Cannes Lions

The Official Cover

McCANN LONDON, London / MASTERCARD / 2016

Case Film
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Overview

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Credits

Overview

Description

We went to man himself- Mark Ronson, and showed him the many, unique, different covers we had found online from passionate fans, and created an idea together.

“Get them to the best studio in the world, and I bet I can work with them to create a cover of Uptown Funk that is unlike anything anyone has heard before.”

We were going to get Mark Ronson to take a few artists lost amongst the noise of the internet, to prove that ‘Sharing Your Love Of Music is Priceless’ to make and press The Cover of Uptown funk. To make 6 fans, artists.

Execution

We picked the talent, 6 fans on YouTube that had covered Uptown Funk.

A ukelue player, two sisters on the cello and violin, and two guitarists and a singer. We invited them to ‘Abbey Road’ telling them to bring their instruments. They arrived, shocked and immediately set about to the task - to play their very different interpretations of the track, to perform a cover together as one.

Only once we felt they were comfortable in their surroundings, did we let Mark Ronson walk in. From then the proper work started. Mark and these 6 amateur musicians who’d never met before, connected their love of music from their chance cover of Uptown Funk to produce the ‘Official Cover’ of this song. This wasn’t the ’10 minute meet a fan’ piece. Mark stayed for 10hrs and together they wrote, performed, recorded, pressed and released this unique, one-off cover. Priceless.

Outcome

We choose to put our musical output were it would have the most impact.

So it was back to the Internet. People watch music on YouTube, but they are more likely to be directed there from Facebook. We seeded the story behind the song on Facebook, and used it to direct people to the full cover video on YouTube. We hit over 10 million views on the content alone. And it drove people to sign up for access to gigs through Priceless London. But most importantly, it made six fans, six talented musicians lost amongst the noise on YouTube, famous. And now, with many more fans of their own.

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