2022 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

The music industry has a mental health problem—over 70% of musicians have experienced anxiety and panic attacks, and suicide attempts among music industry workers are a staggering two times higher than that of the general population. Over the Bridge, a non-profit that helps music industry professionals overcome mental health struggles, wanted to raise awareness around this issue and increase inquiries for their peer support services by 30%. To do so, they knew they had to look beyond music industry workers and reach music fans themselves. Because, as fans, we’re a part of the problem, having romanticized the idea of “tortured artists”—like the 27 Club: a group of legendary musicians, all lost to mental health struggles like anxiety, depression and addiction, at just 27 years old. This begged the question: if these musicians had gotten help, and continued to make music, what could they have created?

To find out, they used artificial intelligence to create new songs by members of the 27 Club. The ‘Lost Tapes of the 27 Club’ is the first time that artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to create new music from late artists, and showcases what legends like Hendrix, Winehouse, Morrison, and Cobain could have created, had they gotten the mental health support they needed. Using Magenta, an AI platform developed by Google, they trained a computer to analyze the audio data from four members of the 27 Club—Hendrix, Winehouse, Morrison, and Cobain—to identify specific patterns in their riffs, rhythms, vocals, and melodies. From there, their artificial intelligence platform was able to generate all new riffs, rhythms, vocals, and melodies in these musician’s styles, which they used to produce four entirely original songs.

They launched the album on 25/03/2021 on Spotify, Youtube Music, and a campaign micro-site containing information on Over The Bridge and the music industry’s mental health crisis. Then, they reached out to all the top music publications and, on the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, their story was picked up by music’s most iconic publication: Rolling Stone. Their campaign soon became the second-highest trending article on the Rolling Stone website, and helped them reach over 2 million streams in just one week, with listeners from over 160 countries worldwide.

Suddenly, music’s mental health crisis was being discussed by media across the world. Over 400 publications in 54 countries talked about the campaign across radio, TV and online articles, leading to over 1.7 billion impressions. Meanwhile, the campaign micro-site received over 127,000 unique visitors from over 164 countries, with an average view-time of 14 minutes. Even the world’s most listened to podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, discussed the album, after blind-reacting to the songs live, on-air. With a total investment of under $10,000, Lost Tapes of the 27 Club ultimately garnered over $37,000,000 in earned media. But the best part? Over the Bridge saw an 830% increase in musicians reaching out for support, ensuring that their music lives on — because even AI will never replace the real thing.

Credits

Agency: Rethink
Client: Over The Bridge
CCO: Aaron Starkman
ECD: Leia Rogers, Morgan Tierney
Creative Director: Sean O’Connor, Hans Thiessen
ACD: Jake Hope
Art Director: Jake Hope
Designer: Alex Bakker
Writer: Sean O’Connor
Editor: Leigh O Neill, Thomas McKeen, Ignacio Florez
Director of Amplification: Aliz Tennant
Director of Strategy: Darren Yada
Chief Strategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Tech Developer: Ken Malley, Steve Lam
Broadcast Producer: Terri Winters, David Fraser Winsby
Production Company: Wave Productions
Music Engineer: Dave Gaudet
Account Services: Devin Bonin, Elsie Blackman