'Tis the Season of “RomCommerce”: Radish Music on The Magic of Emotive Music Design
The era of ‘RomCommerce’ is upon us! The new content format is a hybrid of social media shopping and Hallmark Channel holiday movies, championed by multinational retail giant, Walmart, with their first ever shoppable series, ‘Add to Heart’. Known for their distinct tastemaker prestige, LA-based music studio, Radish Music, were recruited to curate a captivating sonic identity for the Christmas campaign.
Housed on YouTube, TikTok and Roku, the first-of-its-kind campaign is set to kickstart what appears to be a new wave of interactive advertising. Shoppable series such as this allow brands to present products in a new and innovative way, while taking advantage of the discovery mechanism of platforms like Tik Tok. Confident on the effectiveness of this new format, Walmart have announced that their romcom series will be followed by a run of shoppable episodes of Bravo’s Below Deck, in partnership with NBCUniversal.
The story of ‘Add to Heart’ plays out across 23 mini episodes, with music taking a lead role in maintaining the momentum and encouraging viewers to stay tuned in. Inspired by the innovative format, Radish’s talented team of music specialists compiled a playlist of suitably influential and emotive music. Partnering with composer Genevieve Vincent, the seasoned music supervisors put together an engaging soundtrack that captured the romantic tale at the heart of the holiday series.
Curious about the creative process, LBB’s April Summers rallies the talented team behind the music design of this fun and novel Christmas campaign: Radish Music founder and ECD, Peymon Maskan; music supervisor, Alec Stern; and music coordinators, Gemma Schladow and Jenna Wilson.
LBB> How did Radish Music interpret the sonic requirements of the initial brief? And how closely do these initial ideas resemble the finished work?
Peymon> We were taking a lot of cues from the agencies who wanted to honour the romcom format. There are certain requirements that are absolute musts when it comes to the music for a festive romcom. You need great holiday music, and great songs for the characters to soundtrack all the ups-and-downs of a romance. Acknowledging these prerequisites automatically gave us a pretty clear concept, then the trick was to find a way to craft a totally new sound that felt unique to this story. This was such a fun challenge!
Gemma> The TikTok format also inspired us to put an updated, indie spin on that traditional sound as a starting point. We wanted to make people feel the same romcom feelings, but in a way that felt really new – the end product definitely captures that.
LBB> This is such a fun and novel Christmas campaign that doesn't technically fit into the preexisting boxes of traditional branded content. With this in mind, how did the innovative nature of this new content format influence the score?
Alec> Both in terms of score and sourcing existing music, the biggest challenge we faced was that every episode called for unique and fulfilling intro and outro music. In addition to scoring very specific story beats, finding great songs to enhance montages and emotional moments between characters, and giving each character and their relationships individual themes, we also needed to grab the audience’s attention at the start of all 23 spots and, musically, leave them on a cliffhanger to create an intriguing momentum which would keep them watching. This was a wildly different approach for us and created some really exciting opportunities musically.
LBB> Considering music has long been proven to influence consumer behaviour, in your opinion, what role does music play in the effectiveness of these new shoppable series?
Jenna> It feels like we’re at the start of a whole new trend. What’s exciting to me about the fact that Add To Heart is housed on TikTok is that it feels like the project is capitalising on an already trending practice of users uploading full episodes of TV and films onto TikTok in multiple parts. While these come from accounts that have no actual affiliation with the original series or films, they always have tens of thousands of views and likes. People will sit and watch an hour and a half worth of content separated into 50+ parts. Why not do it with an ad that spans across 23 parts? With Add To Heart, we honed in on that trend while making it our own through unique source music and an original score. It might be that earworm of a track at the beginning of part 1 that hooks a viewer who might’ve kept scrolling had that song not been playing.
Peymon> From a musical standpoint, we primarily focused on making a great romcom. We figured, if you’re falling in love with the characters and the story, you will become curious about what they’re wearing or decorating with. Every time the “commerce” aspect pops up, audiences should just end up enjoying it because they are captivated by the story. It’s the same as allowing commercials during a show you love, in this case it’s just more integrated. We would obviously love people who discover the series on Tik Tok to get inspiration from the songs and for them to take on their own life on the platform. That is its own version of commerce – the virality of those feelings and sounds.
Can you pinpoint the ways in which you put Radish Music’s distinct tastemaker spin on the score?
Alec> For the score, we knew we needed someone who understood the mechanics of both longform and short form and had a deep tie to romcoms, while ultimately bringing something youthful, tasteful, and full of heart to the work. Genevieve Vincent ticked all those boxes and then some. Her confidence and creative POV for the project was infectious, and she was bursting with ideas from the first call.
In terms of the songs, we sought diverse talent wherever possible. We heard from the agency that during a screening of the series, the scene featuring Laufey’s “From the Start” made one of the audience members gasp and say, “This is the artist I’ve been obsessed with!” Laufey is an example of an artist we identified from our first call as representing a cross section of everything that felt so right for this project -those kinds of insights were ultimately valued by our creative partners.
Peymon> I don’t think we could have pushed the envelope with songs as much as we did had Genevieve not done such a great job crafting the sound of the characters and story itself.
LBB> Can you tell us a bit about the collaborative process of working with Publicis Groupe agencies and production partner, Merman, to craft the sonic identity of this series?
Peymon> The tight schedule gave us no choice but to be wildly collaborative, and luckily everyone ended up being fantastic partners.
Gemma> We were also lucky to have great relationships within the teams which helped us hone in on the right sounds. Alec is friends with Caitlin Fitzgibbons, creative director at Fallon, so we would get very specific notes from her which made the collaboration even more productive. This was incredibly helpful in clearing the path for the music to ensure the creative vision could shine.
LBB> Did you come up against any major challenges during the course of this project? If so, how did you overcome them?
Gemma> The biggest challenge overall was it being a full-length film created on an advertisement timeline. It was a sprint from the moment it started, so it was a challenge to get ahead of where we needed to be.
Alec> We were also finalising, shipping, and releasing on a rolling timeline. This meant that while we were focused on creating a musical vocabulary for the first 6 episodes, we had to keep in mind the larger budget implications all the way through episode 23. This forced us to not just be as creative as possible, but also as strategic as possible. The production team was relying on us to be the experts in that space in addition to providing great pieces of music.
Peymon> It was about anticipating challenges rather than solving them as they came up – and we have decades of experience of doing this!
LBB> What was the most enjoyable aspect of your work on Add to Heart? Did you learn anything new as a result?
Peymon> I learned that I’m a total sucker for romcoms…
Jenna> Getting to be on set for the on-camera karaoke scenes! It’s one thing to work with a team virtually but being on set with the talent, producers and creatives brought us into their world, allowing us to connect with in person.
Alec> Feeling part of something so new and inventive. We were in such capable hands with all the partners across this project and felt honoured to work alongside such a great company of collaborators. The amount of astounding women creatively running this project was deeply inspiring. And of course, getting to work on a project with such a music-driven focus that was handled with great care, excitement, and investment is always a gratifying thing to be part of.
