A group of UK creative companies are set to embark on a mission to Brazil in a bid to demonstrate UK creativity and boost trade.
Led by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) the group will meet Brazilian companies and personally meet the Secretary of Culture for the State of São Paulo, Marcelo Mattos Araújo.
Companies include those from the film, TV, music and digital sectors. UK Trade & Investment chief executive Nick Baird said: “Brazil creates huge opportunities for British businesses. The UK has one of the world’s largest and most successful creative industries sectors. “Exports of UK creative services total just under £9 billion and British creative influence, including in Brazil, is highly regarded. The international success for TV series such as Downton Abbey, to films like the Harry Potter series and the popularity of British music overseas is proof of this.
“This year the eyes of the world have been on the UK for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and our creative industries, showcased so brilliantly by Danny Boyle at the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, are generating an even greater buzz. The time is right to trade with our international partners.”
The Brazilian creative sector accounts for 2.5% of the Brazilian GDP and has grown by about 500% in the last decade. In January 2011 a Creative Industries Secretariat was created in Brazil by President Dilma Roussef to further increase the growth in this sector. Additionally, a new report*, due to be published on Friday, suggests that Brazil’s media and entertainment industry is fast developing. With a growing middle class, there is an increasing appetite for content.
The report, written by the Economist Intelligent Unit and commissioned by UKTI, cites PwC research which says Brazil’s total spend on media and entertainment grew by 56 per cent between 2006 and 2010, compared to just 7 per cent in Germany and 8 per cent in the UK. It means there is huge opportunity for the UK industry to take advantage of this growing trend, and for more UK based firms to start exporting their products and services to Brazil.
Delegates visiting Brazil next week, will have the chance to hear more about the findings of the report at a conference event during the mission. The event will be led by representatives from the Economist Intelligent Unit and will include input from the chief executives of some of Brazil’s major media conglomerates, such as Globo and Editora Abril.
Among the invited firms on the mission, is London-based RSA Films Ltd which was established by award winning directors, Ridley and Tony Scott. Sales Director, Damiano Vukotic, said he hopes the mission will help them to develop relationships with agencies and local production companies. Mr Vukotic said: “Brazil, on many fronts, is about to have a huge impact on the world with the upcoming World Cup and the Olympics and it’s an ideal opportunity, post London, for us to establish relationships with all the local commercial production companies and to meet some of the award-winning creative agencies in Sao Paulo and Rio.” AMS Neve, a professional audio equipment company based in Lancashire already has trade links with Brazil.
The company is now expanding into the market, and have recently announced their new Brazilian distributor and technical service dp Union/Studio Brazil, who will take delivery of their new Neve Genesys music production console this month. Dominic Coll, business development manager, said: “This rapidly developing country has a strong musical culture, AMS Neve’s new range of studio outboard is a perfect match for new and existing talent across Brazil. We hope to bring fresh, no compromise, high quality and audio recording and mixing products into the broadcast, music recording, post production and live sound markets.”
Ditto Music, based in Liverpool, currently has two worldwide offices in Europe and the US, and is exploring a possible new venture for 2013.
Founder, Lee Parsons said: “Ditto Music is a directly artist related business. With such a high number of artists in Brazil, all needing distribution, it makes a great choice for a new worldwide location.”
Mark Gordon, CEO of Belfast-based Scoredrawmusic, said Disney Latin America had secured the rights to broadcast a 39 part children’s TV show they completed in August called “Joe and Jack”. He added: “Brazil is on the radar of every composer at the moment with the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, there is a real opportunity to create collaborative pieces of music content to align with brand campaigns around each event.” And Keith Ferreira, executive director of Silva Screen Records, London, said they were hoping to increase their business in Brazil, which at the moment was limited to mobile ring sounds. He said: “Our extensive recordings of film and TV themes are used worldwide in television programming and film on a daily basis and we would like to replicate this success in Brazil.”
“Having established our business in the markets of Europe, Japan and the USA we feel it is the right time to focus on Brazil with its discerning music fans, wealth of resources and technology infrastructure.”
