Mojo Rising
Client | Kappa TV
Organisation | Aum-i Artistes
My Role | Ethnographic Research, Brand Strategy, Creative Direction, Campaign Management
How do you take a web-based TV show and turn it into
the country’s largest live music experience?
Background.
Kappa TV is a music and entertainment-based television channel in India, constantly pushing traditional TV content out of its comfort zone. After all, music and TV often go hand in hand—you might even say they have a special relationship all of their own. In 2014, Aum-i Artistes helped Kappa TV conceive and launch Music Mojo, a YouTube-exclusive show featuring studio recordings by independent artistes from all over the country. At the peak of the show’s popularity in 2016, Kappa TV returned to its agency of record, Aum-i Artistes, to explore the untapped potential of Music Mojo to better engage fans and foster camaraderie among the artistes discovered by the platform. Having established itself as a staple of indie culture both online and on TV, it was now time for Music Mojo to go out there in the open.
The business rationale was that such a framework would allow the television channel to create a different revenue stream for artistes while also enabling Kappa’s TV audience to participate online in ways never before possible. This is when we set out to create Mojo Rising: a LIVE offshoot of Music Mojo and the largest independent music festival India had ever seen until then. Our goal was to create an annual festival for Kappa TV that would bring both fans and musicians together to the place where it all started: Kochi, the homeground of all things indie in Kerala.
Discovering the brand.
Ethnographic research helped us arrive at the insight that independent music scene in Kerala is built on a mutual symbiosis between fans and musicians.
As the lead Creative Director for the project, I deconstructed the brief through this insight and pitched a bold, instantly recognisable and flexible system that speaks to the passion of the fan world, and the larger-than-live world of musicians, in equal measure. Mojo Rising needed to be able to communicate the spirit and energy of live events. So we set out to create a look that would cut through the noise of the music industry.
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Beginning with the name of the festival, two core objectives guided creative exploration: broadening the public perception of Kappa TV and breaking the event industry’s sea of sameness.
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The Mojo Rising identity was designed to stand out and turn heads, forcing a reappraisal of Kappa TV as a whole by confounding the expectations surrounding music festivals.
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The visual contrast of the pure forms, graphic shapes and crisp linework fused with a red gradient became the basis for the design system.
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Crafted for instant identifiability at all sizes, from huge billboards to mobile screens, our approach here was to scale the creatives on the duality of the artist-fan dynamic.
The resulting brand language allowed Mojo Rising to be warm (human) and dynamic (music) while providing the flexibility to be toned down or more expressive, depending on the touchpoint and context in which it appeared.
Unlocking the campaign.
The strategic unlock was to create an integrated campaign (digital, video, social) that simultaneously feels both grown-up and cool; the combination of photographic and abstract details played out as a design nod back to our core concept of performer (musician) and viewer (fan).
This duality is weaved throughout the Mojo Rising campaign lifecycle – from strategy to design to execution and measurement – to reinforce brand association and highlight the distinctiveness of Mojo Rising as a flagship independent music festival.
The spirit of Made by Many.
The ensuing Mojo Rising launch campaign was anchored by a :90 anthem film, directed in-house and featuring clips from their live Music Mojo recording sessions (also produced by our in-house team) was built for maximum impact, testability, and performance on all social channels (2X lift in engagement metrics for the Kappa Originals YouTube channel).
The visuals that compose the brand came from different sources: mobile and GoPro footage captured by on-ground technicians, fans and sometimes the artistes themselves, thus imbuing Mojo Rising with a ‘Made by Many’ spirit.
Over 11 terabytes of footage gathered over 2 days was edited down to individual videos (one video per performance track) to create the final playlist on Kappa Originals.
The line-up included Agam, a Carnatic Progressive band from Bangalore known for their inventive time signatures; When Chai Met Toast, a Kochi-based indie folk/alternative outfit with an upbeat underlined pop sound; Daira, pioneer of the 'Awadhi Rock' genre, emulating sounds from mainland Punjab; Jhanu, the folk ensemble from Chennai fusing the energy of modern rock with Tamil poetry; Thaikkudam Bridge, the multi-genre, multi-lingual internet sensation known for their high-energy live acts; Agnee, the iconic Hindi folk rock collective combining elements of jazz, funk and pop.
The Mojo of
holistic storytelling.
Original music composed by Aum-i Artistes’ homegrown band, Thaikkudam Bridge, forms an extension of the visual theme. The videos were edited to feel reactive to the gestures heard in the original score. In addition to the anthem film, each performer/band was provided with their very own :15 sizzle reel and a series of portraits to be shared across various social channels.
To create a holistic campaign, we adapted our creative for digital, OOH, print, radio, and on-premise merchandise, all pointing to a festival microsite with information and resources on artist line-ups and ticket sale. The strategic elements identified during the research and concepting phase enriched the narrative and brought to life the synergy between musicians and fans to further enhance the look and feel across multi-media formats.
All these elements came together to create something as instantly memorable as Mojo Rising (a nod to the iconic Jim Morrison phrase Mr. Mojo Risin).
Mr. Mojo Risin
The collaboration with Kappa TV for Mojo Rising provided me and my team with an opportunity to work directly with high-flying performers and fans, empowering them to tell their own stories. The digital-first campaign brought excellent results for both awareness and traffic. Over a period of three months, the online ticketing POS for the festival achieved 5.3% clickthrough rate (CTR), driving an 91% completion rate for social ads.
Keep on rising.
In hindsight, content IP’s such as ‘Music Mojo’ and ‘Mojo Rising’ were all driven by a future in which both broadcast (Kappa TV) and streaming (Kappa Originals) would become equally crucial parts of how viewers engage with television channels. By seamlessly cross-promoting flagship content across the platforms (enabling greater discovery), we were able to set the template for a new operating model for Kappa that helped viewers get used to broadcast and streaming as a unified experience.