Creative. Marketing. Strategy.

“Every filmmaker, creator, and storyteller needs to hear this. Sound isn’t just half the story, it’s the heart of it.”

RØDE prides itself on being a creator-led brand. So, for this brand campaign we doubled down and gave a content creator complete control to tell our story, through his eyes and ears.

The assignment was simply to tell the story about the importance of sound. That's it. Don't sell a product. Don't make a pitch. Don't have a CTA. Just talk about sound. RØDE is a microphone company after all.

In brand creative, we can be heavy handed with crafting the narrative of our creators; we've got to dictate the brand guidelines and we wince when they get the messaging even slightly wrong. Lengthy briefs. Key messaging points to hit. Two rounds of revisions. Lengthy approvals at multiple levels.

The game plan? Listen to the creators who use our gear and let them tell us why sound matters. We found a creator named Sleepy Charlie who clearly understands the importance of sound in his content creation and we trusted him to tell that story. We listened to his vision and we let him fly.

This was the result - no rounds of revisions. No tweaks to the script or the shots. To our surprise it was even delivered in ultrawide cinema format, so for social we had to rethink how it would be viewed in stories. Instead of forcefitting his content into the format of vertical TikTok and IG stories, we honored his creative vision and asked viewers to turn their phone sideways to watch our ad.

This campaign elevated our brand in the eyes of filmmakers. It became the highest performing social post in RØDE’s history. It proved the point of our brand’s ethos of being driven by creators: it matters who you listen to.