SYMPHONIES AND BRAND VOICES
Leah Marikkar discusses the emerging trends in the entertainment industry
Compiled by Azraa Killru – 30 Dec, 2021.

Q: What are the latest trends in creative communications?
A: In my view, it’s not about trends. Globally, only brave brands and agencies completely reinvented themselves to stay relevant once they realised it was the only way to connect with audiences.

Being truly in touch with your market and audiences is what saved so many.

The concept of experiences, discovery, events, interactions and moments all froze; and instead, people had to create connections that still resonated albeit from a distance.

Some great campaigns recognised the situation they were in and opted for personal outreach using advocates with real people.

While I despise fast food, one notable brand that adapted exceptionally well was KFC. Its agency – Mother London – recognised a critical truth that affected what KFC stood for: How could they use their slogan ‘finger lickin’ good’ as their mandate during a pandemic?

They took a leap and suspended it, pixelated on posters and food buckets, saying instead: “That thing we always say? Ignore it. For now.” That was brave.

Q: Could you outline how the entertainment industry has changed in the last 18 months?
A: Sri Lanka barely has a legit music industry – that requires key players to genuinely be in the game for shared reasons. It needs a real venue circuit, record labels and artiste management to distribution, all of which are still embryonic here.

The only positive is that there are more artistes out there than you realise – and they’ve been working hard being their own promoters and labels. Following the height of the pandemic, many have looked inward because they’ve been forced to stay at home and work on their craft.

In the past, artistes found it very challenging to make money from their music, thanks to the challenges caused by the digital ecosystem.

So over the past decade, live experiences became the key opportunity to make money because digital couldn’t replace them. The feeling of standing in the middle of a festival audience listening to your favourite band seemed impossible to replicate… until we were forced to over the past year or so.

We were thrust into the world of live streaming and many artistes struggled to create a connection. What’s interesting is the famous K-Pop band BTS, which was way ahead of the game.

In 2018, they were already testing live streaming experiences with subscription fees.

They got the best production teams, created theatre style shows and filmed gigs live to audiences charging up to US$ 30 a subscription, which changed the game as they were ready when things changed. This is what it means to be in music now – you have to be inventive.

Q: What are the challenges facing our entertainment industry?
A: Sri Lanka has massive untapped potential when it comes to artistes. Only those who are brave and embrace their deeper cultural identity tend to succeed.

There’s been no reward for original music – we’re all guilty of making them focus on covers. We’ve fostered a culture of artistes believing their own creations aren’t good enough. This has to change.

Radio stations have held back critical music curation and they rarely encourage local artistes to be original – we’re still stuck in the ’80s and ’90s.

But as a result, people now explore music entirely on their own through live streaming, recommendations and live events. This is where things start to evolve.

The other issue is there’s no trajectory for artistes to grow from an open mic night of 30 people to a stadium of 5,000.

We need to develop a culture of creative exploration for artistes and audiences. Right now, Sri Lanka doesn’t have a system in place to provide that.

Q: How can organisations leverage the power of non-traditional marketing campaigns?
A: Authenticity is crucial for marketing campaigns. Non-traditional marketing campaigns are powerful because they’re more integrated with new touchpoint driving fresh connections.

We need to be solution neutral when approaching a brief, instead of thinking traditional combinations of TV, print and radio campaigns. Brands need to speak in a credible voice to reach people they wouldn’t normally be able to reach. This demands brevity.

Agencies are keen to build brand love, which is quite a challenge because love is synonymous with trust – and to create that trust takes time, energy, money and indeed, a belief in what you have to say or offer.

The non-traditional accepts that it may not be about love; instead, it drives more opportunities to be seen and heard to offer people experiences without expecting anything in return.

