Behind the strategy: creating a world of infinite musical expression with ROLI.
Personal connection to music is what makes the heart of ROLI’s brand strategy beat.
ROLI is part of a new generation of music, creating infinitely expressive instruments. The inventions are groundbreaking, but the story wasn’t connected. That’s why we stepped in.
“Music saved my life.”
This powerful sentiment launched the ROLI project, in response to a question from founder Roland Lamb: “What does music mean to you?” More than articulating a brand positioning statement, the ROLI project would fundamentally define people’s visceral, integral relationship with music.
A founder-led vision to unlock the potential of music in over a billion people.
Unlike other projects, this one presented a unique challenge: capturing the essence of a founder-led brand. Our task was to translate the ambition of the founder’s story and ethos into the brand, using his philosophical and socio-cultural ideas, inspired by German philosopher Hegel, to create a strategic directive. At the heart of this project was Roland’s vision: to empower over one billion people to make music without limits.
The goal of this partnership was to create a brand that would reach a much wider audience than ever before, and amplify the joy of musical expression innate in everyone, everywhere. No small task.
A mind-bending product in search of a mind-bending brand.
ROLI created the first keyboard that didn’t just play a note. It morphed sound like magic, we got to experience it firsthand. Playing the ROLI Seaboard is a whole-body immersive experience, and your interaction with sound far transcends what you can do on traditional keyboards. The Seaboard replaces standard piano keys with a soft, touch-sensitive surface, allowing you to shape sounds by contorting your hands. Each move you make adds depth to the sound.
The Seaboard shook up the music industry, inspiring titans like RZA and Hans Zimmer with its new way of playing. But while it was groundbreaking, the Seaboard couldn’t create a mass-market brand on its own. It was perfect for professionals, but too complex for learners who wanted to explore music more casually. We needed to simplify ROLI’s story into something universal, with the power to unify the two siloed parts of its business.
Crafting an inclusive future for our music.
Our goal was to create a singular, iconic brand that articulated their diverse offerings into one cohesive ecosystem that would resonate with their audiences and propel them towards the next stage of growth.
“I feel handcuffed by the story we've been telling with our two audiences, our websites. It's not coherent. It's not simple. It's not distilled.”
- Tamima Anam, Strategy Director, ROLI.
For this task, we focused our research on three core areas: customers, category and context.
Defining our role as a liberator.
We started by uncovering a unifying customer mindset that ROLI could speak to. We interviewed the spectrum of ROLI users from renowned artists to aspiring students, and discovered one uniting thread: whether they’re mastering new skills or pushing the limits of their knowledge, they’re looking for an experience that ignites their curiosity and creativity. They had a universal desire to ‘free the music’ within them.
Our response was simple. ROLI is here to help people express their inner music without the pressure of perfection – breaking down the technical barriers that hold potential musicians back, and making it something that’s as fun as it is liberating.
Establishing music as a personal right of expression.
Our research showed us how to focus on the human benefit of ROLI. The brand platform highlights ROLI’s belief that ‘music is in our bones, it’s a universal right’. ROLI is here to put the power of music in everyone’s hands.
The brand positioning created clarity for the internal team by championing their core idea to ‘free the music’. This meant that each of our strategic pillars always laddered up to a tangible audience truth, one that democratises music for anyone with genuine passion. Everything ROLI does is fuelled by the bravery to make change, nurture creativity, and lead the industry into an inclusive future where anyone can be a musician.
Unleashing the infinite world of music.
The music landscape is focused on achievement rather than the wonder of music, and music brands are monochromatic and aloof. But creativity is so much more than accolades and grades and cool tech. It’s a process of discovering and expressing yourself, and of defying norms. ROLI is the antidote to this binary world, leveraging the true nature of music to create a multi-dimensional brand experience. There’s a musician in everyone, and ROLI is here to set that music free.
“ROLI lives at this intersection of innovation and the vision to 'free the music.' The brand hadn't articulated this vision in a way that informed the whole business and that set them apart as a true leader in the music tech industry. We helped ROLI unlock a strategy, empowering them to reach an even broader audience than before, to unleash the music within everyone.”
- Tobi Arawole, Strategist
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