ABOUT

BRANDING OBJECTIVES
The goal of DRAFTKINGS NETWORK ("DKN") is to become THE destination for breaking content across Sports, Betting, Tech, NFTs, Investing, Entrepreneurs, Gaming and Crypto. The launch of a new omni-channel network rooted in a crowded sports space required a very ambitious and integrated sonic + design strategy that could span a complex ecosystem across digital video, podcasts, and broadcast.

Our task was to define an A/V branding system that would give DKN a modular solution and allow the brand to be recognizable in limitless forms and permutations, both bold and subtle. This would help tie their vast content together but took some rule breaking, resulting in several significant sonic branding “firsts”, as the traditional models of creating a few static sonic assets would simply not suffice. Most importantly, the collaborative “synchronized branding” process this project required represents an exciting future for sonic branding and hopefully a new standard for best practices among traditional branding agencies.

SYNCHRONIZED BRANDING
The DKN branding system was co-developed through a first of its kind partnership between sonic and design agencies. We termed this new process “Synchronized branding” where we shared one SOW and participated in each other’s research and analysis, co-led client workshopping sessions, co-designed the overall branding strategy, and had constant and reciprocal influence on each other’s creative work.

Best explained by Christine Jones, Global Executive Design Director at WPP’s Makerhouse Agency, “The collaboration of disciplines from visual designers to sonic designers to motion designers really created something magical. It was about creators creating together without pause. It was about being in it every step of the way together and achieving an outcome together. And I think that's when you get the most amazing outcome, something you couldn't have anticipated or planned. And that's what this process did for us.”

VOICE OF A CULTURE
We were tasked to create the “voice of a culture”, and this required a musical language that could speak to our audience across all our interest and content verticals. Analysis showed electronic dance music (EDM) had the highest shared relevance and affinity across our audience segments. Within EDM we found that trap music was best at evoking our core brand values of "fresh, curious, electric, knowing, and exciting" and our “fun, modern, rebellious, spontaneous and edgy” personality. This highly experimental style allowed us to create a truly unique sound, and its distinct sharp rollercoaster hills and valleys presented lots of impactful ‘moments’, perfect opportunities to develop short signature sonic assets. This provides the foundation for DKN’s sound, which we then created with touring DJ producers who are used to performing live. This ensured the sound was fun, spontaneous and truly legit, as sounding corporate in any way would be contrary to everything the brand stands for.

THE “DROP”
We took the storytelling capabilities of mnemonics (like HBO, THX, TED and DreamWorks) to a new level by adopting the DJ "Drop" formula as an analog to the DKN brand experience. This became a keystone of design and motion as well as the formula for DKN’s audio mnemonic. It tells the story of building anticipation to a moment of suspense, like what a DJ creates at a live show, and then rewarding this with a “Drop” into the main groove, in this case representing the emotional payoff of receiving DKN’s breaking content.

The DKN brand identity is not defined by a single mnemonic, but rather by the sound of a “Drop”, allowing DKN to flex its identity across limitless styles and permutations. For different verticals like sports or news, new tracks were created to generate new drops, producing unique mnemonic variants that still manage to point to one master DKN brand.

ELECTRICITY
As ‘electric’ was a top brand adjective, our experimentation around using real sounds of electricity paid off in spades as it not only gives DKN a unique sound but also inspired color choices, design patterns and motion behaviors. We got scrappy in an industrial workshop and with devices like tesla arcs and plasma lamps and recorded lots of different sounds of electricity. We designed these and created virtual instruments to 'run a current' throughout the brand sound in various subtle or overt ways to viscerally evoke the buzz of excitement and speed of culture that DKN delivers.

MODULAR BRANDING SYSTEM
DKN now has a first of its kind integrated A/V branding system where hundreds of sonic assets are clearly labeled and organized into toolkits designed to fit their visual counterparts. Being able to combine audio with design elements on the fly not only provides options for any situation but also keeps the brand feeling fresh and fun and edgy. To our knowledge, there is no other content provider that has such a modular and robust sonic identity system, let alone one that fits so naturally with an equally flexible design system.

RESULTS
“The feedback we’re getting is that it's totally unique, it’s different, and it’s drawing the core associations we aimed at when we first set out.” – DraftKings Head of Brand. Focus testing showed 83% “very unique”, and when queried “what words do you associate with the mnemonic?”, the top unprompted responses reflected our top intended brand adjectives of “fresh” (60%), “exciting” (59%), “inviting” (54%), and “electric” (52%).

MUSIC INTELLIGENCE
Cautious about forcing another sports brand into a crowded ecosystem, our sonic strategy used ‘music intelligence’ to identify ownable sonic positioning and the ingredients of our sonic DNA. We analyzed the sonic landscape not only of major sports networks (Fox, ESPN, TNT, CBS, NBC), but of networks that successfully evoke our brand values (IFC, FX, Vice, Bravo, Cartoon Network, HBO), next gen news outlets (Cheddar, Axios, Vice, CoinDesk), and culture creators (Complex, Thrasher, GQ, Vans) and used these insights to build an accurate and ownable sonic branding strategy for DKN. These insights fed extensive moodboarding and strategic workshopping sessions to align sonic approaches - resulting in a very clear sonic strategy and a well-defined and detailed creative brief filled with music and sound examples, inspiration and thought starters.