Warner Records
Music has never been more accessible.The economics of fandom have never been more broken.
Streaming solved a distribution problem and created a new one: it made music everywhere and worth almost nothing per listen. For labels, for artists, and for the fans who care most deeply, something essential got lost in the flattening. They came to us for an album package. We created something bigger.
Sector
Arts & Culture
Services
Brand & market strategy
Product design
Experience design
Ecosystem strategy
The Problem
The artists winning the superfan economy weren’t just musicians anymore — they were global brands. Warner’s developing artists lacked the infrastructure to play that game.
Warner Records is one of the most influential labels in American music. Nearly seven decades of shaping artists, careers, and culture. When they came to us for an album package, we did that work. But we also saw something they hadn’t asked us to look at.
The most commercially powerful artists in the world, the ones with the die-hard fans, the sold-out tours, the cultural gravity, had figured out that music was the entry point, not the whole product. Merchandise, objects, experiences, collaborative creative moments: these weren’t add-ons, they were the architecture of a modern artist brand. And the revenue and fan relationships that came with them were substantial.
Warner had incredible artists coming up through their roster who deserved access to that model. They just didn’t have the infrastructure to offer it, and nobody had yet built it in a way that could scale across a label’s full portfolio.
The Bigger Pattern
Every industry eventually hits the moment where the dominant distribution model stops serving the people who care most. Music hit it with streaming. The answer isn’t to fight the model, it’s to design for what those models can’t provide.
Building 180 Grams
In collaboration with Warner Records, we developed 180 Grams: a platform and product strategy designed to reconnect artists and their most devoted audiences through experiences that streaming can’t replicate.
Platform & Product Strategy
180 Grams is built on a simple premise: superfans don’t just want to listen, they want to participate. We developed the strategic framework and product vision for a platform that creates new categories of artist-fan engagement — tangible objects, unique experiences, collaborative creative moments, and an immersive digital layer that makes all of it coherent.
We’ve designed over 10 distinct artist product experiences under the 180 Grams model, each one a proof of concept for a different dimension of what deeper fan engagement can look like.
Storefront Reimagination
Alongside the 180 Grams platform, we reimagined the Warner Records storefront experience — creating a direct-to-fan commerce environment that reflects the depth and diversity of the label’s roster, and gives superfans a place that feels worthy of their investment. That experience launches in early 2026.
Internal Capability Building
One of the less visible dimensions of this work is organizational. Warner’s identity as a vanguard label is real — but staying at the frontier requires internal infrastructure, not just instinct. Part of our ongoing collaboration involves developing the tools, frameworks, and methodologies that give Warner’s staff the capacity to think this way themselves: to spot emerging models, evaluate new opportunities, and move with the kind of creative confidence that defines the label’s legacy. We’re not just planting ideas — we’re building the organizational muscle to keep generating them.
What it’s unlocked
- 180 Grams platform and product strategy developed and production underway
- 10+ artist product experiences designed across the 180 Grams framework
- Warner Records brand-new storefront launched in early 2026 with second phase underway
