Parul Chokshi:
Film schools are a great sort of place to tap into and students are always interested in trying to lend their capabilities to artists to be able to showcase their skills too. Allow yourselves to help each other out. As you're an emerging artist, there's emerging video producers and directors out there as well. And so I think it's really important to consider that community that you have around you and to talk to your friends, talk to other artists, talk to film schools. You can even reach out cold and just say, "I'm an artist and I'd like to talk to someone about video production. Do you have anybody who would be interested?" Type of thing.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. But I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician, and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.
All right. I'm excited to be here today with Parul Chokshi. Parul is the senior director of talent at Vevo, and if you're a musician or most people, you've probably heard of Vevo. Vevo is really the premier music video platform that exists today. She manages the talent team who's responsible for booking artists for Vevo's slate of original content, live productions and events. She's one of Vevo's first employees. Has been with company since prior to launch in 2009 and has executed over 700 successful shoots. Has over 15 years of experience in the music industry. And she previously held roles in digital brand marketing at Interscope Records, Sony Music licensing.
So holy cow. I mean, she has a world of experience and I'm really excited to connect with her today to talk about music video content and Vevo and a new platform that they're rolling out called Discover that's all about building brand exposure and getting your music heard. So Parul, I know that's kind of a long intro, but thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Parul Chokshi:
Of course, thank you so much. Yes, quite an impressive intro, but I guess I have been around for a little while, so thank you for that.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. So get started. I would love to hear just a little bit of your story, how you've got started and helped to really build Vevo up to what it is today.

Parul Chokshi:
Sure. So I will say I probably have a little bit of an unconventional backstory. So I started out wanting to be a lawyer and it was just sort of everything I wanted. I want to be a lawyer, I want to be a lawyer. And I went to law school and I graduated from law school and I was taking the bar exam and while I was taking the bar exam, I just felt like this wasn't really for me. I had this other creative side of me and I've always loved music, always went to shows and stuff, but while I was taking the bar, I would just go to as many shows that I could and I was working at a law firm and just was like, let's just go to as many music shows and meet as many people as I could. And it felt like subconsciously I was pushing myself towards this direction without even fully realizing it.
I started meeting managers and talking to them about how they got into the industry and just kind of had the final aha moment, I think this is what I really want to do in my career. So I took a couple months and called everybody I could find in the music industry and begged them to let me kind of learn from them. And I didn't want to do music law, I wanted to just start over in music completely. And so somebody gave me a shot at Sony Music. They probably got sick of my stalker calls, but I finally got through and I got an assistant position at Sony Music in their licensing team. So it sort of had some sort of touchpoint to law, but it really was very separated from law in general.
And so yeah, I started out at Sony Music and then a couple years later I went to Interscope Records and then I just heard about something happening with Vevo. There was an executive at Universal Music Group who was starting up this company and it just kind of sounded like it was new, interesting. And I wanted to move to New York. I was in LA at the time and it just kind of checked all the boxes. So yeah, I got hired at Vevo years ago, which is crazy. But yeah, so it's been a long time that I've been there, but it's been really rewarding and it's so rare that anybody kind of stays with the company for that long. So I've seen it through so many iterations and it's incredible to have been able to have that opportunity. So yeah, that's my story.

Michael Walker:
So cool. I know a lot of people, they have a passion for music and being able to actually find that Venn diagram of passion meets practicality and what you can contribute, is so cool. And being able to experience this transformation, and so coming in before it even launched to what it is now, I bet it's just been such a kind of mind opening experience. Maybe for anyone here who isn't super familiar with Vevo and kind of how it's... what's different about Vevo versus YouTube or a different platform, could you maybe do a quick description of that?

Parul Chokshi:
Sure, of course. So to go back to our origins, Vevo was started in October of 2009. We launched in December of 2009 and we were started because YouTube became kind of a crowded space for music and video in general. And so anytime you would look up for an official music video, you would find that there would be several different user-generated things like it was somebody's baby dancing to some official music video and you couldn't find the official one. A lot of times that premium music video was getting buried and also not getting the ad revenue that it deserved, that kind of higher level ad revenue. And so Vevo was started by both Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group to have a space for artists to be able to promote those music videos and to have that revenue back from those music videos. So that's how we were created.
We have distribution deals with pretty much all of the record labels and also a ton of independent distributors as well. And so that's how we differentiate a little bit more from the YouTube space is that we really are all about official premium music video. That's what we do all day long. And so when you're looking for an official music video, when you see Vevo, you know that's it.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Thanks for clarifying that. That totally makes sense. So one thing I'd love to dive into is this new initiative that we talked a little bit about around Discovery, and it's Discovery spelled without some of the vowels, right? So it's like discovery, but I'd love to hear a little bit of the birth of that as an idea. What are some of the biggest challenges that you're looking to address with that service and how does that work exactly?

