Culture is a word thrown about often and easily, especially and freely in the contexts of media, content, brands and audiences. I am as guilty as most.
It is refreshing to see takes on real, human culture- the kind that belongs to lands and communities. I look at a a new series that looks to do just that, with the prism of dance. But dance married to geography and cinematography in bold new ways. It may not appeal to all, but it’s a real, assured take. Have a look if it’s up your alley.
I also share my thoughts spurred by a day at APOS Sports Edge, the full day Sports conclave that happened in Singapore.
There’s also boybands cooking chicken (?!), state-enabled dating, AI companies firing people for using AI, and a cool shot from the F1 Singapore coverage.
Slide into this week’s swirl of creativity, sports, content and hot takes.
Cheers,
Shakey
Shakey
Curated/Cuts: Maori, Kendrick, chicken tenders
Sports Edge: Notes from the APOS conference
Seamless: A cool shot in the Singapore GP coverage
➕ · state enabled dating · dismissed for AI use · are brands patrons? ·
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1. Curated/Cuts
· Maori x Kendrick ·
Born From Culture Aotearoa: Maori says it is “a tribute to the strength, pride, and identity of Māori culture”, and it sure feels strong and powerful.
There’s a short 5min documentary, but what really grabs you by the shoulders is the ‘music video’ cut to Kendrick Lamar’s N95. Watch that first, and you might well want to watch anything else they made with it.
The use of a commercial track like this one for a video showcasing a region’s culture and dance is a bold choice, and one bound to bring opinions. The Kendrick track, in my humble opinion, works brilliantly here, its rawness and the attitude of hip hop both adding and drawing upon the great visuals. In other examples by the same creators, say when Bohemian Rhapsody is used for a Bolivia video, the flow and the cut feel less intuitive. But, as every director-editor knows from countless client meetings, “ music is subjective”.
So what is this? ‘Born From Culture’ is a new series launched by one James Fenwick and his creative team at Level Six, exploring cultures via choreography and community. There’s not much to say about who they are (yet), but the work is starting to speak for itself-the series has also done Georgia, Bolivia, Samoa and Armenia, always using “dance as our way in”. But it is more than that- dance is married to geography and cinematography in bold, provocative, assured new ways. It’s all very new, very cool, very real, and very watchable.
(Also, I can see how these are likely being forwarded in Tourism Authority teams everywhere. If not, they should be. The Maori one has some collaboration with Tourism New Zealand , though I don’t think any of the previous ones do). Check out their case study here.
I’d love to know if you enjoyed this, and if you think it connects in a way that does justice to the peoples its made with?
· Boybanding ·
KFC in Australia christened their “bespoke” process ‘boybanding’. That’s right, the “gentle oohing, ohwoahing and aahing of a boyband” is really how they make their chicken tenders, tender. Say hello to their ‘More Tender Than Ever’ campaign with a fictitious boy band.
Special Australia · Julian Schreiber · CDs Gabe Woodmansey & Jono Aidney · Director Leilani Croucher
2. Sports Edge
Do you feel the need to be in touch with your favourite game all the time? EVen in the off season? Is there too much or too little of your sport or team in your life?
One of the recurring themes at APOS Sports Edge in Singapore, just ahead of the F1 race, was how to engage a fan across 365 days. This is, in a real sense, something I find meaningfully different from a decade and more ago. Borne of the belief that an “always-on” consumer must be serviced with an always-on sport, this is essentially a by-product of the attention economy, as is so much we do.
It is different from the POV of a federation and a broadcaster, but in all camps, the ebb & flow of seasons, and event/calendar driven fandom seems to just… not be enough. And we see this- palpably- as sports fans of any kind. We are now exposed to (and asked to give attention to) multiple sports and events through the year. (Even if spotting a Roland Garros social media post talking about the US Open is not quite intuitive).
In its second year, Media Partners Asia’s APOS Sports Edge was a packed one day conference that was, as one punter delightfully put it, quite the “endurance race” for delegates. In a good way, because there was a lot covered and a lot to engage with.
Freebies
The ampd research touched on a few fan behaviours, revealing that in every market surveyed, the majority of fans got their sports fix for free (sports fix, not necessarily Live sports- I think this is a notable nuance).
