Warner Music brand partnerships director Anna Gregorek has told Music Week Gorillaz’s recent collaboration with Chelsea FC gave the band “incredible new reach”.
Their link-up with Chelsea for the launch of the Premier League champions’ new Nike home kit has seen them reach a combined audience of 56 million via Instagram alone.
To launch the deal, the virtual band’s lead singer 2D paired up with defender David Luiz in an ad showing off the shirt in the Stamford Bridge dressing room.
“The partnership was a great opportunity and it was brilliantly executed,” said Jason Lamont, Parlophone’s VP, marketing. “Not only has it broadened awareness of Gorillaz to a global football audience, it’s also delivered another innovative and exciting creative use of the live animation tools that we developed for the campaign.”
“Nike, in this particular instance, wanted to do a virtual launch, so there was no other music collective that would have worked in this particular situation,” Gregorek said.
She added: “Nike managed the overall partnership discussions with us as the label team, Jamie [Hewlett, Gorillaz’ co-creator] led the creative for the band, AKQA was the creative agency for Nike and Passion was the creative team which worked with Jamie on the production.”
Gregorek explained that such partnerships satisfy both parties by allowing them access to each other’s audiences. She described the deal as having “introduced new worlds to each other,” and as an endeavour that was hugely positive for Gorillaz.
Read the full feature online here and in this week’s edition of Music Week.
By Zoë MacLellan
