Universal Music has announced one of those strategic partnerships with WPP, the group of advertising and marketing agencies that insists on calling itself a “creative transformation company”.
Under the partnership, WPP’s brand clients will be provided with, and I quote, “cutting-edge audience engagement strategies leveraging the power of music”. Because, if you’re going to have cutting-edge audience engagement strategies, you might as well leverage the power of music while you’re at it.
That said, it’s not just music that’s being leveraged here, because these cutting edge strategies will also involve a whole load of data and technology. “Music is becoming an even more powerful cultural force and technology is rewriting how we experience it”, says WPP CTO Stephan Pretorius. Partnering with Universal, he adds, will “allow us to leverage emerging technologies and data insights to create truly innovative music-driven campaigns for our clients, shaping the future of brand engagement”.
Universal has worked with various advertising and marketing agencies over the years as it has dabbled in the only slightly sinister world of band-brand partnerships. Though for a time it was closest to Havas, which, like the major, was owned by French conglomerate Vivendi. However, Vivendi spun off Universal to be its own company in 2021 and is currently in the process of doing the same with Havas.
The new partnership with WPP will see artists and labels from across the Universal empire, as well as the major’s global data and insight teams, collaborate with the marketing group’s agencies and their brand clients on delivering all these music and tech leveraging cutting edge whatnots.
And because this is 2024 (just), Universal and WPP will also “work together to responsibly explore new ways that AI can better help brands and artists connect and create authentic cultural moments”.
Commenting on the deal from the Universal side, Chief Digital Officer Michael Nash says the partnership will benefit stakeholders of both companies, creating “significant new commercial opportunities for our artists and songwriters”, while “amplifying the unmatched power and reach of music for WPP’s clients and brands”.
So well done everyone. And well done me for not getting distracted and waffling on about how WPP began life as Wire And Plastic Products plc manufacturing shopping baskets. Though I will concede, if the outcome of all this is a whole new strand of the music industry selling fully-branded AI-generated musical shopping baskets, that will be quite the creative transformation.