Below are some examples of my music partnerships work during my 8 year tenure at Squarespace.
St. Paul and the Broken Bones at the Squarespace Studios - my brain child for four years at Newport Folk Festival
TL;DR: In the early days of Squarespace, the mandate was to dominate the B2B music scene. During my eight-year tenure at Squarespace, I played a pivotal role in establishing the brand as the premier website tool for the music industry.
NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT:
Squarespace x Leon Bridges
Building lasting relationships with musicians on our platform was an integral part of my role at Squarespace. After spearheading a campaign & sponsored tour with Squarespace customer St. Lucia, I continued to work closely with the team at Mick Management. This eventually laddered up to a national TV spot with emerging artist Leon Bridges. Additionally, the campaign work presented our brand the opportunity to produce a film with another customer I built relationships with: legendary music photographer Danny Clinch.
Squarespace x SXSW
Squarespace showed up big annually to SXSW. In my first year at the helm, we took over an entire week of programming, including sponsorship of the Spotify House, Daytrotter Sessions, Willie Nelson's Heartbreaker Banquet (now Luck Reunion) and the Paste Sessions, as well as The Wild Honey Pie's "Beehive" showcase. Additionally, I was invited to speak on a panel about Brands Empowering Artists, curated by This Fiction Management.
LIVE @ 9:30
In 2016, Squarespace embarked on one of its most ambitious music partnerships to date: Live @ 9:30 - a digital experience & television show centered around one of the most adored venues in America, the 9:30 Club. Through mainstream TV and digital release, we helped build brand affinity within the indie music community. I helped negotiate & manage this large-scale multi-channel project.
BRAND AMBASSADORSHIP:
Celebrate Brooklyn
Knowing that much of the music industry works in our own backyard, I secured presenting sponsorship of Celebrate Brooklyn. We utilized the VIP tent at each show to network with industry contacts. The relationships built through this partnership led to many artists & management companies converting their websites to Squarespace, and eventually lead to our Leon Bridges and St. Lucia collaborations.
The Manifesto
I lead a multi-year sponsorship of a series of dinners for the industry music magazine, The Manifesto.
Connections built through this partnership have since led to major campaigns and brand collaborations, including the conversion of Universal Music Group's global marketing website to Squarespace.
Newport Folk Festival
For four years, I produced the Squarespace Studios at Newport Folk Festival. The space gave attendees an opportunity to see intimate performances from festival artists and interact with the Squarespace product in a meaningful way. Additionally, I secured and managed our 2015 collaboration with The Wild Honey Pie for the "On the Boat" video series. I now sit on the Board of the Newport Festival’s Foundation.
PRODUCT:
Squarespace x Bandsintown
The industry spoke - we listened. In 2014, we integrated the Bandsintown platform directly into the Squarespace website builder. This was earlier-stage Squarespace, before we had an official integrations team. I worked directly with our product team & Bandsintown's teams to help finalize and promote this integration. For the integration launch, we co-hosted a series of in-person workshops for artists, managers, and labels at Squarespace offices in NYC.
Label Relations & Workshops
From 2014 to 2016, music was a huge product focus for the company. As a Squarespace master who can speak to the platform in 20 seconds or 20 minutes, I offered my capabilities to record label's digital teams on both coasts. I led in person 2-hour workshops for digital teams at RCA, UMG, Communion and many others. Additionally, I made myself available to label reps, managers, and artists for any direct VIP follow up needs or feedback they had for Squarespace.
Build a Bigger Stage
In response to industry insights I gathered from 2014-15, Squarespace launched "Build a Bigger Stage" within our front site experience. This was a customized onboarding experience that leveled the most relevant features for musicians, featured music website examples (curated by me!), and launched new templates specifically created with musicians in mind.
Honorable Mention:
Highlights of my tenure at Squarespace are hard to sum up, but if I had to choose a project and a partner that takes the cake, it’s Jeff Bridges. Not only did we work with him on a full blown real record of meditations with him (“Sleeping Tapes” - our super bowl campaign) - I was able to work directly with Jeff on a charity event for No Kid Hungry in partnership with Pop Up Magazine at BAM. What a mensch!