Mission delegates
AMS Neve Ltd
AMS Neve Ltd is based in Burnley, Lancashire, England. A world leader in the manufacture of professional audio equipment. AMS Neve supplies digital & analogue audio mixing consoles to studio facilities across the globe, with several thousand AMS Neve systems installed world-wide. The Company have won prestigious Technical GRAMMY and OSCAR awards for contribution to the Film Industry and Two Scientific and Engineering Emmy Awards for services to the Recording Industry. AMS Neve systems are proven as the world standard for audio mixing consoles and studio outboard equipment today. All the products are designed, hand built and made in England.
Believe Digital
Believe Digital is the leading digital distributor and services provider for independent artists & labels in
Europe. In addition to delivering thousands of new releases to online stores worldwide they provide trade
marketing services; online marketing support including a comprehensive YouTube management service; offer a synchronisation service; and house indie record label Believe Recordings.
Creative Scotland
Creative Scotland is the national leader for Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries.
Ditto Music
Ditto Music are the largest Independent digital distributor and licensor in the World. The company
release and distribute music for independent artists and labels of all genres and levels, providing all the
record label services and infrastructure needed to succeed on your own terms. Ditto Music have offices
in Liverpool and Nashville and provide consultancy, record label and project management services for independent artists and labels.
Gravy Media
Gravy Media is a multi award winning British animation company specialising in high-quality animation
and stories aimed at the broad family market. Their first animated brand ‘One eskimo’ is distributed by
Warner Premiere. They currently have a slate of 3 animated feature films in development in which they are
collaborating with Oscar and Grammy winning A-list talent. Their vision is to create independent animated
films in the 5-15M EURO range that compete at the box office with animated films made for 30-50M EURO. Gravy also has a services division for mobile and social games.
IPA
The IPA is one of the world’s pre-eminent trade bodies for marketing communication agencies. With over 250 of the UK’s best agencies in membership from a broad range of disciplines and between them handle 85% of all UK ad spend.
Mastertronic
Mastertronic Group is a multi-platform, world-class developer, publisher, manufacturer, distributor and
online retailer of digital interactive entertainment. Using the extensive experience in quality focused
teams, they deliver digital entertainment to consumers and significant added-value income development, retail and publishing partners. The Group has a number of publishing labels, each focused
on specific audience demographics. Established PC titles are republished through their Sold Out range,
specialist PC simulations are published under the Just Flight, Just Trains and Just Sims labels and console
formats (Wii, DS, PlayStation, Xbox, iOS and Android) via Mastertronic. For content owners who have
their own brands and need access to retail markets, Mastertronic has access to 15,000 retail accounts
via its innovative partnership with Sony DADC, Mastertronic powered by Sony DADC.
MirriAd Ltd
Chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette and launched in September 2007 by CEO, Mark Popkiewicz, previously a
director of BBC Ventures, MirriAd aims to revolutionize product placement for the digital era. MirriAd has
developed an end-to-end solution able to digitally place brand imagery into any video on demand and at scale.
MirriAd’s digital placements have been extensively researched and proven to achieve excellent results for brands whilst positively impacting production values and the viewer experience on line and on TV.
Neil O’Brien Entertainment
Neil O’Brien Entertainment Ltd is a live music agency, event producer, and artist manager. They book concerttours and festival appearances world-wide in order to deliver co-ordinated live activity for all our artists. They have a breadth of knowledge programming live music events and currently programme the Summer series of concerts at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London, along with various racecourses in the UK. The team has a wealth of experience covering all aspects of the music industry including agency representation, live event production, venue booking, artist management and promotion.
Peter Gregson Ltd
As a cellist and composer, Peter collaborates with many of the worlds leading technologists (Microsoft Labs,
UnitedVisualArtists, Reactify, MIT Media Lab and others) and composers (recently including Gabriel
Prokofiev, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Steve Reich) to perform and produce new, exciting music
both live in concert halls, as well as digital installations (listn.org).
