi Uzoigwe, who now manages Run The Jewels. I remember feeling a little starstruck at the time. Now, years later, it was so good to catch up with Amaechi and the inspiring success he’s created for RTJ and himself.
Also on the panel was Zena White, who’s MD of The Other Hand, and does great things for RTJ, Stones Throw, Ghostly, BadBadNotGood, DJ Shadow and more.
FULL VIDEO:
WRITE UP:
How Run The Jewels found fame & fortune: by focusing on fans by Music Ally’s Stuart Dredge