THE CHALLENGE

The GRAMMY Awards are considered to be the ultimate achievement in music. Yet for decades, they have struggled for credibility with real music fans.

With their ratings in decline, the GRAMMYs desperately needed to reconnect with the fans. So the campaign for the 52nd annual telecast couldn’t be the same old song and dance.

THE SOLUTION

In the digital age, music fans are more visible, more opinionated, and more powerful than ever before. Their online voice represents the true pulse of music. So we decided to put them front and center.

WE’RE ALL FANS was a way to visualize the connection between GRAMMY nominees and their fan communities. At the epicenter was a website where actual fan-generated social media was aggregated in real time to create portraits of GRAMMY nominees. Each artist’s portrait was an unfiltered snapshot of their online buzz at any given moment.

Fans could interact with the content, and even make custom portraits to use as profile pictures and to share with friends. Fan-created content was used in every element of the campaign: print, digital media, out-of-home, and even broadcast.

As fans saw themselves appear in ads for the GRAMMYs, they took to their social networks to spread the news. Soon, celebrities like Perez Hilton and Lady Gaga were tweeting about the campaign. Creating a groundswell of non-stop buzz for the GRAMMYs.

To quantify that buzz, we created the FanBuzz Visualizer. Continuously scanning the web for mentions of GRAMMY-nominated artists, it showed which nominees had the most vocal fans online.

THE RESULTS

As WE’RE ALL FANS spread, it became a top trending topic on Twitter and YouTube, with the videos receiving nearly 4.5 million views in 3 weeks.

The site received more than a million page views – with each visit lasting more than triple the average for online engagement. Kudos from sites like Digg and Mashable showed that the GRAMMYs had successfully established credibility in the digital space.

But the real proof of the campaign’s success was in the show’s ratings. 26.6 million fans tuned in. Giving the GRAMMYs a 35% increase over 2009. And their best ratings in 6 years.

By inviting the fans to become part of the GRAMMY conversation for the first time ever, the GRAMMYs were able to turn music’s biggest night into something bigger – and more relevant – than ever before.