From The 1975 and Run the Jewels to Dot Blockchain and Dice, tonight’s Music Ally Digital Music Awards showcased some of the most inventive artists, startups and people in the digital world.
Our second awards were held at the Café de Paris in London, with a full house gathered to celebrate innovation in our industry.
A full list of winners is below from the awards, which had Google Play as our lead sponsor, as well as support from Vistex, Lewis Silkin, AIM, AudienceNet and ICE.
Innovation in Music & Brands
Creative studio We Make Awesome Sh won this prize with its Requiem for Arctic Ice project for Greenpeace UK. Based on a #SaveTheArctic musical protest outside Shell’s London office, WMAS extended the protest online, using web audio APIs to turn the digital actions of supporters into a dynamically-composed piece of music that lived online. Category sponsor: Lewis Silkin / Eleven
Best Music Startup (B2B)
Dot Blockchain Music won this category. The US public benefit corporation founded by PledgeMusic’s Benji Rogers is developing a new technology architecture and applications to modernise digital music files, the supply chain, rights ownership and payment processing using blockchain-based technology.
Innovation in Publishing
The winner of our publishing category was SOCAN, the Canadian PRO that has been making some bold moves recently. It has acquired technology firms MediaNet and Audiam to fuel its transformation into a full-service music rights organisation, while also launching its Royalty Guru software. Category sponsor: Vistex
Best Music App
Sony Music Sweden won this category with its Sony Music Insights product. This isn’t an app for music fans, but rather one for artists and their managers to track sales, streams, social media stats and radio airplay from their smartphones and tablets.
Best Artist Digital Marketing Campaign (Independent)
From their savvy mailing-list strategy to meowing-cat remixes, Run The Jewels have been one of the most inventive artists when it comes to engaging with fans. Mass Appeal and The Other Hand’s work for the duo won our best indie marketing campaign award. Sponsor: AIM
Innovation in Live Music
UK-based startup Dice has built a firm fanbase for its smartphone app, which offers no-booking-fee tickets for gigs, with recommendations from its editorial team encouraging fans to explore up-and-coming acts. Its slick app and excellent industry outreach bagged it our live award.
Best Music Startup (B2C)
When Ryan Leslie wanted a better way to communicate with his fans, he founded his own tech startup to do it: SuperPhone. The winner of our best b2C category is a platform for artists to talk directly to fans through SMS, with e-commerce, analytics and bots all built in. Sponsor: AudienceNet
Best Digital Marketing Campaign (Major)
Bastille’s new album Wild World focuses on how messed up the world is, but the digital marketing campaign for it was anything but. From a Facebook Messenger chatbot and Snapchat tracklist reveal to a Spotify visualisation microsite and pop-up store, Virgin EMI’s campaign engaged superfans and attracted new listeners.
Winner: Best Digital Artist
The 1975 have been winning over pop and rock fans alike, most recently with their album I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It. Yet the band’s rise has also been fuelled by their inventive digital campaigns – aided by Dirty Hit and Polydor – and willingness to engage with fans wherever they are online. Sponsor: Google Play
Outstanding Digital Achievement
Finally, hearty congratulations to Beth Appleton, who won our outstanding digital achievement award in recognition of her work within the industry. Currently SVP of global marketing at Warner Music Group, Appleton was previously director of digital, UK at Universal Music Group, and before that head of digital and business development at V2 Music. Sponsor: ICE
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