The Europe In Synch Podcast

EP08: An Update On The Europe In Synch Initiative - with Markus Linde.

• Europe In Synch • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Welcome to the Europe In Synch podcast.

In this episode we catch up with co-Founder of the Europe In Synch initiative, Markus Linde and get an update on the status of the various projects within the platform now we are two years into the campaign.

We hear about the way the initiative aims to revolutionize the way music and audiovisual industries collaborate. Markus shares insider insights from two years of groundbreaking efforts - from innovative workshops to effective mentoring and engaging roundtables, telling us how Europe in Synch is fostering essential dialogue and collaboration across industries, particularly in smaller territories. 

We look at the evolution of the initiative, transitioning from initial excitement to a more professional, hands-on approach, all while navigating the complexities of engaging non-music events and post-COVID conference dynamics.

We learn more about the fresh initiative, Act in Synch, which aims to highlight the potential for political, cultural, and sustainable impact of music in sync deals. 

Finally, we celebrate the power of collaboration, recounting impressive success stories, such as the effortless formation of partnerships in Lisbon, and honouring the passionate individuals and institutions that make Europe in Synch a true powerhouse of innovation and professional integrity.

Europe In Synch is created, managed, promoted, and driven by several European organizations and companies and is a truly cross-border collaboration.
The goals are to bring together professionals from the music sector with decision-makers from film & advertising to provide a real-life, hands-on, learning experience, and to promote European music in the complex field of synchronization, through communication, knowledge-building and networking via focused mentoring and peer training sessions.


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Intro/Outro music is an instrumental edit of "Gimme" by Daffodils.
They're on Soundcloud.

Europe In Synch is co-funded by the European Union.

This is a SuperSwell production for Europe In Synch...

Paul Cheetham:

Welcome to the Europe in Synch podcast. I'm in Hamburg today and talking with Markus Linde, one of the co-founding partners of the Europe in Synch platform and network.

Paul Cheetham:

Markus, it's already two years since we introduced the Europe in Synch project. Would you just give us a reminder of what Europe in Synch is?

Markus Linde:

Basically, to get in touch with the audiovisual industries. That's the main goal. The core is to bring workshops to music, conferences in which we invite protagonists from the audiovisual industries, from advertising, from film and television, mainly to talk about their line of work, to talk about how music comes into the pictures, as we like to call it. Because on conferences you have those sessions where you bring in music supervisors from America, mainly the big shots who've done running up that hill and all those iconic syncs. But we tend to forget that syncs are done on a regional level as well and not every sync is as sexy as an Apple or a Disney ad or something like that. There's things for local film production, television productions and all that stuff, and this is where sync starts for most protagonists. On a regional level. We're not just talking Germany or other, let's say, developed markets. We're talking smaller countries where music industry, audiovisual industries are not that developed, where these things have to be addressed and have to be identified.

Paul Cheetham:

What's the current status of the various projects?

Markus Linde:

We have a work package that's called Missions, where we reach out to non-music events film festivals, advertising festivals and try to start a communication to go there rather than invite them to our events. We've started something called a sync clinic, which is individual mentoring, where people can book a date with the doctor at a film event or an advertising event. With the missions we started offering roundtables at a film conference to make this a part of the program and to promote it as an additional point of value really. But it's difficult to make them understand what our goal is, that we don't want to sell them anything, that we don't want to take over their festivals and events, that we are really hands-on and we want to start a dialogue, a communication. I think the moment an event or the right people at events understand what we're about that it's about dialogue and how do you reach film people and how do you get their attention. They were really excited about that. So it takes a lot of effort to convince people and to reach people outside our music bubble.

Paul Cheetham:

Yeah, so you're saying once people understand the concept, then they're very positive and want to get behind it? Yeah, totally.

Markus Linde:

I think we have so many good things speaking for us and this is slowly taking shape. We've learned a few lessons in the first year. Conferences have developed after COVID. It's more challenging and more demanding from the content point of view. We have very quickly found out that it takes a high degree of professionalization. It's not just going there and have a chat with some people. It's really preparation, curation, scouting the people and all that. So the abstract excitement in the beginning has been substituted by a more sober excitement, or sober idealism these days, after two years. Two years doesn't sound long, but we're halfway through the project already and we've achieved something already on the way.

