53rd GRAMMY Awards promotional campaign highlights GRAMMY nominees’ music journeys

GRAMMY.com

(For a list of 53rd GRAMMY Awards nominees, click here.)

The Recording Academy and TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles unveiled MusicIsLifeIsMusic, a cutting-edge and inventive promotional campaign for the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards. The campaign features print, outdoor, digital and TV presence, an interactive microsite, and the MusicMapper app, which celebrates the songs that have significance in one’s life and the places connected to those songs. Utilizing social networking and geolocation, music fans can map out their musical journeys and share them with others. This marks the fourth consecutive year that TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles and The Recording Academy have partnered on the advertising campaign for the annual GRAMMY Awards telecast.

The MusicIsLifeIsMusic print and out-of-home creative began last week and features current GRAMMY nominees Arcade Fire, Justin Bieber, Eminem, Cee Lo Green, and Katy Perry. Earlier this month, 11-time GRAMMY winner and current 10-time nominee Eminem kicked off the first in a series of three GRAMMY promotional TV spots and the second installment, featuring Perry, just debuted. The commercials are an illustrated interpretation of each artist’s life and a journey through their musical and personal milestones. A third TV spot with another GRAMMY winner and current nominee will be released shortly.

“MusicIsLifeIsMusic tells the stories of both nominees and music fans, celebrating the songs that mean the most to us and the places where we connect with them,” said Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of The Recording Academy. “This year’s campaign really emphasizes the social and mobile music experience, and allows music fans to connect with each other in a way like never before. We are grateful to our friends at TBWA\Chiat\Day for their ongoing partnership and collaboration, and to HTC and Rdio for their support on this year’s campaign.”

Patrick O’Neill, executive creative director at TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles, said, “The best parts of our lives are connected to music, and amazing tracks help define those unique moments. The MusicMapper app brings geolocation and music together in a fresh, engaging way. It’s like your audio autobiography.”

Through the microsite and the MusicMapper application, which was developed in partnership with HTC mobilityNOW, fans worldwide are able to connect songs with places and their special memories in a way never before possible. The mobile application — available now for Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android — lets the user drop a virtual pin in a specific location using Google Maps, select a song through social music service Rdio, and tag a note describing how that song and location defined a special moment in his/her life. This can then be shared by posting to a Facebook profile or Twitter account. The application also provides a direct link to each song within Rdio, where users can add it to their collection or playlists, or sync it to their mobile phones for offline playback.

Additionally, Perry appears in a demo video showing users how the MusicMapper application works, and her musical journey on http://www.musicislifeismusic.com reveals some of the songs and artists that have had a memorable impact on her life and career, including how Queen’s “Killer Queen” changed her life; how “Karma Police” reminds her of sneaking into a Radiohead concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl; how she was inspired to write “California Gurls” after hearing Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State Of Mind” at a party; and how she has the Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds song title “(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For” engraved on the inside of her engagement ring.

Not only will users have the opportunity to map their own musical journey, they will be able to explore other MusicMapper tags through an augmented reality view that provides an innovative, real-life glimpse at how “music is life is music.” By using a mobile device camera, users can see others’ tags, Flickr photos, and Foursquare check-ins associated with a space when they enter that space. Additionally, fans have the ability to unlock exclusive GRAMMY content, based on their physical location as determined by SimpleGeo. Via a QR code reader on all print material and outdoor advertisements, users may access eight full-length GRAMMY performances from past shows, including Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama”; Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”; LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out”; M.C. Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”; Ricky Martin’s “La Copa De La Vida”; Radiohead’s “15 Step”; Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979”; and Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It.”

For more information on the 53rd GRAMMY Awards and the MusicIsLifeIsMusic campaign, visit www.musicislifeismusic.com, and download the MusicMapper app for the iPhone or Android.

The 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards will take place live on Sunday, Feb. 13 at Staples Center in Los Angeles and will be broadcast in high definition and 5.1 surround sound on the CBS Television Network from 8–11:30 p.m. (ET/PT). The show also will be supported on radio worldwide via Westwood One, and covered online at GRAMMY.com and CBS.com, and on YouTube. For GRAMMY coverage, updates and breaking news, please visit The Recording Academy’s social networks on Facebook and Twitter.