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UMusic Hotels

UMusic Hotels: A Portfolio of Unparalleled Music Experiences

Brand Strategy

Research + Insights

Visual Identity

Design

Social

In late 2021, our longstanding client Universal Music Group, the biggest music company in the world, chose Known to develop the strategic plan, brand identity, experience design and marketing strategy for an ambitious new group of hotel properties, called UMusic Hotels, that would fuse music, technology and social impact into extraordinary experiences all around the world.

Our first property opened in 2023 in Madrid, Spain, and has sold out ever since, becoming a new kind of platform for artist discovery, dynamic live experiences and new music content. Today, our growing global portfolio of UMusic Hotels continues to proliferate, with new properties opening all over the world.

Rockefeller Center: The Beam

Rockefeller Center is known for its incredible Christmas display, but this holiday season brought a new incredible attraction to the heart of the city: The Beam at Top of the Rock. The Beam allows visitors to take a step back in time and out into the air over New York City, with a re-creation of the classic photograph, "Lunch Atop A Skyscraper," itself shot at Rockefeller Center during 30 Rock's construction.

The new Top of the Rock stands as a testament to the rich artistry and history of innovation embodied by Rockefeller and The Beam is the first in a series of new experiences launching this year as a part of the Top of the Rock redevelopment. Known was tasked with building a campaign “SEE YOU AT THE TOP” that highlights, connects and brings each new experience to life, building momentum, excitement and awareness that the new Top of the Rock is where incredible moments become magical memories.

Marketing for The Beam started as an out of home and social campaign highlighting iconic New Yorkers experiencing it for the first time. We partnered with stars of New York's culinary, fashion and entertainment fields to create assets promoting The Beam in December and throughout 2024.

The launch built momentum that propelled the new experience into every New Yorker's social feeds and into a must-see for incredible visitors who have since stopped by: from the TODAY Show to David Beckham. Known continued to capture and promote it all across organic and paid media, garnering huge numbers for our Top of the Rock accounts.

TikTok: It starts on TikTok

Facing geopolitical volatility, regulatory scrutiny and a growing competitive set, TikTok found itself in a challenging position. They needed to drive brand affinity at a time when their value wasn’t fully understood - so they tapped Known to develop the platform’s first ever belief system, advanced segmentation, followed by global brand campaign.

In late 2021, Known helped the biggest music company in the world, Universal Music Group, launch into hospitality, building a first-of-its-kind hotel at the intersection of music, heritage, technology, and purpose.

Sesame Workshop: Making Impact At Home and Abroad

As the media AOR for Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street, Known provides strategic support, audience research, and media planning and buying services for all paid media efforts across the Sesame Workshop umbrella. Our work has shown significant, incremental growth in reach and impact among parents and providers, helping Sesame Workshop bring sunnier days ahead to children everywhere. 

As a non-profit, Sesame Workshop relies heavily on donations to fund the multitude of resources and services that it provides. To support all of Sesame Workshop’s impactful programs across the globe, Known also handles new campaign creative and delivery for their individual giving donation campaigns. You can donate today 

Sesame Workshop leads the charge on responding to crisis when it happens, providing global support for children and families when they need it most. Over the past year, Known helped Sesame deliver a highly targeted video campaign surrounding the crisis in Ukraine and aiding refugee children and families cope with conflict and crisis. We ran a multi-touch campaign structure that used shorter cuts of video resources in Ukrainian to reach a larger number of impacted families across Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and then retarget them with the full-length videos. The campaign drew nearly 40 million impressions from users living (or who recently lived) in Ukraine.

Business and technical audiences, and in particular, enterprise tech, is the origin story of our Insights business. 

B2B: 20 Years of Decoding Commercial Audiences

Business and technical audiences, and in particular, enterprise tech, is the origin story of our Insights business. We are deep experts in understanding commercial and technical audiences; over the last 20 years, we’ve done hundreds of projects in support of B2B clients.

We help our B2B clients decode the entry points to large IT spenders, understand how commercials and technical budgets get spent, and how decision makers and technical audiences think. And we are increasingly opening conversations around what role brand plays in B2B, how to bring the next generation of products and experiences to life, how to define audiences, and ultimately, how to deliver.