Parul Chokshi:
Of course. So DSCVR is really just like our flag to program. It's so important to us. Vevo is made up of a ton of music passionate fans, and when you hear the name Vevo, you may not see that, right? But when you get down to it, you are talking about a group of people who care deeply about music from all genres. And so something that's really important to us at Vevo is discovering new talent and making sure that we are offering new talent, new ways to promote themselves and get new audiences and fan bases. And so DSCVR was born out of that need.
And also I think a big thing in music right now is that artists must feel this is, is that it's just a very crowded space, right? That artists have more access to publishing music globally than ever. There's so many more ways to learn about new music and it can feel overwhelming, but as so many can see that as a challenge, we saw that as an opportunity to be able to give artists different platforms to be able to promote themselves. And so that's how DSCVR was born. It's something that is really intrinsic into what we do. Of course, we also work with huge artists as well and trending artists and mid-level artists, but we really care deeply about breaking those artists very early in their career.
And so DSCVR is a program that actually has three different iterations of it. And so I'll start out with the first one, which is Discover New Music. It's a program where our team editorially selects a couple artists a week and we take 15-second clips of their music video and promote them across YouTube and our socials. And so we're talking artists that have been unsigned sometimes too. It's really kind of all over the map, and it's just from our team with its passionate base of music fans going out there and listening to music, learning about music, going to see music in person, talking to people about music and learning about these new artists and presenting them to our team. And then we all kind of discuss who are we going to be able to give those two looks to a week. That's on a global basis, and it ends up being on a global basis about a hundred plus opportunities per year.
So just know that there's a lot of opportunities there. The artist doesn't really have to do much. We take all the work on, we create the pre-roll, the little video that promotes them and we put them up on our social. So I can tell you a couple names recently that we've worked with, Armani White in August. Now everyone knows about Armani White. Samara Joy is one that I'm very excited about. We found out about her in September and now she's up for best new artist at the Grammys. So pretty incredible artists that we've been working with, but we hear about them so much earlier in their career. And so that's a program that is open to emerging artists at all levels.
And then our next sort of DSCVR iteration is our DSCVR series that we shoot in our studio, and that we shoot in New York and London and we have approximately 36 slots in the US and 36 slots in the UK. That's throughout the year. And we shoot a couple songs with the artists in our studio and it's just a very well produced, high production value performance. And a lot of times these artists haven't had that experience of being able to be on a set, having that professional look, making sure that the audio is mixed perfectly and that they're really happy with it and being able to deliver that sort of very official looking music video for them. So really love working on that with the artists, and we choose that by, it's an ongoing basis.
So throughout the year we're constantly talking about new artists and as they continue to come up, we start to look for ones that start to build some momentum in their career, we're starting to see some things happening for them, some things lining up, and we try to choose them as we start to see a little bit of momentum happening with them. So that is DSCVR in our studio.
And then right now we have DSCVR Artist to Watch. We just launched that recently and those are our artists to watch that are poised to break out for the following year, so DSCVR Artist to Watch 2023. They're approximately 20 artists globally, and we choose those artists from about 550 submissions this year. And so it's a lot of listening to music, a lot of seeing what's out there, but it's probably our favorite time of year. It's my favorite meeting. We all get to talk about our favorite artists and what we love about them and why they're important and what makes them really stand out from the rest and how they're going to break out in 2023. And so we're really excited about that campaign as well. And we've had a lot of success with that previously in past years, but really excited about this year as well.
We just launched with Gloria, who's amazing flow just launched, and a new artist that I'm loving out of Nigeria named Ayra Starr, who's incredible. So really exciting opportunities and just know there's so many different levels of opportunities for artists of emerging level, and so we're really excited to be working with them and have lots of different ways to engage with them.

