WALKMAN
A brief set by Landor & Fitch to bring a dead brand or product back to life for a new audience in a new era.
I decided to look at the Sony Walkman and how to bring the original USP back to life for a new digital generation. The Walkman allowed you to travel around with your music, the headphone jack creating a more intimate listening experience - ‘the Walkman effect’
BRIEF
There is something powerful about the way we listen to and romanticize music. Your weekly shop in a supermarket can feel different if you’re listening to Bowie versus Beethoven, for example.
The ability music has to take over our senses - we have the power to be the editor of the soundtrack to our own film (life). The listener being the main character.
KEY INSIGHT
SOLUTION
Although technology has changed, the way we listen to music hasn’t. My idea was to reformat the Sony Walkman as a music platform like Spotify. The new platform utilizes the beauty of the original Walkman: a sensual listening experience that transforms reality.
It plays with the idea of being the editor of the soundtrack to your life. A seamless listening experience that is controlled by how you want a moment to look, feel, and sound.
A DYNAMIC IDENTITY
The logo is designed to represent a music journey, inspired by sound waves and the idea of getting from A to B with music carrying you along the way.
I wanted the monogram to be flexible and dynamic. Representative of how different songs and sounds make you feel, walk, and act in different ways.
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
Their listening screen has a dial that you can use to seamlessly mix one feeling/genre into the next - taking away the awkward silence between songs that make a moment lose its feeling. A reinvented shuffle button.
PURPOSFUL PLACEMENT
The advertisements would be strategically placed in environments where people are often ‘in their own world’ listening to music and walking with a beat in their step. This would make people think about the power of music and how they listen to it as they’re doing it and consider what the new Walkman has to offer.
As additional PR, an interactive billboard that can sense what music a person is listening to as they walk past. This would make the billboard change the ‘mood’ colours and gradient effect, reflecting what the interface of the app is like when controlling your music.