Relatedly, the Indian Super League (top tier football) announced all 163 matches will stream live and free on YouTube. Sony has the TV rights, but it’s very clear “the league just wants to be seen.” The likely meaty numbers from Youtube could provide the commercial impetus the beleaguered league needs.
Another recurring theme was around how a sport does not ‘belong’ to a federation or broadcaster. Sure, that’s a truism, but the thrust here was that it now belongs to many stakeholders, with creators and superfans rising in prominence. Making the economics work will need efforts across all those parts of the ecosystem. This spread of ownership was probably best articulated by Barney Francis towards the evening, but the theme had been alive all day.
It’s not a new idea of course, purists will heartily agree that a sport belongs to its fans not to its commercial interests. But the lens here was very much commercial. To eat from the buffet of attention, fandom, interest and revenue, you must come hungry, ready to pay and play across many counters, and prepared to sit at the table for a long time. No platters served up with a bow. “Monetisation challenges are not being discussed at all,” said Uday Shankar.
You could argue it never was- and indeed many mutterings highlighted the fact that that rights fees have hit some sort of a ceiling, especially in Asia, and the economics need to start working- better and differently. “Rights growth has to be earned”, MPA warns.
A Good Sport
I was struck also by the fact that questions about the sports themselves were not touched on as much as you might think. Discussions on the commerce of a sport seemed to outweigh the quality of any specific sport. For some sports, maybe this comes from the confidence that the quality of the game is in a good place. Or maybe it comes from the reality that the economics are challenging, and they demand more attention. Of course, the two are and always have been inextricably linked, but the attention given on the day says something.
Lastly, AI came up, but only gently. This surprised some, and I will not be surprised if we see more show & tell in the next edition. We glimpsed live language dubbing of commentary from Guy Piekarz’s Panjaya, its the kind of thing that will have all sorts of impact on the space, (and opinions!). An aside- having a panel with two guys named Guy, and both guys named both Guy P, was both entertaining and challenging!
The biggest tussles remain the same as I have seen in the business over the years. Persistent, self-perpetuating, simple and evergreen, if you will.
One- the push & pull between what’s good for the game and its fans, and what is deemed commercially viable. The venn diagram for the two is smaller than many like to believe.
Two- the tussle between the rights holders and those who acquire the rights continues to sit at the heart of so many conversations. And also at the heart of both the good and the challenging aspects for the world of sports and sports media.
There was plenty else covered on the day, but these were the narratives it spurred most in me.
3. F1 seamless shot
There was a cool replay shot somewhere in the F1 SIngapore GP broadcast this Sunday. I rarely watch these races live, but I was watching this one and my brain paused to notice ‘something’, i.e. a seemingly impossible, seamless shot. The kind which would usually be a camera ‘hand off’ in some one creative shoot.
Apparently this uses some generative AI to fill or bridge the two shots, and if so, it’s pretty cool, and has worked pretty well here. You can immediately think of many ways this could work across various sports. But I haven’t found a definitive explanation of this (and it isn’t the first time either I think), but if looking is your thing, you could do worse than this reddit thread :)
FutureSport Joe liked it but also noted the distortion on the helmet/ logos, and wondered, “I am frankly surprised this went to air. RedBull owns the team and this is they prize emblem getting melted.”
I don’t think in other environments and contexts (commercials, drama) it could quite replace the beauty of ‘oners’. As for the distortions, I am often a stickler but surprisingly find myself ok with this I think because it was too quick and too little be meaningfully noticed (social media nothwithstanding); and probably worth the ‘live’ experiment?
➕Quick Hits
Should Brands Be Patrons of Art and Culture? A good piece in Vogue, though I found adding Substack sponsorships and Nothing’s dabbles in music to a ‘patronage’ context a bit of a stretch.
”People Training OpenAI’s AI Fired for Using AI to Train the AI”. 404 Media reported how contractors were fired for using AI to help them do their work, by a company telling the whole world to use AI to help them do their work. Ah, the irony.
Singapore decided to launch a govt dating app. That’s right, an app for public servants to to find other single public officers interested in hooking up, er, sorry- contributing to nation building. :) This is as good a take as any.
zx
“I don’t know if there is a pot of gold at the end of it all, for streaming.”
_Kevin Mayer, speaking at APOS Sports Edge