Creative Collaboration

Sometimes, your project just isn't possible, or won't have the kind of spice you need for maximum outreach, just working within one industry. So sometimes you need the help of other industries. Enter the creative collaboration. Today, I'm going to introduce you to three examples of these clashes of titans, what each industry provided in the relationship, and what the outcome was. Enjoy.

Fortnite Marshmello Concert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBsCzN-jfvA

Oh boy. Diving straight into the one I want to talk about the least. Fortnite has been an absolute smash success. What started as humble little battle royale slice of what was meant to be a much bigger and different game, Fortnite exploded in popularity overnight, taking the world by storm. As much as I hate it and everything it stands for, I can't deny the huge success that Epic's take on PUBG has become. In early 2019, Epic Games sought to leverage this success by hosting a virtual concert for EDM artist Marshmello, in order to show other industries that Fortnite could be a vehicle for marketing and events.

The music industry, via Marshmello, produced and supplied the music, with Marshmello himself actively DJing the show and being animated in game via motion capture in real-time. The games industry via Epic Games provided the platform, animations, models and textures, as well as the technical know-how to enable the show to concurrently reach millions of viewers across the world. The result? 10 million viewers, the biggest live music gig in history. Marshmello's weekly views on YouTube increased by 100 million. 50,00 mentions on Twitter on the day alone. Epic's experiment paid off in a major way, and Pandora's box was officially opened.

Terminator Character Pack for Gears 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8CO4J-m9X4

With the release of both Terminator Dark Fate and Gears 5 coinciding in the same year, the stars aligned for some serious cross-promotion. Paramount Pictures of course needed to market their upcoming robot-shooting movie, and Microsoft was hungry for share-prices again. So they worked together to include Terminator characters as playable characters in Gears 5's multiplayer mode. Since both franchises love some shooty-shooty-violence, it seemed like a match made in heaven.

 

The games industry provided the platform and all of the digital assets to appear in game. The film industry provided the character designs and voice talent for the characters. While not as notable a success as the Fortnite concert, this even certainly got more than a few gamers into the cinema, and seeing Terminators running around in Gears 5 absolutely generated exposure and discourse about the upcoming movie, particularly as Microsoft added Gears 5 to its monthly subscription service on release, widening the potential audience significantly.

 Alkaline Music Video by Sleep Token

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU5vVT_Cp7c

Not all media collaborations are produced by huge corporations with limitless marketing budgets. Take Sleep Token, UK sad-metal band/musical cult. While not a household name, Sleep Token have been generating a bit of a buzz in the metal community due to their unique musical style, anonymity and presentation as a Lovecraftian cult that just happens to know how to lay down meaty guitar riffs. This year, Sleep Token released a music video for their new single Alkaline. And what a music video it is, sitting somewhere between post-9/11 thriller and short horror movie.

 

The music industry provided the music via Sleep Token (attributed to the enigmatic Vessel and Vessel II), as well as featuring Vessel as an actor in the video. The film industry provided the direction, cameras, actors, costumes and VFX work. The result is a video that has achieved the same number of views in three weeks as some other songs on Sleep Token's YouTube channel have achieved in a year. As the video was only uploaded three weeks ago, time will tell just how successful it will be, promising stuff indeed. Worship.

So, I hope this has proved educational. Cross-industry collaboration allow seemingly disparate industries to unite to create something truly special, and any aspiring marketing people should try and keep this in mind. You never know, you might just end up creating the next Fortnite.