Michael Walker:
So cool. Thank you for sharing the crash course and those three different things, and that totally makes... I feel like the thing that I hear over and over and over again, it seems like one of the biggest challenges really is about I've spent so much time, energy, passion into music and how do I actually find people who aren't just my friends and family who are going to enjoy it and get it heard by the right people. So it's so cool to be able to shine a spotlight and help people to get discovered.
One thing I'd be curious about, so some of the numbers that you mentioned were somewhere in the hundred to a thousand sort of range of selections, which is amazing. And I can also imagine some artists who might be listening to this right now because I think this is pretty common, thinking like, oh man, I could never get selected for something like that because there's probably millions or billions of submissions. Roughly how many submissions do you think they're kind of competing with when it comes to that? And maybe we could also dig into who's the exact right fit that you're kind of looking for that you think is going to get the most value from an opportunity like that, and how can they get to that point where it may be a good fit?

Parul Chokshi:
I think that something really important as I mentioned before, is that momentum and the trajectory that they're having. So we can promote somebody all day long, but if they don't have any other touchpoints, then it's us kind of screaming into a void. So if we can work with the artist to see that trajectory of momentum and work with them to tie into something that's already kind of working with them. So say they have a tour coming out, say they have some PR opportunities that they're coming out, an article written about them, they're starting to see some trending stuff online, on socials, whatever it is, any of that helps us be able to make our decision because we know that we won't be the only ones out there trying to make this artist be heard.
So when there's a holistic campaign against an artist when they are working across several different touchpoints is when we're listening. And of course music is so subjective, but we do have so many people who love so many different types of music and they will catch your ear. And the great thing about Vevo is there's two ways to catch somebody's attention. There's visual and there's audio, and then hopefully a combination of both.
So somebody has a really interesting stimulating video visually, we'll talk about that and discuss that and just say, "This is something so unique, let's give this a look," or "This is a sound we've never heard," or "This is an old school sound that we loved hearing but we haven't heard recently." It's kind of across the board. It is so subjective, but it's also there is that importance of seeing other things happening with the artist in conjunction with what we can do with the artist. We want to work with the artist as a larger campaign to make sure we're pushing them and getting them to the level that they deserve.

Michael Walker:
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Awesome. So it sounds like what you're saying is that it might not be for someone who's totally brand new out of the gate and is like trying to submit to opportunity like it, but for someone who has already started investing and putting a lot of energy into their music and their initial momentum started then it's sort of gasoline on the fire, and that those are some folks that might be a good fit for that type of opportunity.

Parul Chokshi:
Exactly, and these opportunities, the DSCVR opportunity, is only one of the opportunities that we offer. And if you're a brand new artist that's starting out and doesn't have any kind of touchpoints like that at all, but you do have a music video and you'd like to get the music video heard, we can get the music video up on the Vevo network and if somebody sees it and it stands out, we might be able to promote it anyway even if you haven't submitted yourself for any of these things.
So people are watching constantly to see what is coming through our feed and what people are uploading. And so if you're a brand new artist who just wants to give Vevo a shot and see what happens, you can sign up with one of our independent aggregators and get their music videos up on the platform, and so it starts that relationship with Vevo. So then as you start to build that trajectory, we can say, "Oh, we saw this video and this video and this video and we've seen your growth and we want to help be part of that." So even the smallest artist out there who's just starting from the beginning, if you have a music video, it's all about that. If you have a music video that you want to showcase, that's where we come into play.

Michael Walker:
Beautiful. Awesome. So that's actually a really nice segue into another question I'd love to get your perspective on. Being as you've been in Vevo since even prior to launch, and you've probably seen so many examples of music videos, you've seen some that maybe had a huge production budget and basically didn't really connect and didn't really do a whole lot and maybe some that were even a much more style of video that had a very low budget, but was able to have massive exposure and connect with so many people.
So I'd love to hear from you some of the insights that you've learned and perspective you have based on seeing all these videos. How can someone who is listening to this or watching this right now who has music that they feel really proud of, they feel like is ready for a right music video, how do they think about creating something that actually stands out and can connect with people?

