How the 75-year-old Fanta guitar was reborn with TikTok

Text/David Bloom

Image source: Fender

Before the pandemic, nothing seemed more real than live music and instruments that made music. Then everything changed, including the much-touted instrument maker Fender, whose Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars have been a key component of the rock, pop and other musical sound landscape.

The brand was founded in 1946 and is headquartered on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles. Now, the brand is adapting to a whole new world, including online performances, ongoing recordings and new platforms for discovering music.

At the top of the list is TikTok, a massive, hypnotic short video service that has entered the mainstream during the pandemic. Evan Jones, Fanta's chief marketing officer, said fanta is now launching its own service on TikTok.

Jones said: "We are excited to be a part of it. "I think we're probably going to be the first guitar brand to really commit to making a big deal out of that." But I would say that we may have been a little late in doing this. ”

That's because TikTok has become a huge fertile ground for up-and-coming musicians to break songs and make a name for themselves.

TikTok drove the success of one of the most successful singles of all time, Lil Nas X's "Ol'Town Road." Recently, former Disney child star Olivia Rodrigo saw her debut single, Driver ' S License went viral on TikTok, paving the way for her first album, Sour, one of the best-rated and most popular albums this summer.

Jones says that behind such success stories, there are countless other musicians, many of whom have already established a connection with Fanta, and many of whom need to reach out to Fanta.

"Music is a key element of the TikTok community to share and digest content," Jones said. "We've seen a lot of users on the platform and we want to connect with them and provide services through content while also expanding their experience, which, to be honest, is a bit of a celebration." So for us, it's a very logical extension. ”

The company's success on TikTok has gotten off to a pretty good start; Jones says the hashtag #Fender has been used 160 million times on the platform, before its own official account was launched.

The company already operates on most other large social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and a booming YouTube. Facebook even has a user base specifically for new players. While the YouTube site has more than 1 million subscribers, Jones said its subscriber size could be "easily four or five times larger." ”

To achieve this, Fanta is moving from product marketing to more "serialized content," which includes a dedicated space for new players to supplement their learning content without using the subscribed Feder Play teaching app. These programs include performances, techniques and techniques, as well as behind-the-scenes studio materials, such as watching producers make tracks from scratch.

"We've started developing different serial content pilots that are gaining tremendous traction, and depending on the artist and the subject, we're going to get hundreds of thousands of views every day," Jones said. "We're experimenting with and testing new forms of content that allow artists to share their art and players to gain a deeper understanding of how music is created." But we also went beyond the product itself and truly integrated into the player's lifestyle. ”

More investment is expected for the Fender Play app, which Jones said has "hundreds of thousands" of active users. The company pays special attention to the learning experience of learning guitar, bass or ukulele in the first few months using the app. In the early days of the pandemic, the company offered a free app, with more than 1 million people signing up in a month.

"We're in a position right now where we're really thinking more broadly about all the tools that players need, except for guitars, amplifiers, and Fender Play," Jones said. A popular area is digital amplifiers, where players can connect their guitars to record and compose music on their phones or tablets.

"We see this as a huge future, especially as a new generation of players see mobile phones and laptops as the center of the studio, rather than a garage and a huge recording platform. This is a huge shift. We're actively investing in this because we think it's good news. ”

Part of what has driven companies to move toward more social media marketing and online businesses is the way companies sell their products has changed. Jones said e-commerce has risen from 30 percent of sales to nearly 70 percent. But it has also been driven by changes in the demographics of fanta products.

Jones said: "There are more women and younger people now than they were two or three decades ago. "Part of the success for us is that we're able to connect and engage an entire generation of up-and-coming musicians, artists, and creators who are already using the guitar as part of their job, or may be using other forms of musical expression, but haven't considered the guitar yet."

The drive for digitalization is supporting the company in creating new devices for a more digitally minded generation. This week, the company unveiled a classic product line called the Player Plus Series, priced between $1,000 and $1,150 each.

Jones said it was an upgrade to the Player Series instruments the company launched in 2018, including a silent pickup, neck "smooth edges" for more comfortable playing, eye-catching new colors, and targets telecaster, Nashville Telecaster, Stratocaster, Stratocaster HSS, Jazz Bass, Precision Bass and Jazz Other improvements made in one or another of the 7 new models such as the Baa V.

For example, the Player Plus version of the Stratocaster HSS comes with a pickup that counteracts AC sounds on the koto horse for "extra output," the company says, which it can be split into single-coil tones with push-pull controls, while the other two pickups at the neck and middle provide "bright and tactile classic Strat tones with no hum." ”

It's these silent pickups that make it clear that those who want to play guitar and bass are changing, Jones said. They didn't want the old-fashioned background buzz of a classic Fanta guitar in their original digital recordings.

Jones said: "We have found that in the last five or six years, the number of people who have been exposed to guitar has increased dramatically. "There has also been some change in people's aspirations. It used to be lead singers and men playing solos on stage with guitar. This has changed. Ji is now both a songwriting tool and an input device for the studio. Now, you'll see artists of different genres seeking to use live instruments and everything we do to achieve authentic forms of expression. ”

The company also launched a series of musician showcases featuring performances and dialogues by renowned young artists such as Gabriel Garzón-Montaño, Destroy Boys, Lil Huddy, Nova Twins, Beach Bunny, Griff and Foushee.

"It's a great opportunity for us to focus on artists who we think are doing something really special and elevate them through our channels and other channels," Jones said. "Hopefully, in return, we can give them a platform to amplify their music, increase their audience, and frankly, accelerate their own musical journey." This will be one of our most important tasks over the next nine months to the middle of next year. It's part of a global effort to build visibility for the (Player Plus) series, but it also showcases amazing artists who are all part of the client. ”

Other artists at the Fender event include up-and-coming country singer Hannah Dasher, who has built a strong presence on TikTok (1.3 million followers) by combining her music, fluffy hair and a thick southern accent with a quick cooking class, and released her album's humorous EP this year: The Half Record.

Similarly, before releasing this year's EP, How Did We Get Here, TikTok fans of pop singer Blu DeTiger, who played bass, pushed her last year's Figure It Out to the top.

"Blu DeTiger is a great example," Jones said. "She has over 1 million followers and she knows more than we do about how to activate TikTok. But you know, by working with her, being true to her art, and just helping to amplify her voice, we're going to learn a lot about what motivates TikTok users to get involved. ”

David Bloom is a Forbes contributor and expresses opinions on behalf of individuals only.