Creating Culture Instead of Borrowing It
Business challenge: How do you turn years of earned community trust into work that deserves a place in people's lives independent of the brand behind it?
“When does a brand earn the right to create culture rather than borrow it?”
Turning years of cultural credibility into an original pop song, music video and national live platform benefiting The Trevor Project.
The challenge, the decision, and the impact, in three paragraphs.
By 2023 AT&T Turn Up the Love had spent years contributing to the LGBTQ+ community through music, storytelling, nonprofit partnership and live experience. That history created permission to make something original.
With Wrabel we created “Turn Up the Love,” an original anthem, a music video filmed at Miami Beach Pride by director Connor Malbeouf, a streaming release whose proceeds benefited The Trevor Project, retail distribution and a national tour.
The anthem became the most ROI-positive expression of the platform that year, carrying the highest engagement and the largest share of earned attention within roughly 130 million earned media impressions.
Sponsorship becomes cultural authorship the moment a brand contributes something that would not otherwise exist.
Turn Up the Love had shown up for the LGBTQ+ community for years through music, storytelling, nonprofit partnership and live experience. That record created permission to attempt something more ambitious than licensing or sponsorship: making music with the community the platform had been built alongside.
If we were going to ask people to listen, share and care about a piece of branded music, it needed to deserve a place in their lives independent of the brand behind it. That meant starting with an artist whose voice carried genuine emotional credibility.
Create an original record with Wrabel rather than an advertising jingle, premiere it inside a real Pride celebration, and connect every stream to The Trevor Project so listening itself carried impact.
The song premiered at Miami Beach Pride in 2023, where director Connor Malbeouf filmed the music video inside an actual celebration. The video played across AT&T retail, the song entered Pride playlists and earned media, and Wrabel joined the Turn Up the Love tour alongside Years & Years, Gigi Perez, Coco & Breezy and Slayyyter.
The anthem became the platform's most ROI-positive expression that year: the highest engagement, the greatest share of earned attention, and a central contributor to approximately 130 million earned media impressions across Turn Up the Love. One creative idea produced a release, a video, retail content, editorial coverage, live performances and a touring property, each making the others more valuable.
What this taught me: once a brand creates something with value outside itself, marketing stops being about inserting the brand into culture and starts being about helping culture move.
Three more capabilities chosen by strategic similarity.
Building Credibility with Skeptical Audiences
How do you earn trust from an audience that has learned to discount corporate participation in its culture?
Designing Cultural Moments That Accelerate Business Growth
How does a new streaming platform launch inside the most crowded media weekend of the year, and become one of the stories, not a footnote to someone else's?
Giving an Artist Real Authorship Over a Brand Platform
How do you make a long-standing community relationship felt rather than explained?
The Song that Saves Lives
How years of cultural credibility became an original anthem with Wrabel, a music video filmed inside a real Pride celebration, a national tour and a streaming release benefiting The Trevor Project.
The best conversations begin with a difficult question.
If a version of this challenge sits on your desk, I’d like to hear it.
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