Parul Chokshi:
You really want to be authentic to yourself. That's number one. You don't want to kind of put on someone else's persona or do something else that seems to be hitting just because it's hitting. If it doesn't fit with you, then people can see that and they can call out inauthenticity. So I think it's really important to be authentic to who you are and what your music is. So if you're a deep singer songwriter and you're kind of writing songs about love, but then you kind of want to have the women jiggling on the yacht, maybe that's not the best fit. So it's kind of about trying to stay true to who you are, but it's also important to think about showcasing your talent in the best way.
So something really important for us in our original content series that my team books for is that we're shooting performances that are usually one take all the way through, and you can hear it, you can hear that live performance sound in their voice, and I think that's really something unique and special, and it shows the audience that this artist actually does have the talent that they can sing, that they're not this overproduced product. And I think it offers something really unique to fans that they can see and feel. I don't know about you, but I always love those versions of songs, those ones that are live that are a little bit off. Maybe the artist is a little raspier because they're emotional about it or whatever it is, but those are the versions that I always go back to.
So offering fans a version of that and being able to kind of be that vulnerable and showcase that maybe this isn't a perfect recording, but it may be perfect for fans to relate to. So that's something that we really care deeply about at Vevo and showcase often in our original content. But I really think it's about staying true to yourself. It doesn't have to be super crazy huge budget, but really just doing something that feels right for you in the music and try out different things too.
You don't have to be stuck in one thing, but we see, like you said, we see all types of music and all types of music videos, and there's not one recipe for success, it's just about coming across with the right music at the right time, with the right visual. But the right can be so many different things, which is exciting. There's no actual answer to that, but it's also exciting because it can be anything at any time. So I just encourage as many people to be doing the music video as much as possible. It's worth, it's really important, and it creates a deeper connection between you and your fans when you're creating that visual.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So it sounds like what you're saying is that one great way to start, and this is so great too for independent artists and people who might be starting without a big budget, without a record label investment, that actually there's a big pro to being able to record more authentic content and doing a one-take video. So a one-take where it doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, the point is that it's real, that it's authentic, and that that's a great kind of content to start with. Very cool.
I would love to hear your perspective on, it seems like there's two balancing weights. There's sort of the authenticity angle where if you're coming out and you're doing something that is totally inauthentic or it's not who you are, then we can usually see through it. Or even worse, if you do somehow fool people or you get known for something that's not you, then now it's not you and you have to put it on a front and then you're being someone that you don't want to be. So there's that side.
And then I also have seen the opposite, the extreme side where it almost becomes a downside if they're too worried about originality or they think they can't have influences or they think they can't be inspired by references. And so I would love to hear your perspective on that as well. Is it okay to be intentional about referencing other videos and some of your favorite artists and using that in your own video content, or would you recommend shying away from that?

Parul Chokshi:
It's a really good question because I think there's a fine line. So there's the obvious sort of pull where you're taking a song and you're using it as your recording song then that's obvious you're definitely pulling from something and you're using it. And then there's the influences and you're being sort of schooled by these artists, but you've become your own voice, but you have some sort of influence through these artists in the past. And then there's everything in between. So it's such a sliding scale, and to say one is better than the other is so difficult because it is so case by case for each artist and each situation, but nobody can shy... I mean, everybody's listened to music before and an artist is influenced by music in the past, that's a fact. That's just part of it, and that's what made you a great artist today, is that you cared about music so deeply and it has influenced you to want to become your own artist.
So that's incredible, and you shouldn't shy away from that. How do you? How can you turn that off? It's impossible. I don't think that's anything that you should shy away from. And people love nostalgia too. People are loving stuff that's coming back from the '80s or the '90s sound and kind of reliving that too. So it's not like you can not borrow from those things, but there's that fine line of still being able to have your voice and still being able to put your stamp on it and make it somewhat original to you without being so concerned that you're pulling from the past. But I think it's impossible to be an artist today without pulling from anything because you came from somewhere, you came from influence, and to divorce yourself from that is doing yourself a disservice too.
So I think it's important to give that nod because it's part of who you are and why you're doing what you're doing. And I think there's a lot of different creative ways where you can give nods to those influences without having to be over the top, whether it's maybe using particular instrumentation that that artist used or a particular way of singing something. So many different ways where you can nod to that without having to do it over the top where this artist can't be thought of if you don't think of this other artist. You still want to be able to stand on your own. I think that's actually it. It's if you're listening to this new artist, can you divorce them from that other artist, or can you only think that that other artist is who this is? You have to be able to differentiate the two. And I think that that could be a key to how much you can be influenced by somebody without being them.

