One of Africa’s foremost marketing communications groups, X3M Ideas, has announced the launch of its music album titled ‘The Xperiment’, released over the weekend.
With the release of the album, X3M Ideas breaks establishes the record for having the first musical body of work in Nigeria featuring only employees of a creative agency.
This came as part of its activities to celebrate the company’s 10th year in business, last year. Some of the songs on the album were performed by some of the staff at the grand ball which climaxed a ten-week-long anniversary celebration for the agency.
The album was produced by music connoisseur and GCEO of the X3M Ideas Group, Steve Babaeko, and was created by the staff of X3M ideas. The Xperiment resonates with the collective creativity of X3M Ideas Group and its long-term relationship with the Nigerian music scene. X3M Music, a record label founded by Steve Babaeko has produced a broad range of artists, especially in the alternative music genre including Praiz, Simi, Sammy, and D’Truce.
The All-Staff album consists of eight songs and no fewer than five videos had been shot from the project. These include “Tanana”, “Soco,” “Cypher,” “Flex,” and “Broken No More.” The songs and music videos would be syndicated across various entertainment platforms for streaming and downloads.
Speaking on the project, Steve Babaeko, Founder and CEO said, “The Xperiment album is proof that our workplace at X3M Ideas is not built on cold efficiency. The album is a product of teamwork, collaboration and a show of versatility.”
“We have a work-play culture which brings out the best in the team. At 10, X3M is brewing with innovative ideas that will change the practice of advertising across borders.”
Speaking on the process, the Executive Creative Director, Mike Miller adds, “Everyone on the project has a day job as an advertising person; copywriter, art director, brand manager, digital strategist and media strategist, among others. It was fascinating to see how focused they were on creatively linking their ideas and thoughts together, and most importantly, having fun.”
“Flex was the first song created and it was good. We loved it and from there, one song became an album of 5 songs, which then became an album.”
With a renewed focus on conquering new markets across the globe, the creative agency built on ingenious ideas is committed to building on its achievements and becoming a top 10 global creative solution provider by 2025.
To mark its 10th anniversary, the pan-African creative communications company pulled off a 10-week-long celebration, where its content platform called Xstream was launched as a potpourri of sports, fashion, games/comedy, and talk shows as well as the sale of NFTs to support mental health causes.
The agency also hosted a challenge tagged ‘Idea Hackathon’, where individuals or teams from across the marketing communications industry identified existing problems relating to the industry and pitched scalable ideas/solutions to combat these problems. Nigerian Digital Strategist, Abiola Waltz Tosin emerged the winner and went home with a one million Naira cash prize.
X3M Ideas’ ten-year journey began on August 1, 2012, when Nigerian music executive and creative director, Steve Babaeko decided to help businesses cut through the clutter in marketing communications.
His deep consumer insight is traceable to his 23-year-old advertising career starting from various leading advertising firms such as Mc&A Saatchi & Saatchi and later, Prima Garnet Ogilvy. The Theatre Arts graduate then set the stage for a new chapter in his career in advertising.
For this, X3M Ideas was born. To find the ‘X’, the agency would identify the business problem from the consumer’s perspective, identify white spaces within the context of the market and competitors and then probe a brand’s genetic makeup to discover the intrinsic elements true to the brand to secure the brand constant. From being an indigenous grown advertising agency, X3M has since grown to become a Pan-African brand, securing offices in Kenya, Congo Brazzaville South Africa and Zambia. The company also recently opened up in the Middle East with operations in Dubai.