FRUKT Communications er et af de førende engelske kommunikationsbureauer indenfor det område, man kan kalde "bands & brands". For Jack Horner og Dom Hodge - hvis arbejdsmotivation springer ud af en lidenskab for musikken - handler det om at skabe så gode match og partnerskaber mellem artister og virksomheder, at der er tale om "value exchange". Udvælgelsen af de rigtige artister til et givet brand sker på baggrund af en analyse af brand, band, behov, karakteristika, udviklingspotentiale mv., men også - og måske især - ud fra "what feels right", som de forklarede.

Ligesom analysen Musik som Brandingplatform konkluderede i Danmark sidste år, er det ifølge FRUKT Communications 91% af alle forbrugere, der accepterer eller synes godt om, at brands kan involvere sig og investere i musik, underholdning og kultur.

Efter et oplæg, hvor vi fik forklaret "the FRUKT way of thinking" sluttede Dom Hodge af med at give os nogle pejlinger på de trends, han ser fortsætte eller opstå på området de kommende år. Disse var bl.a. at managere vil få større betydning, da de vil kunne stå for den omfattende clearing af musikken ift. rettigheder og afgifter, så at den investerende virksomhed ikke skal sætte sig ind i alle dele af musikbranchen for at kunne engagere sig med en artist. Det blev også forudset, at markedet for "branded product lines" vil udvides, så det ikke bare er parfume o.lign. der har tilkoblet en bestemt artist. Boxsæt vil fortsat være attraktive, idet de kan udvides i det uendelige og tækkes de såkaldet "superfans". Sidst men ikke mindst vil det forudsat gælde, at forbrugeres behov for kontrol øges. Forbrugeren vil i stigende grad kræve interaktivitet, mulighed for at dele og synlighed ift. den skabende proces.

Brand New Mentality var et velbesøgt arrangement, hvortil både folk fra musikbranchen, reklamebranchen og filmbranchen havde fundet vej.

Se billederne fra arrangementet her!

Arrangementet blev til i samarbejde med British Council Denmark og GAFFA.

Jacob Urup Nielsen fra British Council Denmark har opsummeret den efterfølgende Young Creative Entrepreneur-diskussion, som fandt sted i Promus' lokaler ovenpå spillestedet Atlas:

Group 1
How could Aarhus use music to brand itself – and also how the city already uses music to brand itself and why it doesn’t seem to work. Several participants in this groups are active musicians and mentioned that it is relatively easy to get financial support for project in Aarhus but that the grants are relatively small which means that projects cannot be very ambitious. There is more mileage in doing projects in Copenhagen where the music scene is bigger.
It can be relatively difficult to get going with music projects within the city of Aarhus because you meet the “bureaucratic wall” when trying to obtain the right permissions from the city council. Also in Aarhus there seems to be a lack of appetite to continue working on the projects when the going gets tough, you can find this type of will to fight against all odds in places like western Jutland. It would be good if there was a bigger will in the city council to support more bottom-up projects rather than imposing top-down projects as the bottom-up projects already have an inherent support from the initiators.

Group 2
How can we launch all the good ideas about collaboration between companies and people in the creative industries at a local level? One suggestion was to start with smaller initiatives and thereby ensuring that people become aware of the potential of using music and the creative industries more generally as a marketing tool.

Group 3
In Denmark we have not really succeeded in combining bands and brands to date. The initiatives that have been launched in Denmark have been a little clumsy; but there is no doubt that this will be the way ahead for many musicians and brands – also in Denmark.
Honing in on Aarhus, we agreed that Aarhus should be better at positioning itself as the city with a proud musical tradition. There is a big network of up and coming artists and the city is home to two producers who produce more hit song for the Danish radio channel P3 than anyone else. We need to brand the city as the place with talent – a return to the music city of the 1980s when many Danish bands came from Aarhus.
There was also some discussion around the challenges of being a second city which also gives the opportunity to be unconventional and take chances in terms of branding. Finally there was a discussion about how there will often be growth after a recession, eg. New Orleans in the 1930s, and we discussed that it might be worth analysing this phenomenon closer.
Few people, if any, felt that art sold out by allying itself with brands.

Dom Hodge from Frukt rounded off the feedback session by talking about being bold and brave as a second city, because as a second city you can take bigger risks and afford to make failures that capital cities cannot afford to make.