How we got Bob Dylan, Elton John, Questlove, Fleet Foxes & more to celebrate Brian Wilson’s 80th birthday
Our video featuring music legends goes viral – over 1 millions views. Here’s how it happened …
ABOVE: CLICK TO WATCH OUR 80TH BIRTHDAY VIDEO FOR BRIAN WILSON
It was less than a month before our client Brian Wilson’s 80th birthday and we knew we had to do something special to celebrate it. We’ve been working with the Beach Boys’ legend for more than twenty years, so it was important to us. We continually update Brian’s website with new music, film projects, tour news and more. We’ve also built his social media presence on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and most recently, TikTok.
We realized that among Brian’s nearly one million followers, there are iconic musicians spanning all genres who follow him. So we came up with the idea of enlisting Brian’s contemporaries and younger musicians influenced by him to create a short video wishing Brian a happy birthday, sending it to us, and then we’d created and edit a video with all the messages.
We started with Brian’s Twitter account, and saw that the omnipresent Questlove followed Brian – he’s said some wonderful things about the Beach Boys Pet Sounds and SMiLE albums. Questlove was the first musician we tried this with. We were a little apprehensive doing this, thinking maybe this guerrilla-style communication might be intrusive. And maybe it might be normally. But Brian Wilson is held in such high esteem by his peers, that maybe it wouldn’t matter. Well, the latter was correct, because within minutes, Questlove messaged us back: “hell yes!” and then “currently onstage at Fallon” (among many other hats Questlove wears, he’s also the drummer in the band The Roots, who perform nightly on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.)”
As soon as we got Quest’s response, we knew we were good. Next we messaged Chuck D, creative force and founder of the iconic rap group Public Enemy. We knew Chuck D was a fan and before you know it, he was in. We quickly followed with Mickey Dolenz, singer from the 60s group the Monkees, and a seventies pal of Brian, followed by rock legend John Fogerty, iconic songwriter Carole King, country crooner Lyle Lovett, director Cameron Crowe and David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash. They were all eager to participate.
We then turned our attention to Instagram. We had already become friendly with Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Robin Pecknold, leader of the great band Fleet Foxes, and they quickly agreed. They were followed by Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward of the duo She & Him, hit songwriter Stephen Bishop, and the great Jim James of My Morning Jacket. We also got fellow Beach Boys Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin to join in, as well as Brian’s touring band. We then enlisted three film stars: actor Jeff Bridges, a friend of Brians, director Cameron Crowe, a long-time supporter and actor John Cusack, who played Brian in the 2014 film Love & Mercy.
We knew we can some truly great people, and it became like collecting baseball cards – we wanted more. So we turned to director Brent Wilson, who produced the recent brilliant documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road. Elton John spoke about Brian in the film, and Brent was actually able to get Elton to record a birthday wish and send us his video. We had our opening because Brian and Elton have real admiration for each other, and they were friends.
But we couldn’t stop. I contacted a friend David Leaf, a music insider who seems to know everyone. David was very generous and gave us some great contacts. I asked David if these people would mind us cold-calling them, but he said no, because it was for Brian Wilson. I talked Majorie, wife of rock legend and Eagles’ guitarist Joe Walsh. Sure enough, Joe sent us the most entertaining video of all – it was pure “Joe Walsh.” Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees was next. Barry is a huge fan and Brian loves the Bee Gees. Barry quickly sent us two messages and asked us to choose the one we liked best – it wasn’t easy!
There was one more name on the list, and we went back and forth about whether to call. It was Bob Dylan’s manager. We finally got the nerve and made the request. We got the answer we expected: “Bob doesn’t do these things.” Oh well, at least we tried. Two days later, he called to say that the request came up with Bob, and Bob said of course he would do it for Brian. Brian and Bob have a real admiration for each other – I’m not sure who else Bob would do this for. We waited a few days and the deadline was getting close – maybe it wouldn’t happen. At 3:30AM, I was awakened by the sound of a ping on my phone. I looked at it, and it was Bob Dylan’s video. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, but I knew we had our ending. Thank you Bob Dylan – this put us over the top and I knew we had something so special that Brian would be thrilled about. Graphic designer Mark London had already created a beautiful graphic for Brians’ current tour book and he was generous to let us use it for the opening and closing of the video. It really bookended everything beautifully.
On Monday morning, June 20 2022, we posted the video everywhere and it went viral. Over 50 news outlets covered it, including Rolling Stone, People, Pitchfork, and just about every other music publication. That night Brian Wilson performed in Kansas City where our video was seen on the big screen behind the stage – fitting considering it was the best and most visible digital marketing project we ever created. Thank you to all the artists for your contributions and to Brent Wilson, David Leaf and Mark London for your help.
And thanks to the artists themselves, for their enthusiastic response and participation – you made it very easy for us! Here’s to Elton John, Smokey Robinson, Barry Gibb Carole King, Graham Nash, David Crosby, John Fogerty, Mickey Dolenz, Danny Hutton, Stephen Bishop, Joe Walsh, Jeff Bridges, Cameron Crowe, John Cusack, Don Was, Lyle Lovett, Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, The Brian Wilson Band, Chuck D, Jim James, Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward, Fleet Foxes, and Bob Dylan.
A week after our digital marketing effort launched, our video has more than one million views, as seen on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Brian Wilson’s website – and more than 50 media outlets.
The Connecticut Post featured Designsite and their creating the Brian Wilson 80th Birthday tribute video.
