The Challenge
Since its inception in 1996, the MOBO Awards has truly become one of Europe’s biggest Music Award ceremonies.
Perhaps the most important and influential event for music makers and fans as it has single-handedly changed the perception of urban music. By bringing more diverse music it to the masses MOBO has spearheaded a shift in uniting culture and connecting people through music, but it was looking for a new brand proposition.
In 2015, MOBO approached Glow to help launch an exciting new initiative aimed to spread the impact of the MOBO brand outside of music and across the creative industries. With the ongoing issues with diversity in the arts industry, the idea was to motivate the future generations by elevating up and coming talent and celebrating the accomplishments of existing talent.
Within six fairly crazy months, we devised, launched, delivered and promoted the MOBO Movement brand proposition under the marketing banner of #RiseWithUs; a multi-channel, cross industry initiative that created a massive shift within the creative industry during one jam-packed month of activity.
The Work
We developed a clear brand proposition for the MOBO Movement which meant as broad a range of partners could get involved.
These had 3 strands to them; events, apprenticeships and ambassadors. Working with the MOBO awards broadcast partner ITV, we also devised a multi channel marketing campaign to both drive audiences to the awards and further embed the message of the Movement and the new brand proposition.
MOBO ‘RiseWithUs’ Season
We developed a completely unique month-long calendar of unmissable events across theatre, art, film and fashion, all under the banner of the RiseWithUS Season. These included:
- Plays featuring diverse writers, directors or cast from the Royal Court to The National theatre
- An entire stream of curated films within the London Film Festival highlighting diverse writers, directors and cast
- Bespoke exhibitions at The British Library and the Tate Modern
- Ground breaking initiatives with the London School of Fashion and Warehouse to promote up and coming fashion talent and create opportunities for mentoring and developing new designers
Apprenticeships
In order to help address the lack of diverse talent across the marketing industry, we created the MOBO RiseWithUs Fellowships and worked with creative, media and digital agencies across London to provide 27 paid apprenticeships at, ITV, Warehouse, The London Theatre Consortium, Lida, OMD UK, PRS for Music, The Tate, Saatchi & Saatchi, London College of Fashion, Arena Media and AMV BBDO.
#RiseWithUs campaign
To promote the season we worked with AMV BBDO to develop a beautiful campaign inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”, which brought the brand proposition to life. We developed a compelling OOH campaign was designed to drive traffic to the Season events and an award-winning film shot by Obama’s personal portrait photographer, Nadav Kander. This featured diverse talent from across the arts including actors Colin Salmon, Danny Sapani and Martina Laird and grime artists Stormzy and Skepta.
The Impact
“The work we did with Glow on developing #RiseWithUs was game changing. We managed build a clear proposition that worked across the marketing, fashion, film, drama and art worlds. Emma and the team brought a huge amount of strategic thinking, energy, drive and those all important connections that made the entire project thrive”.
Kanya King, Founder MOBO
A month long season of events attended by over 350,000 people in London
Marketing reach of over 5 million and PR value of £850k.
Aw shucks…
Don’t just listen to us:
``We worked with Glow on defining both the Ladbrokes and Coral brands. The process was seamless, brilliantly executed, created unbelievable alignment internally & externally and has been like rocket fuel for our brands. Emma made what was incredibly hard work really fun and inclusive. Glow is now a regular and crucial part of our team.``
``We chose Glow as our agency over a huge global network agency and never looked back. They are just great to work with; they wrap themselves around us, challenge on all the right stuff in the right way and always deliver brilliantly``
``Emma and the Glow team have completely transformed our business. It started as a rebrand but they have done so much more. They got right under the skin of our business and helped us revamp not just our branding but team culture and our entire approach to the market!``
``Before I met the team at Glow I was convinced that if people wanted to buy stuff they would do so by going up the high street and visiting a shop! Glow completely transformed our marketing strategy and put us on the map digitally``
``As strategic brand consultants ourselves, Emma is the only person in London who I would trust to work with us on our positioning and our individual development. She has led us on a seismic journey but made it feel simple and obvious. Six months on and we are actually now too busy. We owe her so much.``
``The work we did with Glow on developing #RiseWithUs was game changing. We managed build a clear proposition that worked across the marketing, fashion, film, drama and art worlds. Emma and the team brought a huge amount of strategic thinking, energy, drive and those all important connections that made the entire project thrive.``
