Klarafy
Klara
Issue 40 | September 2016
Agency
Famousgrey
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Katrien Bottez Creative Directors Laurent Dochy Tim Driesen Iwein Vandevyver Creative Team Iwein Vandevyver Tom Jacobs
Production Team
Project Manager Bart De Bock Brand Manager Miet Lust Development Bert Vermeire Romano Casellini David Viaene Design Laurens Groven Tessa Persoons Content webtool Floris De Rycker Vincent Goris Tom Van de Goor Iwein Vandevyver Marc Weyts RTV-Producer Charlotte Bodson Tuyen Pham Loes Fierens Director Seeding Films Jan Boon Post-Production Sven Vanhee Production Who Killed Joe
Other Credits
Client Contacts Chantal Pattyn Els Lagrou Els De Baets Ellen Moriau Sander De Keere
Date
June 2016
Background
Like all classical music radio stations, the problem for Belgium's Klara is how to woo younger music lovers, who know little or nothing about classical music. They don't know where to start, they don't know the huge range of classical music on offer, the names of composers or the many genres.
Idea
The idea was to launch a tool to help listeners find classical music that aligned with their tastes in modern music.
Klarafy translated an individual's personal music taste into classical music by anticipating what they will like. Wouldbe listeners lined up a Spotify playlist with their favourite songs on it, genre immaterial, and plugged it into the Klara website (www.klarafy.klara.be/en).
The site then chose classical music that corresponded and told listeners why they might like the selected compositions.
It worked by scanning the listener's playlist across three categories: music genre, prevailing mood and use of particular instruments.
The Klarafy 'engine' was based more on using human intuition and emotion to match the music rather than more conventional music recommendation tools such as beats per minute.
Results
After just one month, Klarafy had received 108,440 uniques, of which 60,000 had 'Klarafied' their Spotify playlists.
The Klarafy banner on Spotify achieved a click-through rate 14 times higher than the Spotify benchmark.
National press and other radio broadcasters picked up on the story, giving Klara an earned media equivalent of € 557,000.
The success of Klarafy has led Klara to take the education process to schools.
Our Thoughts
Bowie fans, apparently, might be inclined to some Puccini; Lady Gaga aficionados to Bach; and Queens of the Stone Age nuts to Schubert. And presumably, heavy metal obsessives to Wagner or Mussorgsky.
That’s not me – that’s according to Klarafy.
There’s nothing new about recommendation engines, but what is new is using one to turn new listeners on to classical music. If commercial classical music broadcasters are ever going to get out of the niche, they have to find ways to attract new listeners.
But even those who wish to learn find it so damned hard, so anything that simplifies the task has got to be welcome.
Better still, the use of technology like this helps put the lie to the idea that classical music stations are staffed by fuddy-duddies who don’t really want to let anyone else into their club.
What’s especially interesting about Klarafy is that it claims to take the machine out of the recommendation, and replace it with the human touch.
This feels like sitting down with an expert – Dr Classical, if you like – who sifts through your collection and bases their recommendations on the real you.