Michael Walker:
So good. That was really well articulated. Awesome. So one question I'd love to run by you is around music video strategy and release strategy. Maybe for an independent artist, how frequently would you recommend they aim to release a new music video? And then maybe from there we can even dive into the process of creating music videos and the production and some different angles that people would take, but maybe to start with, we can think about the release plan or release strategy and maybe how they can start planning out their own releases for Vevo.

Parul Chokshi:
Yes, exceptionally important to have early strategy for any artist is to have that calendar and idea of where things are going to go and when. You don't have to stick to it 100%. Music videos in our history have constantly moved, constantly, constantly, but just to have an idea of what you're... that's also really important to companies like ourselves because we are once again looking for that momentum and that trajectory of the artist. So having that schedule is really important to be able to show any outlet. But it is highly important because fans are consuming content like crazy. I haven't heard of somebody overdoing it when it comes to releasing content.
I know that seems overwhelming as a new artist, like, "Oh my God, how often should I be releasing these official music videos? It takes me so long to come up with this stunning, amazing, beautiful music video and I put it out, and now I have to come out with another one?" And so it's overwhelming, but I think it's about having touchpoints. So your touchpoints would be an official music video, and then it's the surrounding sort of video that you can create to help support that.
So there's several different things you can do behind the scenes or a bloopers thing or just even short little things where you talk about putting this together ended up being really cold outside and this is what we ended up doing, just giving a little backstory, or doing a different version of that song, doing a live performance as I mentioned earlier. So a lot of different ways that you can continue to surf on an official music video and to be able to continue that interest and be able to continue to release on that song without having to release a brand new official music video with a new song.
So I would say you don't want to go several months as a new artist without anything new. You want to keep it to feed that fan ask and request, that there's always that appetite for content, but there's different ways to do it. You don't have to feel the pressure of always putting out the official music video, there's so many different videos that are out there that can help support you. So I would say don't go several months without putting out an official music video, but I would say at least monthly, at least monthly is put something up, put something to be supporting that song or that official music video. And if you can get weekly even better.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Super smart. So looking at it, it's not necessarily it has to be just original video content that you're releasing every week, but if you have an album with 10 songs, then you can create music video for each of them and you can create surrounding content that goes behind the scenes or shares more insights or just different versions of it. And you can really expand one piece of content into a lot of supportive pieces of content.

Parul Chokshi:
100%. That could last you for a year plus depending on how you strategize and schedule out your year, you can work on one album for a year plus and make it kind of stretch out in that way. And so yeah, so many different ways to get your music out there and heard. And also some people may gravitate towards that live performance more than the official music video or some may really love those produced beautiful music videos. And so you're hitting different audiences as you're offering different types of content as well. Maybe some want to see behind the scenes, maybe some want to hear about those crazy stories on set, so you might be hitting a different audience when you're offering these type different types of content as well. So I think it's really important to think a little bigger than just about the official music video.

Michael Walker:
So cool. And maybe we could do a quick kind of brainstorm around those other supportive types of video content. You mentioned a few of those there, so like the original music video and then maybe an acoustic version or different version of it, some behind the scenes potentially. Anything else that comes to mind sort of if you're sitting down with an artist and they had a music video and they're thinking, how can we support this release? What are some of the low-hanging fruit? They're like, oh, they got to include something like that.

Parul Chokshi:
Lyric videos, of course, those are really important. People are always looking for those. A lot of times artists release lyric videos even before the official music video, just to get that song out there, especially if they're releasing it on audio streaming platforms, they want to make sure that there's a visual as well. People are always looking for where's that visual when they hear a song. And so it's important to always have that representation. So a lyric video is super simple to make, and the more creative you can get, the better. But if you just need to get something out, that's a great way to start. Or sometimes we just have static videos where it's just one image and it's just the song playing just so there's some representation of some sort of visual.
And then we've seen all kinds of crazy creative stuff. Maybe it's a fan video where people are lip syncing the song or dance videos were really big, so it's like that cut with this crazy dancer routine to it. And so there's just so many ways to get really creative. You can have directorial cuts of different videos. So I'm not a music video production expert by any means, but I see a lot and it makes me excited to know that there is so many different avenues that you can go down to be able to promote the same song. So it's really the sky's limit. It's just about your creativity and what you can put together, but there's so many different ways to do it.

