Visit Antwerp team came us with a challenge, promote Antwerp to a new, younger audience under a new light. The idea is not Antwerp is not only a city of diamonds and fashion, it is also a city that never sleeps. Visit Antwerp team launched various campaigns over the years to reach the younger audience but traditional city marketing proved to be inefffective. That is why we have created 'Sounds Like Antwerp', a project to use music and data to show that Antwerp has more to offer, it is a city that never sleeps, it is alive, it has a rhythm.
collaborators
- Abdulhalim Yalcinkaya - Team Lead
- Agata Tomaszewska - Developer
- Indi Watte - Visual Designer
- Luna Ben Elfkih - UX Designer
additional links
concept
We explored multiple themes for this campaign, Visit Antwerp gave us 5 main topics to focus on. We choose '24/7 City', Antwerp as a city that never sleeps and there are always things to do. Our target audience was looking for authentic experiences, something they can be part of. We selected music as our language to communicate with them. Our research showed us that there are multiple sensors, all around Antwerp, that measures city's vitals such as air quality, traffic, noise, etc. We decided to use this data to create a music, an algorave to show that Antwerp is alive, it has a rhythm, it never sleeps. To achieve this, we have created a website where users can listen to the music generated from the data collected from the sensors in Antwerp and it's neighborhoods. They can also create their own music based on this data. (During this project's development, we did not have access to real data, so we created an algorithm to simulate different sensor readings. )
process
The first phase of the project was a research phase. We focused on what makes Antwerp unique, what has been done so far in terms of city marketing and how we can create something that will stand out. We also looked at different ways music and technology has been used in marketing. When we locked the idea of combining music and data from the city to create an algorave, we started to make tests and demos as soon as possible. We have created an algorithm that reads different sensor values to generate music, but by it's nature sensor readings can be chaotic and noisy. So we have created two approaches, one gives sensor data full freedom, the other one tries to create something more harmonic using a more controlled approach. Eventually we have decided to use a chaotic version.
We also tested our product on each step, using various testing methods. We iterated on our idea based on feedbacks we got from our tests. In the end we have created a whole visual identity, a responsive website where users generate music from Antwerp's (simulated) sensor data and a project roadmap that includes potential partnerships, events and social media campaign.
