IMAGE: Ben Silcox (HAVAS helia), Sheldon (Ministry of Sound), Chris Johnston (Adoreboard)
They teamed up with Ministry of Sound, the multimedia entertainment business, to produce an eight minute music track based on research of emotions expressed by leading brand names and individuals on social media.
The study was carried out by scientists working for the Queen’s University-based Adoreboard technology company, Patchblocks and the global ad agency, Havas helia.
Results were then passed on to the music experts to mix them with house music and come up with a unique sound which demonstrated how online emotions like joy and anger could be translated into new experiences.
The project is aimed at fostering a greater appreciation of how data can be used to inspire creativity as well as examining how international brands perform online.
Ben Silcox, chief data and digital officer for Havas helia said big data was often associated in a dry and scientific context. But this was something which illustrated why that type of information could be the source of originality and new understanding.
He said: “Everyone’s life for the most part involves online interaction. Many of these are intangible like how we express emotion mostly through words on social media. This project has shown how online data can be brought into the real world to create something new and fun which can be enjoyed.
“For brands, we can see how their beats compare with others as a starting point to see what can be optimised.”
Adoreboard identified and analysed comments and views posted on Twitter by a wide range of brands and individuals to detect more than 20 types of human emotions which also included surprise and annoyance.
They then created algorithms which turned the data into melodies and rhythms – leaving Ministry of Sound resident DJ Sheldon to devise the eight minute track based on the beats generated from Twitter and mixed with house music.
The music track has been released for download and a data visualisation for the music track is available here:
Chris Johnston, chief executive of Adoreboard said emotion and music provided the perfect fit to explore the mood of people and brands online. As part of the research they had created an emotional music player which could analyse the lyrics of any song and display the key emotions being conveyed.
The company had previously conducted 10 months of research into the online reputation of Rory McIlroy, the world’s No 1 golfer, which analysed emotions expressed from over 100,000 data points about his brand.
Mr Johnston added: “Initially we used the idea of creating a beat for McIlroy as a brand to reveal the emotional highs and lows of an incredible developing career, as well as the ups and downs in his personal life. The result is the first sound track generated by human language and emotions from Twitter.”
A data visualisation of both the Rory McIlory and Tweet Beat is available here:https://j.mp/mcilroy-beat