Paul Cheetham:

So we've done a series of podcasts on the Europe Insync platform and we've been talking with music supervisors, agents, publishers, and it seems there's this disconnect or lack of joined up thinking within the industry about how to come closer together and pass on the know-how and understand what each person does in this chain. So what you're offering with this initiative is pretty much what everyone would like to see. It's exactly what's necessary to help the industry as a whole.

Markus Linde:

I think when you look at conference programs and they talk about SYNC and what is the future of SYNC, all these big questions, and I think what is the USP of what we're doing is that we are so hands on.

Markus Linde:

It appeals to people in the business who are serious about their profession, who want to learn, who want to expand their horizons, and we create opportunities, we create dialogue and that may sound simple, but it is the dialogue between different industries and different mentalities. Music always thinks it's most important. Film has every right to think that they are most important. It's genetically implied that the advertising people are the most important. Film has every right to think that they are most important. It's genetically implied that the advertising people are the most important. So to take everyone by the hand and say, look, there's great opportunities in working together and creating something interesting out of a dialogue where you can find out how to use music in your project, in your creative work, it's what everybody wants. It's as simple as that. But sometimes, as we know, the simple things are the most difficult to achieve. And this is where we come in. And when you see how people leave our workshops, we get them to talk and to network and to expand their horizons.

Paul Cheetham:

I remember when we did the first podcast two years ago where we were talking about how conference events go for the big picture as part of their conference subjects. They don't have time to drill down. If there's a 45-minute talk, that's it. But you break that subject down as far as it can be broken down and you focus on the day-to-day of what all that means and get into the detail of it.

Markus Linde:

Conferences have every right to have a different goal, because the program has to look good, has to make sense, has to tick all the right boxes and everything. And of course, it looks better to have an international angle. And it's easy to forget, especially in smaller territories, that you have a smaller community of people in the creative businesses whose main goal is to promote their catalogs first on a domestic level. Especially with the small conferences, they often try to look internationally minded or orientated and you help them focus their attention on the domestic requirements, on the domestic landscape, which is sometimes much more professional than they would expect because they are looking somewhere else rather than right at their own doorsteps. And the same goes for the audiovisual industries in those countries. You tell them look, you have Netflix productions here, you have international campaigns coming from your country, you have a great gaming landscape in your country. We know we've invited all those people from America and maybe we could have looked right at our doorsteps and found someone interesting here. So we try to make a point with that. We try to find the local experts to address the local challenges and to speak the local language. That's really an important thing.

Markus Linde:

One of our greatest achievements has been the workshops and the sessions that we've done in Slovenia been the workshops and the sessions that we've done in Slovenia, small country but with a very professional advertising industry, with the professional film industry, with the small music industry. But they've never really worked together and we were supported by people on the ground in Slovenia to get protagonists from the advertising world to attend our workshops there. And on the second workshop that we did, we had more advertising people in the workshop than music people, which was absolutely amazing. And when we got to the point in the discussion they said for them and their clients it would make much more sense to work with local music, to work with domestic artists. So if you use local music in a high profile commercial for a local brand, people will take note and will see that it's more authentic than going for a Coldplay track or whatever. It would have an impact on the artist's career, it would be an extra story to tell and all that. So we got to that point in the workshop and they committed themselves and said we have to look closer at that point and we have to convince our clients, the brands, that they should look at the local landscape and use local artists. And they committed themselves to do that and committed themselves to support the local music landscape as well.

Markus Linde:

So we did several follow-ups in Slovenia. The year after that we did a session where three agencies supplied us with real-life music briefs for commercials to go as a project through the motions of a proper pitch, to make it work for local artists who've never been in a professional pitch to sign the NDA, read the brief, submit the music, find the right, right formats, clear the rights and all that and in the end get professional feedback from the agencies. And it was a great experience for everyone. The agencies were happy and they started to support the local music landscape.