We are experts on topics that are relevant to these audiences and clients: cloud, developers, licensing, AI, ML, security, governance, GDPR… More importantly, we’ve built strong partnerships that go beyond the length of a given project; we are trusted advisors as our clients go to market.

For more on Known’s B2B experience and capabilities, email us at 

For over two decades, Known has been Microsoft's strategic partner at every inflection point and existential moment. 

Microsoft: 20+ Years of Partnership

For over two decades, Known has been Microsoft's strategic partner at every inflection point and existential moment. Known helped Office and Windows navigate the journey from packaged software to cloud services. Known was at the helm to rethink the value prop and target segments when Microsoft re-launched Surface. From Xbox to Azure to M365, and dozens of other products, services, and brands, Known continues to define the target audiences, and set the go to market strategies for the next generation of ground breaking B2B and B2C tech used by billions of people around the world.

From launching CoPilot to helping Microsoft identify which brand metrics, when shifted, most directly affect future revenue with B2B stakeholders, we continue to partner with Microsoft to craft the strategies as they evolve.

We’re excited for what the next 20 years will bring.

Hispanic Brand Love Index

The Hispanic Brand Love Index is the first comprehensive research study to scientifically calculate the revenue impact of brand perception among US Hispanics, the fastest-growing consumer cohort in America.

Across a broad set of industries, Known used data science and advanced analytics to measure brand affinity, decode what drives consumer preference, and predict quantifiable implications for US businesses. We did this for 58 brands in 9 industries.

Nestlé Health Science: Nuun

Nuun retained Known as part of their effort to achieve start-up level growth after its acquisition by Nestlé Health Sciences. As an established hydration tablet within the road running and sports performance space, Nuun was on the hunt to find opportunities to broaden consideration for clean hydration beyond its roots. The hydration market is chockful of incumbent sports drink brands (i.e. Gatorade) and go-to hangover cures (i.e. Liquid I.V.), and while they shouted their benefits from the top of every mountain, they all spoke to being the solution to a state of dehydration. Known was able to find an opportunity to zig when other brands zagged. This was done by championing your hydration even before you hit the start line. An evolved brand positioning, and creative brief provided the foundation and catalyst for Nuun’s New Year New You campaign. And after concept testing, we emerged with a cross-platform campaign taking on the classic trope of drinking coffee before anything. Our winning campaign concept was “But First, Nuun.” And the campaign's performance exceeded all expectations, testing better than any commercial in the Nestlé Health Sciences portfolio.

The social conversation around Grubhub's competitors is littered with "hangry" posts complaining about delayed food orders.

Grubhub: That Grubhub Feeling

Everybody knows the feeling when you’ve let hunger get to the point of anger – hangry. But what do you call it when whatever food you’ve been dreaming about finally hits your lips? No matter what fare you choose to satisfy your craving, your Grubhub order will come on time, at the lowest price…and with a particular feeling that’s been difficult to describe until now. To prove Grubhub is all about the food and satisfying the customers they serve, Known developed an entirely new lexicon of emotions as part of “that Grubhub Feeling” campaign, finally defining the polar opposites of hangry, like “Chewphoria,” “Meatitation,” and “Ensushiastic,” just to name a few.

Blindly launch campaigns? Not in today's marketing landscape. Known's data-driven testing illuminates the path to guaranteed impact, quickly.

Creative Testing

Blindly launch campaigns? Not in today's marketing landscape. Known's data-driven testing illuminates the path to guaranteed impact, quickly. Our rigorous approach unlocks your message's hidden potential, analyzing its emotional pull and optimizing for exponential impact. Ditch guesswork for data-driven knowledge – steer clear of costly misses and watch your campaign and brand blossom. Known can do this incredibly quickly and identify which concepts will perform best in market, and how to make them better.

MAX: The One to Watch

Known partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery for the 360 global launch campaign of its new streaming platform, Max. Starring some of the biggest stars on the service including Jason Momoa, Issa Rae and Chip & Joanna Gaines, the campaign celebrates Max as “The One to Watch” for all your viewing preferences and moods. The cross-platform campaign includes linear, CTV, out-of-home, digital, radio, and social platforms.