Michael Walker:
Very cool. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It sounds like one potential angle is thinking about how can I collaborate with another type of creator? Maybe they're not even a music creator. What came to mind was the America's Got Talent, there's a performance where they're doing a routine with silhouettes or shadows in the background, that's kind of like, gosh, it was a really cool kind of music video experience. There was Maddie from, was it Dance Moms? My wife is big... she was into cheer and dance. So that song Chandelier was such a cool combination of multiple different art styles. And so being able to source ideas like that from your community, having generated content and the lyric video idea, lots of good stuff there. Hopefully people are having a notebook and they're just writing down all these good ideas for video content. Awesome.
So maybe with that we can dig a little bit into, for someone who maybe they have never released a video before or they're still kind of early on, or they're an independent artist and they're trying to figure out how do I budget for creating these videos? Or how do I get a video producer without spending $20,000 or more for video? Do you have any suggestions or ideas for how they can get started with a simple sweet way to get some of that momentum when they're still early on in their career?

Parul Chokshi:
Yeah, I would say that film schools are a great sort of place to tap into and students are always interested in trying to lend their capabilities to artists to be able to showcase their skills too. Allow yourselves to help each other out. As you're an emerging artist, there's emerging video producers and directors out there as well. And so I think it's really important to consider that, you used the word community, which really resonated with me, is to consider that community that you have around you and to talk to your friends, talk to other artists, talk to film schools. You can even reach out cold and just say, "I'm an artist and I'd like to talk to someone about video production. Do you have anybody who would be interested?" Type of thing.
So there's a lot of different ways that you could look up people and make sure that you're finding somebody that you trust but also may not charge you crazy and make sure that they're also getting something out of it. Maybe they're getting that exposure out of it and maybe you can collaborate on something really interesting. So I think that would be the easiest way to be able to tap into that resource without having to spend crazy amounts of budget is if you're both helping each other out with what you're both looking for, which is really exposure.

Michael Walker:
Gosh, that's so smart. And I can't believe I hadn't really thought about it in that way before, but just the fact that if you're an emerging artist, there's also emerging video producers, there's also emerging producers in general for music. And I know for us with Paradise Fears, a huge break for us was our first kind of professional producer and he was a guy named Jordan Schmidt. And when we connected with him, he was an emerging producer, so he hadn't had huge success yet, but he was definitely on the path, and it was night and day when we worked with him. We didn't get that much better, but the music got significantly better and now he's gone on to record multiple multi-platinum songs and he's really established. But when we had connected with them, we were in a similar vein where we were both emerging.
And so yeah, it does seem like that's such a huge opportunity of connecting with those other emerging creators and being able to collaborate and serve them and think about how we can provide value to them too. Because in a similar way right now, you're not going to charge them tens of thousand of dollars or hundred thousand dollars for your music, but you can come together to support each other. Awesome.

Parul Chokshi:
Artists don't work in silos. There is that community across everybody and influences are had from historical past, but also through current times, and you can be inspired by so many different ways. And so I think that music production is one huge way. Video production is one huge way. And also just anybody who's a visual artist can tap into that world as well. But when you collaborate with others, you kind of expand your sphere and learn something, you're always learning something.
And I'm a big fan of people raising other people up with them as they start to see success. So if you start to see that you're hitting something, bring someone else up with you who also deserves those breaks. Because as you know, as a struggling artist, it's really hard to get out there and be heard. So if you can have somebody who's a friend who will give you that hand, who will be able to film that music video for you or whatever it is, it's amazing to help bring up others with you and to give them that look and support as well.

Michael Walker:
Very cool. As you're describing that too, different kinds of visual art, one thing that came to mind was some of those sand artists where they have overhead videos where they're creating really cool visuals with the sand on the table. So even things like that, finding artists other types of non-traditional types of exploration, but creative work seems like a cool avenue that anyone listening to this could potentially explore, just going and looking at what are all the different kinds of art and creative works and maybe I can reach out and to start building a community around these diverse kind of sources.

Parul Chokshi:
That's-

Michael Walker:
Very cool.

