The Recording Academy And MasterCard Are Bringing Grammy Week Into Roblox

Six many years after the Grammy Awards appeared on the scene as black-tie occasions that includes legends like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, music’s greatest night time is shaking issues up as soon as once more, this time by getting into the metaverse.

For the primary time, Grammy Week—which begins at this time and options various preview occasions forward of the awards on April 3—is going on on Roblox, a gaming platform that lets individuals discover digital worlds constructed by people and corporations. By internet hosting the occasions, the Recording Academy hopes to achieve a youthful viewers and experiment with methods to have interaction with followers. Digital meet-and-greets on Roblox will function rock band Glass Animals, nation singer-songwriter Walker Hayes, actress-musician Sofia Carson and the pop-metal star Poppy. Different occasions will embrace a digital efficiency by Grammy-nominated Latin artist Camilo, video games, digital merchandise and a red-carpet space the place customers can put on digital clothes and take selfies in a digital picture sales space.

Panos A. Panay, co-president of the Recording Academy, says the know-how doesn’t simply change how music is skilled on-line, but additionally “alters the very nature of musical expression.” That’s why, he says, the Academy was all for partnering with Roblox. By increasing the methods the Recording Academy engages with followers, he hopes it would discover new audiences. In any other case, “you’ll be leaving a complete lot of individuals behind, and we don’t wish to do this.”

“This can be a actually thrilling time to be within the music business,” Panay tells Forbes. “Twenty years in the past we have been staring on the abyss. Having come out of that form of Demise Valley and seeing the expansion and seeing how the business is catalyzing and benefiting from these new applied sciences…There’s a possibility for the Academy to play a fair larger position when it comes to not simply assembly these audiences the place they’re, however being the lead advocate for creators on this altering setting.”

In relation to the metaverse, the music business has been an early adopter—and with success. Simply final week, 10 million individuals attended a live performance with the rapper 24KGoldn inside Roblox that had 10 million visits. In 2020, rapper Travis Scott’s live performance inside Fortnite attracted 12 million individuals to tune in. Final fall, Decentraland hosted a four-day “Metaverse Pageant” that includes DJs Deadmau5 and Paris Hilton. Earlier this yr, Warner Music Group introduced a brand new digital live performance corridor inside the crypto-enabled digital platform The Sandbox.

Digital worlds would possibly nonetheless appear area of interest, however some have already got an enormous viewers that ranges from youthful customers to core demographics of younger adults. Based in 2004, Roblox has lately seen extra speedy adoption extra lately, with 40% year-over-year progress in 2021. Final month, CEO David Baszucki mentioned the corporate had 55 million each day lively customers. (That’s about how massive Twitter’s person base was in 2010 or the scale of Snapchat in 2014.) By way of month-to-month lively customers, some estimates have Roblox reaching greater than 200 million.

There’s a possibility for the Academy to play a fair larger position when it comes to not simply assembly these audiences the place they’re, however being the lead advocate for creators on this altering setting.”

Though Roblox and the Grammys have been collaborating for six months, MasterCard, a longtime sponsor of the Grammys, made the choice to underwrite the expertise only a few weeks in the past. It marks the primary main activation for the monetary providers firm inside a digital setting and is certainly one of a number of current checks throughout rising platforms. MasterCard—which has beforehand labored with varied artists to recording songs—says its Roblox presence may also embrace “sonic branding” as a part of a technique to include sound and music into its advertising and marketing.

Whereas the Web3 period continues to be in its infancy, MasterCard chief advertising and marketing And communications officer Raja Rajamannar says advertising and marketing in digital worlds will quickly go from being “a shiny new penny” to simply in a couple of years seeing a “vital bounce.” The adoption timeline is accelerated partly by the excessive quantities of funding and curiosity within the house on a number of fronts.

“That is a type of game-changing moments the place each facet of Web3 we must always truly discover the chances for advertising and marketing,” Rajamannar says. “Each when it comes to advertising and marketing in these areas, advertising and marketing elements of these explicit areas in addition to advertising and marketing real-world issues in these areas. . . . There are such a lot of straight strains that may be drawn from the actual world to the metaverse.”

The Grammys might be Roblox’s first main occasion for individuals to attempt its layered clothes function, which permits customers to put on extra sensible gadgets on their avatars. Jon Vlassopulos, Roblox’s vice chairman and world head of music, says the music occasions additionally assist with onboarding new demographics that haven’t already been on the platform. He added that concert events and branded experiences have additionally gone from being ephemeral occasions to extra everlasting experiences that evolve over time and can additional assist musicians interact with followers and in addition be found by labels.

“Music with digital service suppliers is much less social by design,” Vlassopulos says. “Stay music is superexciting. It’s very visceral. You go along with your pals, you go to concert events, gigs, festivals. We’ve already been drafting off of that notion of stay and attempting to carry stay to digital.”

Regardless of all of the hype, some specialists counsel there’s nonetheless a niche between how firms and customers take into consideration the metaverse. A survey of 150 business-to-consumer entrepreneurs performed by Forrester earlier this yr discovered that 76% plan to take a position part of their advertising and marketing funds towards “metaverse-related actions” actions in 2022. Nevertheless, a separate Forrester survey performed in December discovered that simply 34% of U.S. customers and 28% of British customers who have been conversant in the metaverse have been enthusiastic about it.

“There’s an actual craving amongst customers to take advantage of out of their bodily lives as a substitute of changing into buried in a digital life,” says Forrester advertising and marketing analyst and analysis director Mike Proulx.

Identical to the early days of the web and e-commerce, Proulx—who coauthored Forrester’s new report in regards to the metaverse—says it’s essential for manufacturers to organize for nascent applied sciences whereas additionally tempering expectations.

Past digital worlds, the Recording Academy and MasterCard have each additionally begun experimenting with one other a part of the Web3 zeitgeist: NFTs. Earlier this month, the Recording Academy launched its first assortment on OneOf—an NFT platform backed by file producer Quincy Jones—with digital works by varied artists to rejoice the sixty fourth, sixty fifth and 66th Grammy Awards. In January, MasterCard introduced a partnership with the cryptocurrency alternate Coinbase to let individuals use their bank cards to purchase NFTs. And in February, MasterCard expanded its consulting providers to incorporate crypto and NFTs.

“Sixty years in the past, community tv wasn’t the platform that it’s at this time,” Panay says. “Forty years in the past, cable TV wasn’t that approach. Thirty years in the past the web wasn’t what it’s at this time. . . . I’ve little question that increasingly more of the incomes of the individuals we characterize might be depending on these platforms.”