Taimi: "America The Beautiful"

Known’s creative, strategy and media teams, together with Taimi, one of the world’s largest queer dating apps, launched the brand’s first national campaign to celebrate American core values, including freedom, acceptance, inclusion, and liberty of self-expression, while uplifting LGBTQ+ communities that are under attack across America. The robust multi-platform digital, social and OOH campaign includes striking photography of queer couples, drag queens and LGBTQ+ individuals expressing themselves freely. 

The campaign features provocative photography which portrays American culture in a rainbow light, speaking directly to the target audience of the LGBTQ+ current and prospective Taimi users. The images live on billboards across America, with a message that is impossible to ignore. 

“America The Beautiful,” the patriotic song written by professor, scholar and, assumed, queer poet Katharine Lee Bates, is the main source of inspiration and reference for the campaign’s key messages. By reimagining the narrative and bringing it to life in a completely different way, and repositioning the lyrics as a queer anthem, this is a call to all Americans with a message that is impossible to ignore. The campaign's goal is to shift American culture in a way that will positively impact the LGBTQ+ community, and send shock waves that resonate well beyond it. 

To have the most impact, Known selected markets for an OOH campaign where anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and intolerance is particularly egregious along with markets that support the community: Chattanooga TN, Colorado Springs CO, Gainesville GA, Idaho Falls ID, Tampa FL, Tulsa OK, Dallas TX, New York NY, Chicago IL. 

With this campaign, Taimi owns a place in the Pride conversation that no other competitor can claim, and produces a cultural awakening for prospective Taimi users in America and beyond.

Zeam Unleashes Unprecedented Localized National Campaign.

Zeam: Always Local. Always Free. 

The CEO of Syncbak, now ZeamMedia, a leading technology company that powers platforms like the NFL, Paramount, Hulu, and others, collaborated with Known to introduce their own streaming service—Zeam—with a focus on hyper-local news, sports, events, and more. In our role as Zeam’s agency of record, we executed comprehensive consumer research to develop a unique brand strategy, a captivating visual identity, and a 360 campaign tailored for Zeam’s launch and sustained growth. The decision to activate Zeam’s national campaign at the Super Bowl, locally and addressibly, across every single US market at the same time, was a strategic one inspired by the streaming service itself. Zeam’s mission is to champion all things local, and to provide free, easy access for viewers and content creators everywhere. This is a complex plan that has never been executed at this scale. We used our technology platform, Skeptic™️, to optimize media and creative for every local market and partnered with John Stamos on a strategic social rollout that helped inspire national and local headlines across the country, meaning John Stamos is literally talking to YOU, no matter where you live.

Known helps Just Dance 2024 take over the world.

Ubisoft: Just Dance

Ubisoft, the creators of one of most iconic video game franchises in history, is back with the latest iteration of Just Dance. The launch of Just Dance 2024 was conceived by Known as a global campaign that celebrates the infectious joy of dance. Big brand spots feature the game as the epicenter of a dance craze that spreads joy to people, dogs, and even a few hot-stepping cupcakes. The campaign also shines on social with an AR filter, Breaking News alerts, and a flying disco ball that influencers can use to "infect" eachother with the dance bug. (Because when you have access to a flying disco ball it would be criminal not to use it.) Visuals are bright. The movements are beautiful. And the whole thing is wonderfully, well, weird. Try as you might, you can't stop the daaaaaaaance.

Graduate Hotels: Generation G Stays Here

Whether you’re a grandfather revisiting your alma mater or teenager on the cusp of your college years, a Graduate Hotel is the best way to envelope yourself in school spirit. When Known became Graduate Hotels’ agency, we knew we needed to start by engaging to a broad range of traveler personas. We began with “Generation G Stays Here,” a multichannel campaign featuring multigenerational stories. Just like the hotels themselves, the campaign's style and charm, warmth and nostalgia welcomes you to a place where you can’t stay forever, but a feeling that never leaves you.