Olivia Rodrigo Shows Sony How to Make Gen Z Headphones

Olivia Rodrigo is a three-time Grammy winner, a multiplatinum artist and—for the better part of next year—a relentless touring salesperson for her latest album, Guts, released earlier this month.

To Sony Electronics, however, she’s both a creator and instructor.

Last year, Sony released its $200 LinkBuds S wireless earphones as a go-between for its $280 WF-1000XM4 professional noise-canceling earbuds and its starter $100 WF-C500S models. Designed as a noise-canceling version of Sony’s preexisting LinkBuds ($180), the LinkBuds S were built so Gen Z users would never have to turn them off—switching from music to ambient noise to calls and back based on activity.

“It’s more than a product, it’s a lifestyle,” said Maya Wasserman, Sony Electronics’ director of marketing for home and personal entertainment. “It’s supposed to be a product that stays with you all day.”

But what if Sony’s target users weren’t accustomed to having buds shoved in their ears for most of their waking hours and didn’t see how this product would change their minds? Enter Rodrigo, her producer Daniel Nigro and a little audio tinkering. 

After designing the LinkBuds S x Olivia Rodrigo out of reclaimed plastic and giving them a marble pattern of her bespoke violet shade (so no two pairs look the same), Rodrigo and Nigro came up with custom preset equalizer settings for Sony’s Headphones Connect app that they felt yielded the best listening quality for both Guts and its preceding album, 2021’s Sour.

It didn’t matter that Rodrigo was signed to Universal Music Group instead of Sony Music (though she is a Sony Music Publishing client). Sony saw a creator with a fervent fandom who not only wanted to attach her brand to a product, but provide the ideas that brought it to life. When a brand is selling not only a product but a shift in daily routine, commitment is the core of the campaign.

“When we’re thinking about Gen Z and how to connect with that segment, there’s no better voice of Gen Z than Olivia Rodrigo.. but it’s deeper than that,” said Jordy Freed, director and head of personal entertainment brand and business development at Sony. “She’s very intentional about her creative direction and what she wants to do.”

Olivia’s world

The LinkBuds S x Olivia Rodrigo campaign purposefully looks more like an Olivia Rodrigo feat. Sony production. 

The campaign’s Petra Collins-directed ad flashes back to the house party from Rodrigo’s “Bad Idea Right” video. The product launch could be a second Guts album drop, with 3D video billboards in Times Square and Shinjuku, Tokyo, a Universal Music Group unboxing, freebies for Rodrigo fan groups, and ads across Hulu, YouTube, Spotify and Amazon’s Thursday Night Football,

There’s even a Tokyo experience for 200 fans designed to look like Rodrigo’s house from the ad and “Bad Idea Right” video. Those fans were led to believe they’d been invited to a Guts album launch party, but both Sony and Rodrigo had a little more in mind.

Sony’s Freed said Rodrigo was “literally hands-on every step of the way” and that the final result reflects her vision. Sony worked with Rodrigo’s creative team and director on the ad and her engineer on the preset equalizers in what both Freed and Wasserman considered the company’s deepest artist collaboration to date. However, Freed noted that the breadth of Sony’s work with Rodrigo was only possible as a result of trust the brand had already built with other artists. 

Constructive collaboration

Since LinkBuds S launched, Sony brought in SZA, Tate McRae and Saucy Santana to show how they fit into each artist’s world. Since July, however, Sony has been using its “For the Music” platform—most recently featuring Miguel—to imply that any artist who uses Sony equipment to make their music has forged a connection with the brand.

Wasserman noted that the campaigns above have all served the same purpose as Rodrigo’s: Showing how to use a product in day-to-day life. The missing element, which permeates Rodrigo’s campaign, is a relevant tie to the artist: a different way to listen to their music that also serves as a gateway to other features that might interest them.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘Go buy these headphones.’ It’s another thing for there to be such passion around music and the artists where anything that an artist does, fans want to be a part of it,” Freed said. “So when there is that other way to listen to the content [that] they haven’t listened to before, there’s excitement, there’s going to be interest, there’s going to be anticipation [that] brings the fan closer to  their favorite artists.”