News & Press

How Killer Marketing, Great Music, and the Best in the Business Launched
a Top Tourist Attraction in the City of Brotherly Love

Well, as our company President Stephen wrote in our last post – it was a great a 2015! And featured in our greatest hits was a project I got to know VERY well…

Let me take you back a bit. The year was 2014, and we were called in to pitch on a creative brief from one of the country’s top design firms. We went in cold, having very little background on the project or what exactly the project even was. After fleshing out some concepts with the project’s directors, I can still recall how the conversation wrapped up:

Me: “Gentlemen, this sounds like an exciting opportunity and a great project. I think we have a chance to sonically brand several areas at One Liberty Place with some custom pieces and augment that with interactive sound design working alongside the team you have in place. We’d love a chance to work with you on the audio, music, and sound implementation.”

Client: “That sounds great, Whitney, but I don’t think you understand. You’re our guys. We want you to handle all audio and music components; we want Stephen Arnold Music to show us how sonic branding can work in our attraction.”

Well, that was very satisfying. Obviously our world class reputation was such that EVERY creative, no matter what industry, was keenly aware of our work …

Or maybe it was something else…

Music and Sonic Branding is at the heart of Stephen Arnold Music – we wouldn’t be where we are today if beats, bars, and guitars weren’t the backbone of our company. But killer marketing has been, and always will be, our calling card. Check out this collection of our marketing hits from years gone by…

 

Before we closed our initial creative call, I had to ask our newest client – “How did you hear about us?” And no, it wasn’t CNN, ESPN, our work with over 300 TV stations, or our international clientele – They said, “We had one of your vinyl albums. Our creative director got it and loved it so much he’s had it on display in his office ever since. So when our next project that needed music came up, we knew just who to call.”

Wow! Marketing today is all about CTRs, KPIs and target demographics. But it goes to show you that an awesome marketing piece, no matter how big (vinyl won’t even fit in your mailbox), will always make an impression.

An even bigger impression was the final product for “Philly From The Top” – an observation deck on the 57th floor of One Liberty Place in Philadelphia with 360º views of the city. We were part of a team of over 2 dozen vendors supplying everything from speaker wires to elevator cables to an oversize bust of Ben Franklin (hey, it’s Philadelphia!)

It was a 12 month process that saw us send teams up to Philly and back and work with local talent to implement sound experiences on 3 floors with 6 distinct sonic experiences.

Our sound design team, headed by Paul West and Jesus Garcia, created an immersive thunder storm experience to replicate the night Ben Franklin famously flew his kite in a storm. With 4 separate sound design programs synced to LEDs and randomized cueing, the end experience was very cool!

It also involved curating over 1000 hours of music from anyone and everyone who had roots in the Philadelphia music scene – from Patty Labelle to John Coltrane to The Roots to Gamble and Huff – into 3 distinct day-part playlists playing on 3 different floors.

Another component was on the 57th floor, where patrons can sit down and relax in one of three immersive chair experiences to hear local talent and Philadelphia celebrities tell the story of Music, Sports, and Culture in Philadelphia. We produced all 3 reads with the help of Philadelphia Post, with final mix and audio support handled at our main studio here in Texas.

But the most memorable were the custom scores for the elevator ride up to — and back down from — the 57th floor. Working along side an awesome film crew and director, the music accompanies aerial drone footage of some of the iconic sights around Philadelphia. Of course we couldn’t miss the chance to track live orchestration on a project like this so we called on the Dallas Symphony and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras up to our studio in the country – the end result sounds fantastic! You can check out the “Way Down” video here:

Philly From the Top was a first for us here at Stephen Arnold Music, but we hope its not our last! What a great project to be involved with and of course, it’s only given our President Stephen Arnold an excuse to start work with Rucker + Co on our next crazy marketing piece!