The digital marketing company behind the campaigns for Mac Miller, SZA and 21 Savage is getting into content distribution with its partnership with Sony.
Digital consumption is on the rise: people are engaging with digital media 30% more since the start of the pandemic. Sony’s distribution channel, The Orchard, takes advantage of this new reality by announcing today that it will partner with digital artist services agency Integral Studio to help identify, develop, refine and incubate global acts. .
Since launching five years ago, Integral Studio has responded to the need for design innovation in the music industry. The team of creative technologists have designed direct-to-fan solutions that empower artists to engage, analyze, and monetize audiences intelligently. Integral’s internal advertising and analytics software, known internally as “Symphony,” powers and adapts its artist campaigns by helping creators take marketing action in addition to providing information. Symphony allows Integral a & r and its team to focus on the development of artists and their creativity. Described as a CRM for creators, Symphony streamlines the digital fan development process.
“The present and future of music is about audience data and understanding how to harness it for optimal results. The Symphony dashboard is like a pilot’s cockpit or command center for anything on the web about a specific artist or brand. It’s one thing to have eagle eye level monitoring, but the next step is to be able to act on the data in the same workflow, that’s what Symphony is, ”says Chuka Chase, co-founder and CEO of Integral Studio.
Integral will work alongside Sony and The Orchard to develop talent traditionally overlooked outside of the United States. The team says the way they combine technology and creativity is their “secret sauce”. With this new partnership, Integral will integrate its tools and resources for artists on their own intellectual property. “In music, the point of sale is now almost entirely digital; harnessing data and information is essential to dictate an appropriate fan acquisition strategy, ”says Chase.
Many of the artists Integral Studio has worked with are part of the Sony family, including Travis Scott, SZA, 21 Savage, and Future. “This is a natural progression for the company, as we continue to grow with our existing clients and sign new ones in the years to come, ”said Vlad Samedi, Vice President of Integral Studio.
Integral says the main benefit of its toolset is that it allows artists to approach growing their fan base the way small businesses grow their client base. The Symphony app simplifies marketing tasks like social audits, running paid social or influencer campaigns, and setting up merch drops.
Whether it’s augmented reality app experiences alongside Big Sean or being among the first agencies to implement the “Merch Bundling” tactic, whereby albums and merchandise are sold together in Aiming to increase sales, Integral is known to stay ahead of trends and strategies to push content across genres. Over the past year, Integral Studio has added new generation artists to their roster such as Nigerian rap superstar PrettyboyD-O and Indo-American singer-songwriter Aaryan Shah. This partnership with Sony will allow Integral to enter markets on a global scale.
Chase expects Integral Studio to continue to merge music and technology and advance the ecosystem between record labels and independent digital players.
“This partnership is a major milestone in our mission to make the world smaller and more accessible through culture and technology,” said Chase.