For the 61st Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy wanted to drive excitement, engagement and viewership by creating a never-been-done-before experience for the fans and artists who make up today’s music community.

The world of musical discovery has evolved -- artists are discovered on YouTube, fans connect with their favorites on social, and the relationship between fans and artists is closer than ever. The Grammys wanted to create a new music video experience with an artist that exemplifies this ever-evolving music community.

The budget for the entire project was under $250,000. The bulk was used for producing the four versions, essentially four music videos in a one-day shoot. The remainder supported a combination of Instagram stories, and Instagram and Facebook posts targeting Ella Mai fans and fans of similar artists, to maximize paid spend and engage music lovers.

The beauty of music is that it’s constantly changing and evolving. But in the last 30 years the music video has largely stayed the same. It moved from TV to YouTube but you still watch it once... and you're done. So to promote the 61stGRAMMYs awards we wanted to create the world’s first evolving music video. A music video that would change the more fans watched it. Making them want to keep coming back to watch it more and more. We partnered with 2019 GRAMMY nominee Ella Mai to create new versions of her hit song “Boo’d Up” that were only unlocked the more the video was viewed, shared and liked. Each evolution gave fans something new to see, hear and talk about. And what started as a simple, black and white a cappella video evolved into colorful extravaganza filled with dancers a marching band and more.

To create the evolving music video we needed to map out a way to shoot and edit four different videos that would appear to layer upon each other. So the first time you watched, you saw a simple b&w a capella version, but the next time, it would suddenly turn to color at one point and there would be a piano player where there wasn’t one previously. The last version ended with an entire marching band joining.

We had to shoot it all in one day in one location. We also created four new versions of the song and had to choreograph not only Ella Mai’s walk but dancers, a piano player, the marching band and more.

We created a simple microsite to house the event for four days leading up to the GRAMMYs. And evolved the video four times based on a combination of views, shares and likes.

To drum up excitement for the big day, the Evolving Music Video was released the week of the GRAMMYS. New versions of the video released almost daily as the view count increased, with stylistic changes fueling fan engagement and amplifying anticipation for the show.

The videos played on YouTube for optimal discovery, and were hosted on a GRAMMYS microsite as well to show off the aggregated views. In total, the videos accumulated over 84,000 views and 161 million media impressions. Ella Mai fans commented on the pleasure of seeing and hearing new versions of the song, and couldn’t wait to see what was next.

It met the requirements of the brief by driving engagement, celebrating and rewarding the music community and exemplifying the GRAMMYs innovative approach to music distribution and consumption.