Lead: Always-on my mind: Artists have long accepted – sometimes reluctantly – that their role includes intimate direct-to-fan digital connectivity, usually via Social Media. Grinding out content on multiple platforms,...
Lead: Indie-Visible – Marketing indie rock bands on streaming platforms can be tricky for a number of reasons: their traditionally album-based release cycle goes counter to the current approach of endless singles; their...
Sandbox Issue 268: YouTube Premiere Playbook
February 1, 2021
Lead: YouTube Premiere Playbook – Youtube offers dizzying depth of content (500 hours of video uploaded each minute) and breadth of fan access (over half of music fans regularly watch music videos on the platform). It...
Sandbox Issue 267 :: The Optimism Issue. 2021
January 14, 2021
Lead: 2021 – The Optimism Issue: Let’s not dwell any longer than necessary on the seemingly never-ending year of challenges that was 2020. In this issue we look forward with optimism and find many reasons to be cheerful...
Sandbox Issue 266: 2020’s BEST MUSIC MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
December 10, 2020
It’s here: Sandbox’s shortlist of the best, most original, and most impactful music marketing campaigns of 2020 – a celebration of this year’s most remarkably innovative and creative work. There were a record-breaking...
Sandbox Issue 265: Distributors’ New Playlist Game-Plan
November 25, 2020
Lead: Distributors’ New Playlist Game-Plan: Distributors, keen to place songs onto powerful playlists, are becoming much more proactive in their approach – whether that means building standalone playlist brands with...
Lead: Lo-fi hip hop is no longer simply a crackly, jazzy sub-genre – it’s a huge business, with millions subscribing to multi-platform playlists and albums of atmospheric songs to relax, study, chill and sleep to....
Lead: Experiential brand activations in a non-live world – Creating effective brand activations has never been easy – but there was one basic starting point: find an event with lots of people, and connect with them....
Sandbox Issue 262: Key Lessons from Sandbox Summit Global
October 26, 2020
Lead: Sandbox Summit Global – Over five days at the end of September, we held our Sandbox Summit Global conference. For this Sandbox report, we’re digging into what we learned from the event and how it relates...
Sandbox Issue 261: The return of the fanclub? Crowdfunding in 2020
September 30, 2020
Lead: Crowdfunding in 2020 – Crowdfunding is not a new idea – but following the nosedive of recorded music sales in the early noughts, crowdfunding became a tantalising concept: fanbases could be leveraged into...
Sandbox Issue 260: Twitch for Artists
September 16, 2020
Lead: Twitch for artists – Artists were drifting towards livestreaming platform Twitch before COVID-19 hit, and Twitch has been making overtures to musicians for a while. But since live performance was halted, interest...
Sandbox Issue 259: Six Months On, What Next?
September 2, 2020
Lead: The effect of COVID-19, six months on. This Sandbox issue hosts the launch of a new Music Ally monthly feature: our Global Experts Panel. We’ve assembled a panel of industry leaders from around the world, from many...