Markus Linde:

Plus and this is the story which I love to tell more, one of the music managers who was in that workshop decided on the spot to become the first Slovenian music supervisor. He's been in business since then. He does lots of campaigns, he does TV work locally. He is very much engaged in the communication between film television on one side, music on the other side, in politics, the dialogue with the PROs and the music and the audiovisual side. He's co-curated several sessions that we've done talks with directors, talks with film schools. That's the kind of feedback and the kind of result and impact that you can hope for. But you cannot expect it, and it makes me proud to have achieved that and we're trying to take this as a benchmark for other sessions in other countries as well. But to see that it can be done and to see that the formula works once it is understood is extremely rewarding.

Paul Cheetham:

Yeah, that's definitely the kind of impact that you want the project to have. I was going to ask how has the initiative been welcomed by people?

Markus Linde:

It's been great how the initiative has become accepted and honoured really by the music conferences all over Europe. We're halfway through the project now. We've done eight workshops. We have to do 16 in the four years, which doesn't sound a lot, but for every workshop we're going there first the year prior to the workshop to get a feeling for the lay of the land, of the local mentality, identify some protagonists of the different businesses, sit on a panel, meet people and stuff like that. Then there's a lot of follow-up to do because of the impact that the sessions have.

Markus Linde:

Can you come again, can you moderate a panel, can you help curate something? And it's suddenly 50 or 60 workshop sessions. So I think we're just starting to become more and more popular, more and more in demand of the music events. Where we would like to become more popular is the non-music events, what I talked about earlier, to get people to understand and be interested. We're learning with every event. We're happy about the successes that we're getting there, but it's hard work. It's more work than we had expected in the first place.

Paul Cheetham:

And where do you think that the biggest improvements can be made to the project as a whole or any part of the project?

Markus Linde:

It's difficult to say where improvements could be made. We have found challenges on the way that we hadn't expected before. One of the biggest challenges is budget. When we started out creating the project pre-COVID hotel prices, travel prices everything has become much more expensive. But once you've done your application, you've handed in your numbers and plans. There's no coming back and saying we've just found out that we need another 50% of that money to make it work. So it is extremely challenging to work with the money that we have. It takes much more individual contribution from the partners.

Markus Linde:

I think every one of us is handing in more than we expected before because we believe in the project and there's no turning back, there's no doing things half-baked, so that is something that you could not have foreseen. So we have to live with that and work with that. Another thing was sustainable travel. I would love to go to places by train rather than flying. I've been going to line check in Italy, to Slovenia, to all those places by train Impossible these days. It's getting more and more expensive, the schedules don't work together and you suddenly find yourself to be a very unsustainable traveler. That's not a good feeling and if we look out to act in sync in Athens, an element of our project which is addressing sustainability. It's almost I wouldn't say funny, but it's surreal that we are facing those challenges these days, but it also shows how important it is to address those things as well.

Paul Cheetham:

Absolutely. You mentioned Act in Sync. This is a new initiative within the project. Do you want to explain a little bit what Act in Sync is?

Markus Linde:

As you say, it is a project within the project. Do you want to explain a little bit what ACT in Sync is? As you say, it is a project within the project. The work package originally said that Europe in Sync wants to create their own annual event like a boutique sync-centered event for Europe, not so much from the music industry or from the advertising industry or something, but from a sync point of view. And when we started out at Reeperbahn two years ago, nils Bockwart, who is in charge of that work package, said guys, it's one thing to do an annual event, but, to be honest, who needs another conference? Who needs another award? We have a war going on. That was starting two years ago.

Markus Linde:

We have climate change and political challenges all over Europe and within all this, we have brands, we have films, we have media who use music and it is a great opportunity to make the music landscape consider who they are working with in terms of brands when it comes to sync and make the brands aware that the music is more than just a sound, it's an attitude. Artists are outspoken about political things, so you get much more than just the music. So to raise awareness in the sync landscape how music can make a point politically and culturally, and what can we contribute in terms of making people aware not just people within the industry, but outside, the regular punters, like when Coldplay used their position in order to make the audiences aware of sustainability courses. Tens of thousands of their fans would not have thought about similar things if it hadn't been for them, and there's no reason to be cynical about it. I think they're quite authentic and that was a subject in our first meeting last year in Berlin.

