2020 Winner
2020 Winners
Regent Park School of Music
Parkscapes
The Regent Park School of Music (RPSM) is a community music school in Toronto, Canada that gives over one thousand young people age 3-18 a quality music education in high-priority neighbuorhoods in Toronto. These are typically kids who would otherwise not have access to instruments or lessons.
With arts and music funding being slashed by 50%, the school needed a way to become less reliant on the government for funding. It needed to find a way to sustain themselves.
GOALS
BBDO's first objective was to ensure that whatever idea it came up with actually generated tangible funds so that the Regent Park School of Music could continue changing children’s lives through music.
The second objective was to raise awareness for Regent Park School of Music and their students. If the agency could bring attention to the school and the great work it was doing, it might prompt more people to give.
STRATEGY
The strategy was to create an album of original tracks with students from the school. But instead of the general public, the agency targeted musicians. Every time a musician samples a song from our album, royalties and residuals are paid to the school for the life of the song.
EXECUTION
BBDO partnered with Grammy winning producer Frank Dukes to compose the 11-track album called “Parkscapes”. RPSM students played all the instruments on the album, which would be available online via Dukes’ Kingsway Music Library site – a popular hub for musicians looking for samples to use in their music.
The agency launched the album from Frank Dukes’ Instagram account (77K followers), posting videos and audio samples promoting Parkscapes. Artists and Influencers like Shawn Mendes, Metro Boomin and Boi 1-Da loved the idea, and shared the school's posts organically to the tune of over 62 million followers.
RESULTS
When the team finally got news that the music had been sampled, they couldn’t have predicted that it would be by the biggest pop star on earth.
Taylor Swift had used one of the student compositions “Summer in the South” as the basis of her song “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” from her new album, “Lover”.
Numerous domestic and international publications picked up the story. Over 130 pieces of earned media reaching almost 3.49 billion viewers – all unpaid.
Taylor’s album was streamed over 226 million times in its first week alone. It became the biggest selling album of 2019, and the only album in that year to sell one million “pure” copies. Dream Works even licensed “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” for the movie “Abominable”, resulting in even more royalties for Regent Park School of Music and the students.
The kids who directly benefit from the program are now helping to sustain it. And with every new stream, download and license come new royalties that will generate even more funding.
RPSM is turning “Parkscapes” into a continued method for future funding, partnering with new songwriters, composing new sample libraries played by their students and releasing them through Frank Dukes’ Kingsway Music Library.
By targeting musicians instead of the general public, not only did the agency successfully raise funds and awareness, it created a sustainable donation model that would continue to give back to the school forever.