Epidemic Sound’s epic relaunch was simple: 502 music tracks, scoring 502 emotions, brought to life across 502 hyper-contextual placements most conducive to each individual emotion. Globally, we tracked down our audience and spoke to their emotions in real time - from OOH, to hyper-specific social and digital, and even to guerilla placements on NYC garbage bags. Not only did we give a soundtrack to every single feeling in every possible moment, but each interactive execution allowed our audience to scan and listen in real time, proving our case: if you can feel it, you can find it on Epidemic Sound.

Epidemic Sound, a soundtracking platform for global brands and professional creatives and creators, was speaking to an experienced cohort who considered sound selection critical to their craft and prided themselves on their high standards.

In this fast paced, high growth category, Epidemic has grown 80% since 2015, outstripping overall market growth by 15% and establishing itself as the global leader in restriction-free soundtracking. But despite this growth, in a market set to grow by $500 million in the U.S. alone by 2026, they were still only capturing a small portion of the addressable market.

The rise of the content creator was driving the surge. With video moving away from linear TV to various online platforms, audiences were watching over a billion hours of video each day. As a result, more soundtracking providers were fighting for their share of the surge, and there had been an unprecedented rise in new players entering the market.

But the category was largely functional, dedicated to providing component parts for content creation. No soundtracking platforms were going beyond their library or innovating music and sound solutions on behalf of the storyteller to help them reach their full creative potential. Perceptions of stock music therefore remained low - it was culturally seen as low-value, generic, and uninspired ‘muzak’ that lacked depth of emotion. Both culturally and in the category, we had the opportunity to breathe emotion into our offering and redefine the power of restriction-free music as a must-have for creative storytellers everywhere.

Epidemic Sound, a soundtracking platform for brands, creatives, and content creators, had a strong product offering but had never properly invested in building a holistic brand or cut-through advertising. Their awareness had historically been built by performance and creator marketing without any brand-first strategic guidance.

As a result, our objectives were to establish an authentic, meaningful, long-term, and unforgettable brand platform that:

Re-established our authority as a category leader with a unique and differentiated voice,

Fostered deep connections with our audience in an overly functional category, and

Change misconceptions of stock music from ignorable background noise to something that can be the focal point of artistic expression and storytelling.

Every creator has a vision for what they want their audience to feel. But emotions are notoriously complex and difficult to convey; luckily, nothing expresses emotion better than music.

When words fall short, Epidemic Sound’s frictionless experience makes it possible to find the perfect sound for whatever you feel without ever slowing you down, and tell stories that bring any emotion - no matter how complex - to life.

Introducing their new brand platform: Feel It, Find It - all about music’s ability to communicate feelings that are otherwise difficult to express.

The big creative idea for our launch campaign, “A Sound for Every Feeling”, was to do exactly that. We tapped into the breadth of our catalog to score the spectrum of human emotions in the most epic way: 502 music tracks, scoring 502 emotions, brought to life across 502 hyper-contextual global placements most conducive to each individual emotion.

Our audience was Career Focused Creators - from in-house at global brands, to professional creatives who needed to soundtrack their creativity.

Obstacles stood in their way. We uncovered the insight that creative energy is a precious resource - if it’s not properly protected, it’s all too easy for it to be depleted instead of harnessed. When the creative process is rife with energy black holes - like needing to search endlessly for the perfect sound - creators are taken out of the critically important creative flow.

We saw the opportunity to show how Epidemic empathizes with the complexity and fragility of the creative process, and can protect, improve, and inspire the process as well. With their innovative AI tools and music library uniquely organized by emotions, our strategy became to demonstrate how the frictionlessness of our platform eliminates energy black holes, keeps creators in the flow, and unleashes creative magic.

First, we identified 502 relatable emotions that we knew people were already feeling and thinking, and were much more specific than just joy or frustration. While some were universal, some were contextual to the different global markets in which we rolled out the work (like in Los Angeles, “the feeling of embracing a city where dreams come true…depending on who your parents are”). Then, over 6 weeks, we paired each feeling with 502 of the perfect locations, and perfect tracks, from Epidemic Sound; linked by a QR code, the ads were turned into a contextual audio experience.

In New York, Los Angeles, and London, the campaign ran in the full spectrum of OOH: from billboards to transit, wildpostings, and even guerilla placements like on NYC garbage bags. And after going worldwide, we scored the World Wide Web with contextual social and digital placements where we knew our audience would be.

The impact has been outstanding. From over 123 million outdoor impressions, we’ve seen 500 million TikTok videos using our music per day - nearly 200 billion a year, and over 2 billion views of YouTube videos including our music per day - over 700 billion a year. Furthermore, 70% the top 200 YouTube channels now use our music to soundtrack their content.

Under their new brand platform, every channel has gone over benchmark resulting in an 8% lift in brand consideration in key markets New York, LA, and London. We have the highest unaided awareness for Search, growing from 26% to 30%.

The soundtracking category used to be a creative no-man’s land, lacking artistic legitimacy, depth, or forward-thinking experimentation. But through endless placements, we brought endless feelings to life - and endless reminders that Epidemic Sound has the perfect soundtrack for every single one.