San Luis Potosí
No. 196, Suite 206
Roma Norte
06700 CDMX
E. hello@thrust.com.mx
T. +52 8190 1290
M. +52155 40941527
How did we build a business model that through tech, engineering and coaching could turn on artists’ creative spirit and musical essence?
Carlos Castro is an LA-based music producer, mixer and audio engineer. He has thirty years’ experience in which he’s scored dozens of awards and recognitions from major international music organizations, including 13 Grammy nominations. Even at that, big tech changes—from how the business of music gets done to how it’s produced and consumed—has obliged producers to play different roles and streamline processes to meet artist, music label and representatives’ demands. With as much in mind, Thrust helped Carlos Castro reinvent himself in an industry that is and will continue to be in constant movement in its quest to activate visibility, recognition and sales.
Contributing transversal value
Technology, a key ingredient for understanding musical evolution, has multiplied capacities but has also dehumanized service in an industry where artists’ creativity, passion and musical essence are the rules of the game. Owing to digitalization, this added to new trends and the way people live today, artists have inflated delivery expectations for producers. The outcome is an opportunity to understand and contribute a transversal value in four distinct roles—producer, engineer, consultant and partner—united under an integrated value proposition.
The hybrid kitchen model
We understood the need to redefine the producer’s role and to design a new business model that would package a variety of services, thanks to the producer’s many separate talents. We used the simile of the haute-cuisine kitchen, where chefs mix ingredients in personal ways and by leveraging their professional intuition to take on challenges peripherally with a high level of expertise. This led us to develop a model of hybrid services that fuses digital and analogue tools, which allows offering highly personalized and agile projects for a wide-ranging client roster including everyone from independent songwriters like Lara Mrgic to huge pop acts like Luis Miguel; as well as high-tech-level projects for institutions like Sony.
Discovering TrueSound
To articulate this service model and connect to numerous audiences experientially, we combined elements of a personal brand with an accessible and inclusive focus, as a means to not only differentiate Carlos Castro from other category players but as a way to transmit his sense of precision, responsivity, passion and sound fidelity—a signature methodology that combines all the ingredients that allow Carlos to unveil every project’s musical essence. We call it TrueSound.
Personal Life Experience
We put together a journey of experience where we identified different emotions artists feel over the course of their processes, for instance, anxiety or nerves days before a recording session. Based on that information, we designed moments, messages and specific points of contact that don’t just help mitigate anxieties—problems that later translate into long, stressful processes—but also give rise to a memorable experience and kicking off a long-term relationship.
Promising future
Though the project only recently launched, today Carlos Castro enjoys a market outlook and tools that are much more strategic, sustained and empowered and that help him better understand his clients’ new priorities. They make him the sole player who offers an agile, hybrid and memorable model for artists, companies or partners who aren’t just seeking practicalities but rather, something like a musical Sherpa who reads between the lines and turns up the volume on clients’ true musical essence…in other words, their TrueSound.
San Luis Potosí
No. 196, Suite 206
Roma Norte
06700 CDMX
E. hello@thrust.com.mx
T. +52 8190 1290
M. +52155 40941527
