The problem
This summer season, 4th Flooring Inventive was busy settling into Sony Music U.Okay.’s not too long ago relocated London headquarters in King’s Cross. Getting ready and finishing any residence or workplace transfer creates a second for reflection, as one leaves acquainted areas and routines behind to find new ones. Workplace house planning and design additionally supply insights into enterprise focuses and priorities.
Trying again, 4th Flooring Inventive was launched in 2019 with the intention of bringing collectively artistic and strategic features beneath one umbrella. Since then, the best way we market artists and assist their music attain new folks has continued to evolve quickly to require a multidisciplinary, collaborative and agile strategy.
The method of getting acquainted with our new office in one in every of London’s main tech hubs additionally serves as inspiration to look forward and picture the long run capabilities of music firms, because the media ecosystem continues to create new methods for artists to specific artistic imaginative and prescient and converse to followers.
The method
The revitalized King’s Cross space is designed with group in thoughts and is rising as a preeminent artistic and tech hub. And whereas “group” could also be a buzzword du jour, it’s a worthwhile train to interrupt down the defining traits of group and take a look at how these translate to practices within the music trade.
One space of elevated consideration is the evolution of artist fan base-building to give attention to group. Traditionally, document labels have constructed their providers to assist artists in getting information to market, constructing advertising efforts round a one-to-many mannequin corresponding to broadcast or the follower-based fashions of social media. In actual phrases, this has meant the best way to combine the cultivation of a group of followers who can join with each other throughout a variety of shared pursuits alongside audience-building.
Artists or music could also be on the middle of group, introduced collectively on platforms like Discord, Reddit or Fb Teams, or music could also be an adjoining subject to different core pursuits constructed round media, video games, NFT initiatives and the like. Sony Music U.Okay. is popping our consideration to this increasingly, as artists corresponding to Nothing However Thieves have begun to construct communities on Discord. This then prompts us to take a look at the ability units required for administration of fan communities and the best way to construct a robust advertising device package on-platform.
Moreover, we’re experimenting with creating moments constructed round artists amongst present communities, corresponding to on Roblox. Most not too long ago, we collaborared with Columbia Information U.Okay. to facilitate a metaverse live performance efficiency by U.Okay. singer-songwriter George Ezra on Roblox, set inside an immersive expertise impressed by the lyrical world of his newest U.Okay. No. 1 album, Gold Rush Child.
Trying on the workplace design, we are able to see the impression of tech and tendencies on how house is utilized and likewise get an perception into how we’re evolving to additional assist artists. For instance, as a part of our Voice Lab initiative, the workforce is within the course of of making devoted house in King’s Cross to check artist releases and voice search.
The brand new capabilities opened up by the on-site voice testing amenities are key to the workforce’s wider drive to develop finest follow for voice-first search, which is changing into a typical a part of artist and music advertising as voice navigation continues to mature as a device for music discovery. Our efforts embrace the event of social movies that present followers the best way to request their favourite artists on voice units in addition to the optimization of observe metadata primarily based on search patterns.
Moreover, 4th Flooring Inventive can be establishing a gaming room with the intent of making an informal house for artists and employees to check and play new recreation titles as a part of exploring methods artists and music may be additional built-in throughout the gaming ecosystem. It will permit us to construct on gaming initiatives like Ezra collaboration, plus others like Music for Nations’ collaboration with Blizzard Leisure, integrating their artists’ music into cell recreation Diablo Immortal.
The takeaway
Workplace planning and design performs an vital position not solely in supporting employees wants but additionally in creating purpose-led areas to facilitate studying and incubation of recent firm capabilities. The elevated focus on creating group inside an workplace by means of integration and use of social house helps create new moments for inside relationship constructing and collaboration.
An workplace transfer is an efficient immediate to reevaluate what’s wanted—and what’s not—to navigate the long run.
