“Without Tennessee, there would be no American Music.” - Jack White. Seven genres originated there--including Rock ‘N Roll and Country. Positioning Tennessee as the birthplace of American music wasn’t just natural, it was effective. Most travelers were hearing the music and flocking to Tennessee’s music attractions … with one exception: Millennials. The world’s most avid travelers and music fans. But why?

Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and many others made their careers in Tennessee. But they hit their peak decades ago, long before millennials were born. Millennials are crazy about music, but very few recognize the icons that pioneered American Music. 25% don’t know who Bob Dylan is. 30% have never heard an Elvis song. Without proper introduction to these legends, Tennessee’s iconic places are just…places.

Our challenge was to make Tennessee’s music legends relevant to millennials, inspiring them to visit the 500 attractions honoring those artists across the state.

To prove every modern artist was influenced by Tennessee, we created 6 Degrees to Tennessee, a Music Genealogy Engine that analyzes billions of data points in real time to show an artists’ chain of influence back to Tennessee. And we hosted it on the world’s most respected music site: Rolling Stone. The innovative API pulls metadata from three music databases, Rovi, MusicBraniz and DBPedia, along with thousands of manually identified articles and interviews. The engine filters and prioritizes based on influence, geography and the artists personal relationships, which results in 407 million potential connections points. It then pulls contextual relevance using natural language processing, so the connections are woven into a detailed story. With each search, the engine scans over 500 Tennessee music attractions and identifies the most relevant to those artists. So no matter what music you’re into, you now have a reason to visit.

In talking with millennials, it was clear they want to be genreless--to enjoy a diverse set of music. But in reality, streaming algorithms are limiting how diverse their music can be. Spotify. Pandora. Even YouTube. And algorithms have a limited memory. Streams usually stay in one genre. One decade. One artist. When asked if they listened to artists that influenced their favorite musicians, millennials didn’t know who we were talking about. They were missing a key piece of the musical story of today’s artists that’s uniquely Tennessee: the legends who inspired today’s artists.

That’s when it hit us: “discovery” usually means listening to a similar song instead of hearing something completely new. Algorithms are designed to help you feel like you’re discovering new music, but usually they just serve up more of the same. And more of the same won’t connect millennials with the legends that influenced their favorite artists.

Our strategy was to get millennials to see beyond the algorithm. To prove that every artist—no matter the genre or the geography—was actually inspired by Tennessee.

6 Degrees to Tennessee launched as an exclusive partnership with RollingStone.com in September 2018 with paid media running through December.. The search engine was paired with premium editorial content and paid digital media including custom native videos, banners and social (Facebook, Instagram & Twitter) drove additional interest. The project was a two-year build process, with thousands of hours going into research, development and testing, which included running beta versions of the experience at music festivals around Tennessee. The final search engine may be the most comprehensive inclusion of relationships pulled from multiple sources created to date. As new musicians continue to emerge, the database grows with it, and will continue to serve as an inspirational and educational tool for Tennessee for many years to come.

“The music we almost take for granted as the backdrop to our lives, so much of it has come from Tennessee.” –Black Thought, The Legendary Roots Crew

By bringing together data, story and relevant artists, we showed our millennial target how much Tennessee has influenced what comes through their music stream. And they were hooked. The average person searched 13 artists to discover the greats that inspired them, resulting in more than 431 million musical connections made. But, most importantly, they took notice of the 500 historic music attractions in Tennessee. Those who had searched for artists were 9.8% more likely to visit Tennessee after their search, making Tennessee more relevant than ever to the next generation of music fans.