Parul Chokshi:
And I love that. I think it may feel overwhelming, it may feel like work, oh, I have to release all these different types of music video and it feels like, oh, this is work. But when you get into it, it should be passion, it should be fun, it should be exciting. As soon as you started mentioning those sand videos, I just got excited and I was like, "Oh, cool, I can't wait to see some more of that." So it should be fun and represent you of course. But yeah, I think that take it out of that I have to work, I have to get this, I have to deliver this for the fans and make sure I'm feeding that ask, and instead kind of see it like this is a new fun way of showcasing your music and hopefully you can partner with some really interesting people who can influence your music in the future as well.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely. One thing that came to mind as we're discussing this, collaborating with other types of creators, is as musicians, I think sometimes we underestimate or undervalue our creativity because it's like a fish and water. It's like, oh, it's always been this way, or there's nothing that exceptional about it. I don't really stand out. Maybe you could think of it like the Purple Cow effect with Seth Godin. He talks about how if you're driving down the street and there's just a field of cows, you don't really look twice, but if one of them's purple, it catches your attention. You're like, "Whoa, there's a purple cow." And so the idea is how can we become a purple cow?
And if we're in a room where it's just all musicians and all creators, it's great to bond and create a community that way, but also you aren't standing out by its very nature because you're all similar cows. But if you take you and your music and you go to a completely different industry, you go to the sand people, imagine Star Wars, those little guys, but then it's like a purple cow almost because you're something unique and different. And just because you're a different type of creator or musician, you can offer something unique. I mean, it reminds me of, because I have this keyboard set up, sometimes during Zoom calls, we were with our accountants a couple of weeks ago and we were just goofing around, his name was Bill, so I'm like...
He absolutely loved it. He recorded it, he shared it with his whole team and he shows the video, and it just got me thinking, I'm like, that wasn't very good. It's not like the song was like... It just was goofing off, but it created a really special moment for him, and I think it was because of that purple cow effect. And so it's interesting, if you can take your music and figure out like how can I have a right value, do something unique for these other industries that just by its very nature, adding music to it could be interesting.

Parul Chokshi:
I think that's a really key point. And I think the thing is, is that the difficulty is that everyone wants to be a purple cow. And so if there's everybody who is a purple cow in the same exact color, then nobody stands out. So there is not... The formula for success, it's not one thing. What's important is to make it that unique thing to you. So like you said, if there's a type of medium of art that you gravitate that's unique to you, then definitely explore that. That's really exciting.
And I love that story about the accountant and getting... It did make you stand out, right? It made you stand out. And that's really what it's about, standing out authentically, and there's a lot of different ways to do it, but it's a great point, is that if you go outside of the medium of music, that there may be other touchpoints that can help you get there.

Michael Walker:
Very cool. Well, hey Parul, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I feel like I personally... I have a new music project that I'm working on and I'm certainly going to be recording music video content. So I do this as much for our community as for myself too. So I appreciate what you do and what Vevo's doing. And for anyone who's listening to this right now or watching, and wants to learn more about DSCVR and just Vevo in general, what would be a good next step for them to go to dive deeper?

Parul Chokshi:
So we have a site, it is hq.vevo.com, and there's information there about who we are, what we do, advertising, and there is a little top part that says For Artists. So if you are an emerging artist and you'd like to learn a little bit more about how to work with Vevo, definitely go there and it gives you all of the information that you need. It lists 12 different distributors that you can work with to get your music videos on the platform. And so there's a lot of... And if you're somebody who wants to work with Vevo, there's a careers button at the bottom. So there's a lot of different things and information on that site. So highly suggest going there.
And one other thing I wanted to mention about Vevo, which we really didn't get into, but something I'm very excited about is the connected TV space. People are watching music video on big screens now, and it's awesome and exciting as somebody who supports art and artists and who cared deeply about music video, being able to see that beautifully produced music video that artists put so much time and energy and effort into on a huge screen is so amazing. It sort of feels like that's the way it was intended to be watched, to be consumed. And so connected TV is a space that's growing exponentially and we're so excited about it. And when I say connected TV, I kind of mean the Samsung TV Plus, the Roku, the Pluto's, Apple TV, all of those types of services. We just launched with Hulu, so we're really excited about that.
And the connected TV space, it makes up 50% of our revenue now. So it's growing. It's not going anywhere and it's really exciting. So it's just another place that when you work with Vevo, you're going to get your music videos up on those platforms too. And as we start to be able to give more promotion to you as an artist, we can give you different promotion on those services as well. We can create blocks for music videos and we can say, here's an hour long new music from the hip hop world, or whatever it is. So there's so many different ways that we can program and offer opportunities. So the connected TV space is one that's really, really exciting and that I can't wait to see how it continues to grow because there's a lot of room for creativity there.
And piggybacking on what you were discussing about creativity and music video, thinking about how people are watching on a big screen is a totally different experience than when you're watching on your phone or your desktop computer. And so thinking, how would I create content for that? What would that look like? How would it look like if people are watching in a group? There's a lot of co-viewing that's going on. Actually 79% of our audience watches with at least one other person. So thinking about how do you engage parties?
So there's just so many exciting new worlds opening up with connected TV and we're really excited about that space. So just something extra I had to mention for artists out there that it's a big one and it's coming, it's not coming, it's here. And we're really excited about pushing that and making sure that there's so many more opportunities for artists to be heard.