Growing up, Leah Bazalgette, found herself “hungry for good music.” As an adult, the experience of being one in the surging crowd watching a band perform live, of seeing other “fans screaming in unison as an act they loved, sang a song they loved,” became something precious and incredible. She would go backstage, becoming a part of the industry that created these moments. Working with big names like Harvey Goldsmith, Leah produced VIP after-parties for Latitude Festival for Grace Jones, Reading and Leeds Festivals for Festival Republic and was part of the team that designed the campaign and organized the MTV Europe Music Awards, 2008.

Having a ball: Leah and Tasha at Glastonbury Festival (above) and (below) in animated conversation about the Peacock festival that kicks off on December 16

Most notably she also was a part of the Glastonbury Festival for three years running. There she worked with Greenpeace Field, helping one year to design and build a replica of the Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior Ship.

The ship, which travels around the world campaigning against everything from seal and whale hunting to nuclear testing, is something of an icon. “People could donate by buying parts of the ship and they would get their name on it,” Leah explains.

Leah loved Glasto and she had the advantage of being in the company of people who were perfectly at home. Her father-in-law had been a part of the festival in the early years – designing the solar heated showers – and her husband had attended the festival several times.

Today, she and her sister Tasha Marikkar seem to be in the process of bringing a heavily downscaled version of Glasto to Sri Lanka. The Electric Peacock Festival is about great music, but it’s also a lovely blend of art, street food, and theatricality. But like every other great festival, it’s the fans that decide just how awesome it’s going to be.

The theme is ‘Mad Max meets Tron!’ Tasha tells me. Where Leah has a manager’s instinct and can “sell anyone anything,” Tasha allows herself to get creative, dreaming up ways to improve the festival experience. From the art installations and graffiti to the silent disco and the performers in costume scattered through the crowd, Tasha can see it all. Like Leah, Tasha too has a passion for orchestrating great music experiences. Working with Parisian promoters, she created a cross country band exchanges, taking new music from London to Paris and vice versa.

Working at the 02 Arena she helped run events as varied as NBA games, Ultimate Fighting Championship games and Gorillaz after parties (where she managed to sneak Leah in.) She’s also been trained in security, operational logistics and crowd capacity management and has handled events with celebrity guests that have included Stella McCartney, The Clash and Ellie Goulding.

When we meet them on a weekday afternoon, the two sisters are practically radiating energy. (“We could power the entire city with the energy that comes out of us!”) It’s something they’ll need plenty of in the days leading up to the festival. They hit the ground running this year with the success of their debut festival having given them the street rep they need to draw in both sponsors and crowds, but one of the great challenges remains actually communicating their vision. Of course, there’s also the matter of luring some of the big names down to headline the festival.

Excitingly, this year it will be an appearance by the British duo Basement Jaxx as well as the chart topping British electro act Chicane, and BBC Radio 1’s DJ Nihal. For the latter, who won the ‘Best Radio Show’ at the UK Asian Music Awards for his programme on Radio 1, this is something a homecoming, says Leah. Local DJs Asvajit and Tim will also be featured that night. Leah explains that they’ve taken great care to see that they’re supporting their artists with high end infrastructure and sound, and that the production values of the festival meet international standards.

Though the crowd is likely to be modest compared to what the stars are used to playing to, the girls are hoping to double their numbers from last year. It’s why they’ve dropped ticket prices substantially. “We are doing this for the country, for the people and for ourselves too obviously because we want to see big acts play here all the time. And we want people to feel the benefits of it,” says Leah.

The festival kicks off on Friday, December 16 at the historic Galle Buck Lighthouse in Colombo but this year it will overflow onto Saturday’s Colombo Night Races with the Festival directing the music and the entertainment at a series of after parties following the main event. “We’re taking it to a whole new level,” says Leah, anticipating a long-lasting collaboration with the CNR. It’s a big deal and the two sisters know exactly what they’re gunning for: “we want to create an atmosphere of euphoria.”

Published in the Sunday Times, Sri Lanka on 4 December 2011. Words by Smriti Daniel. Pix by Indika Handuwela