Audible
Breakthrough
The First
Audio-Only
Music
Competition
360 Campaign, Branding, Motion Design, Live-Action Shoot, Key Art, Radio Spots, Audiograms, OOH
![audible-breakthrough-hero-720×900-1](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-hero-720x900-1.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-poster-1920w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-poster-1920w.jpg)
THE CHALLENGE
Sight Unseen
The good people at Audible contacted us with an incredibly intriguing brief – helping them conceptualize a brand identity and campaign for the First-of-its-kind Audio-Only Singing-Songwriting competition featuring celebrity judges Kelly Rowland and Sara Bareilles, hosted by Daveed Diggs. The all-star cast takes five incognito, undiscovered musicians competing to rise to the spotlight through a seven-episode journey of musical mastery and self-discovery.
One of the challenges with this one was that the campaign catered to target audiences at different ends of the taste spectrum. On one hand, it’s created for a hardcore audiophile audience interested in honoring the craft and genuine musical talent away from the overly loud, shock-valuing traditional advertising for a show of this nature. On the other hand, Breakthrough represents the balance of process and entertainment, offering a great opportunity to attract an audience that enjoys a casual listening experience and the thrill of competition.
![audible-breakthrough-hero-1920w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-hero-1920w.jpg)
SXSW CONCEPT 01
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SXSW CONCEPT 02
![audible-breakthrough-grid02-1920w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-grid02-1920w.jpg)
SXSW CONCEPT 03
THE TEASER
SXSW Reveal
Before the live-action shoot, and to build anticipation and pique interest through the series’ production, we were tasked with creating a teaser for the South-by-Southwest reveal teaser with no celebrity or contestant footage to leverage. We dove right into our test kitchens and created two different solutions: a poetic, abstract journey through a deconstructed musical-creation process employing photoreal 3D rendering;
and a stock-footage-driven hype teaser in which we carefully treated the source material to convey a unified look driven by backlit contestants and recording room paraphernalia. Ultimately, we produced the latter, pairing the visuals with a raw diegetic sound-bed to help drive a craft-forward textural story – and below, you can find excerpts from our thinking process.
![audible-breakthrough-still01-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still01-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still02-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still02-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still03-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still03-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still04-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still04-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still05-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still05-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still06-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still06-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still07-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still07-860w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still08-860w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still08-860w.jpg)
On Set
When the Stars Align
Our producers valiantly navigated busy celebrity schedules and, through careful triangulation, found a date when the trifecta of Kelly Rowland, Sara Bareilles, and Daveed Diggs could land in Los Angeles simultaneously for a live-action shoot. In parallel, our creative mavericks conceptualized five different ideas – ultimately landing on a metaphor of the music creation process visually represented by a levitating array of beautifully lit, deconstructed musical instruments, music sheets, and crumpled song lyrics – depicting the highs and lows, the grind of practice and the bliss of a Breakthrough.
We created a choreography of light that enabled us to precisely and artfully keep the identities of contestant stand-ins disguised while revealing the celebrity talent seamlessly within an elegant, backlit environment. The material captured on the shoot allowed us to create a hero reveal spot and a multitude of social-first elements, such as audiograms, to tease the catchy songs performed as the show unfolds.
![audible-breakthrough-still00b-960w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still00b-960w.jpg)
![audible-breakthrough-still00a-960w](https://weareroyale.com/wp-content/uploads/case-studies/a/audible/audible-breakthrough/audible-breakthrough-still00a-960w.jpg)
THE PAYOFF
Breaking New Ground
Through the development process, the team created the brand identity for the show, which paved the way for the creation of motion design teasers, celebrity-focused live-action spots, still photography shoots, official key art, and many ancillary assets – from OOH billboard applications to radio spots – we seemingly did it all!
In the end, we created a campaign that helped build anticipation in the months preceding the final release of the groundbreaking series, driven by a brand expression that’s flexible and able to cater to and encompass wildly different target audiences, uniting them into a novel audio-only experience in which they could earwitness a unique, exhilarating competition valuing genuine singing-songwriting talent.