Michael Walker:
Wow, so cool. Thank you for sharing that. And at the risk of, I definitely want to pull away because I could see myself going down a rabbit hole, just geeking out on this stuff, but I'd love maybe for a future conversation. But one thing that came to mind was I'd be curious to hear, a bit down in the future, it seems like there's a pretty big opportunity around virtual reality and creating virtual live music shows, especially with Apple Glasses coming out relatively soon with the augmented reality and then having that experience of connected TV, but actually being there live, having this feeling of presence, being able to look around, see those artists performing either in a pre-recorded video, so you could just be like, Hey, oh, you weren't there when the Beatles performed in 1971, well bummer, but guess what? Plug into this virtual experience so you can basically look around and kind of experience this energy of being there live. Seems like a really cool avenue, and I'm sure Vevo is super well positioned to be able to be the premier VR platform.

Parul Chokshi:
I feel like we've been talking about VR for the past 10 years. I've been hearing about it for 10 years at least, if not more. And I think at the moment it feels as if the VR world is quite expensive to make happen. And I think if we can get to a place where it's not as expensive, it's not as cumbersome to be able to distribute in some way, there might be something there. I mean, if you think about when the pandemic hit and how everybody was kind of alone at home and feeling ostracized from the world, the way they're connecting, we noticed a huge jump in live performance catalogs and music videos. And it was really exciting to see people wanting to get back, if they can't be there in person, they want to be able to experience it visually in some way. And so we were seeing a huge rise in live music.
So there is that appetite for sure, it's out there and I think it's going to be really interesting to see where it's headed. But yeah, we're just excited to continue to help offer live performance and then you never know, we never know where VR might go, so we'll see what happens.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, it'll be interesting. I think right now it's different, probably then it'll be five years or 10 years or 20 years from now, who knows? And also there's some, I don't know, if then it seems wally or anything like that. There's lots things to look out for that, but that's going to be super cool.
And I also would love to connect more with Vevo. Right now we just set up a live streaming embedded platform on our StreetTeam software. So StreetTeam is basically a website builder and an email SMS marketing tool that we developed to help artists to connect with their fans. And part that is right now embedding a livestream video through StreamYard onto the page on their website, and then they can gate it behind content so only folks who are in their VIP are able to access it. But that could be an interesting thing to explore in a collaboration together, if that was the kind of thing that would make sense for Vevo or not-

Parul Chokshi:
Shoot me a link.

Michael Walker:
... in the future.

Parul Chokshi:
I'll check it out and we'll see if there's something there, but that could be very interesting. Thanks for bringing that up.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Hey Parul, it's been awesome connecting with you. And thank you again for taking the time to come on here and share some of the insights that you've learned from a pretty amazing career, both in terms of, sounds like you came into this because you're such a music lover and you had a passion for music, and now you're able to make such a huge impact for artists, independent artists and helping them be seen. So thank you for what you're doing and for what Vevo is doing and looking forward to staying in touch. And like always, for anyone who's listening or watching right now, we'll have all the links and easy access in the show notes to click and learn more. And I look forward to talking again soon.

Parul Chokshi:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Michael. I really appreciate it, and thank you for all that you do as well. You're helping emerging artists get out there and getting some advice and it's amazing what you do as well. So congrats on everything that you've had so far and can't wait to continue working with you and helping as many artists as we can.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media and tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music careers to the next level. It's time to be a modern musician now, and I'll look forward to seeing you on our next episode.