Markus Linde:

Can the world of SYNC raise money for sustainable course? Can we go ahead and say, 1% of every SYNC deal, of the fee that the client that the agency pays, it has to be an extra 1% for a sustainable course. To start a discussion about that, what that could mean. Could we get a music industry behind a scheme like that in order to demand this from our clients? It's very idealistic, but it has the potential to also become very realistic. I think it's so important to raise these questions and to address subjects like that and it's great to see this accepted by conferences. Suddenly, there's an interest in there. It's not just hot air and Nies is doing an amazing job there with his team, the attention that he is getting the recognition that he is getting within one year or so for that project, so I hope that this will gain respect and recognition beyond what Europe NSYNC is doing.

Paul Cheetham:

Very good Act. Nsync, your own conference event that'll take place in Athens at the end of October.

Markus Linde:

That's right. We're going to Athens this year. We were in Berlin for the first edition. We're going to Athens this year. Greece is a great place, with all the challenges the country has been facing for the last 10, 15 years. We see a music landscape, we see a cultural landscape, with all the challenges there. It's a great place to be and we need to go. We see a music landscape, we see a cultural landscape, with all the challenges there. It's a great place to be and we need to go where we see the challenges and where we feel that we can achieve something. We have found a great supportive partner in Athens Music Week, where we were earlier this year. We're really looking forward to that conference, to that gathering of like-minded people.

Paul Cheetham:

Well, we have Reeperbaum Festival coming up next week, followed then by Acting Sync in Athens. What other events are you planning to attend?

Markus Linde:

I have a list of 10 events. I have started in early September already with Mastering the Music Business in Bucharest. I've been to SHIP in Croatia. I'll be going to so Alive in Sofia. Palma de Mallorca for Fira B, which is a small but very, very interesting music conference addressing the Balearic landscape there, and we're doing a workshop about music in film there. They have a fantastic music landscape and there are film productions there and it's never happened that they've entered into a dialogue. So that will be on a very small but hopefully efficient scale to address these things.

Markus Linde:

Missions is going to Iceland at the same time to prepare a workshop there for next year. I'll be going to Macedonia for PIN, a small conference invited by them also in order to prepare next year's workshop, linecheck. We're not doing a workshop there this year but I'm invited to co-curate the sync element of the conference and we are in the middle of talks about the program, about who to invite to come up with something really special in that connection. And, as I said, linecheck has always been very, very good for our course and great partners as a conference and also being invited to Poland to talk about educational schemes in the music and audiovisual landscape. So there's at least 10 in the second half of this year, including Reeperbahn.

Paul Cheetham:

A positive that came up there is how Europe in sync actually has become a go-to place for cultural offices, music export offices, conference events. They have a place now they can come to to find out more about the business of sync.

Markus Linde:

Theoretically that's correct. It would be great to have that recognition to not just be nice and competent contributors to programs, but a continuous institution where cultural offices, export offices and also initiatives from the audiovisual industries would naturally go to when they have subjects in the widest sense to discuss and also to see how a project like this can be handled. I can see that the Canadian music publishers are extremely interested in talking with us about what we're achieving with the workshops and how we bring together the industries, and it's great to get this recognition from outside and being recognized not just as a four-year project but as an institution. You're right in that, yes.

Paul Cheetham:

And your initial idea of bringing individuals together to create a collective has really worked. It's made you into an effective, solid group. So the idea of joining forces that's been successful, hasn't it?

Markus Linde:

Yeah, when Nuno and I were sitting together in Lisbon to put shape to that application and we found out that we needed at least five partners for a project of that size, it took us about five minutes to identify the people who we would like to partner with and no one said no, which was also great. That always makes you stronger as a team to see that we have one of the greatest combination of people you can imagine or want to work with in the first place. Everyone in Europe in Sing is such a great person in the first place, but the institutions as well. What a bunch of people, what achievements, the professionalism, the attitude. You cannot wish for better people to work with. We are part of Europe in Sync because we love what we're doing, we believe in the cause and we want to contribute something to that matter and to have these people and work with them and have them as partners in Europe in Sync. That's fantastic.

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