Native Music : BBC Rio Olympic Campaign

Earlier in the year we began conversations with the BBC’s retained agency RKCR/Y&R about their forthcoming campaign for the BBC’s Rio Olympics coverage. Together we investigated musical styles, with and without lyrics, and what possible lyrical themes for the campaign could be. Following much research, Native narrowed down a shortlist of artists that the agency thought were right for the project. One of the tracks the agency loved was “Jungle” by X Ambassadors featuring the vocals of Jamie N Commons. We were then tasked with reaching out to Jamie’s label, and it just so happened that he was in the studio working on new material at that time. We auditioned a selection of unreleased tracks and came to the conclusion that one of them stood out as being perfectly aligned with where the creative brief was heading. The track was called “Not Gonna Break Me” At this stage we were still exploring options and talking to other labels and artists, but it was this track that eventually stood out from all others. It had the slow powerful brooding tempo and epic scale of “Jungle”, but with a very apt lyrical theme about overcoming adversity. The track had to be adapted to picture to create the right dynamic journey, and although Jamie did the majority of the structural changes and musical additions, we took on the role of additional production for the opening layers and introduced the orchestral elements to really give it the olympic scale that the team wanted. We also worked with Jamie’s excellent production team in LA who adapted the track for the titles… which will be revealed soon. If that wasn’t epic enough, we also helped create the wider broadcast package, with a number of alternative versions required for the different BBC radio audiences. Jamie was fantastic to work with, and happy to try new ideas if we felt the picture needed more here, or less there. We are massively grateful to him and his flexibility during the whole process. This has been a dream project, and made possible by clients with vision, an agency with huge creative drive, and an artist who allowed us unprecedented access to his excellent material. It was a gargantuan team effort, the results of which we think live up to the scale of the forthcoming event. Bring on the Games!