RSA Films Ltd
RSA Films was established in 1968 by the award winning film directors, Ridley Scott & Tony Scott and
is now one of the leading Film, TV & commercial production companies in the world with offices in
London, New York, LA & Hong Kong. RSA develop and produce award-winning Film & TV through it’s Scott
Free Division, recently producing Ridley Scott’s movie Prometheus as well as US TV series like The Good
Wife. It’s RSA Films Division represents of over 100 award-winning film, TV & commercial directors and
produces TV commercials and all forms of branded content worldwide and it’s Black Dog Films Division
produces all music-oriented content like music videos, concert films and documentaries.
Sama Arts Network
Sama Arts Network is one of UK’s leading companies which specializes in World Music and other allied art
forms including orchestral, jazz, dance music and the performing arts. A major part of the work is curating festivals and producing high quality concerts, label consultancy, recording, music publishing and
intellectual property rights. Sama represents Sachal Music, a label with a 25 album catalogue and a
music publishing company. Sachal music label was established to capture melody, acoustic harmony
and rhythms from around the World. The main focus of the label is to promote Sachal Jazz featuring
interpretations of Jazz Standards and Brazilian Bossa Nova music and Cross Cultural musical dialogue using
rare instrument for global sounds.
Score Draw Music
Score Draw Music Ltd. was started in 2004 to provide music for the moving image. In the last 8 years the
company has delivered title music and scores for all major UK television networks, ranging from drama
through to sports and children’s television. Alongside this the company has worked with many leading
international brands to provide music to underscore advertising campaigns.
Silva Screen Records Ltd
Silva Screen’s catalogue of film and TV re-recordings, classical, jazz, rock and world music represents the best in quality recordings with depth of catalogue. They offer Original Soundtracks licensed from major
Hollywood studios available for distribution in Brazil. Silva Screen including our artist label, So Recordings is
a UK independent record label offering global reach for distribution and publishing.
Tumi Music
Tumi is a leading Latin American label in Europe, specializing in Cuban and other Latin Music. A one step shop for Latin American Music for film, TV and CD compilation.
Viva Pictures
Viva Pictures in London & Viva Filmes in Rio are two brand new production companies set up by Christina Daniels & Matthew Lane to make television and film productions for the Brazilian & International markets.
Viva Filmes already has its first commission in Brazil, which will begin production in early 2013. Their objective on this visit is to make new connections with Executive Producers & Commissioning Editors from
Television Channels and potential financiers for both television and film projects.
Key facts
Creative Industries are growing at a faster rate than the world economy in general, representing seven percent of global GDP, equivalent to US$1.3 billion dollars. (Source: UNCTAD). In Brazil, the segment grew 500% over a period of 10 years, generating around 1.8 million new jobs. Until 2010, the core of the Creative Industries sector employed 771,000 workers. However, the entire Creative Industries chain – which comprises industry, services and trade – accounted for 11.8 million jobs, most of them concentrated on fashion and design.
In Brazil, the number of companies in this segment exceeds 320,000. 99.87% of them are small and medium companies.
Key opportunities
Brazil is the world’s 12th music market. Between 2010 and 2011, the recording industry grew 8.47%, achieving a turnover of 129.5 million GBP. Opportunities for electronic and British pop music can be found throughout the country.
Between 2008 and 2010, the book publishing industry in Brazil went through a fast growth, going from approximately 340.000 books published to around 492.000. Their earnings in 2010 were around 1.56 billion GBP. Also, the last edition of Book Bienal reached an audience of 670,000 people. Another success is the International Literary Festival of Paraty (FLIP), which is organised by Liz Calder, editor and founder of Bloomsbury. The festival has featured British writers such as Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan – who will return for the 2012 edition.
Design and fashion design are others sub-sectors of Creative Industries that offer major commercial opportunities for UK companies. Brazilian companies are fully aware of the necessity to invest in design in order to compete overseas and Brazil wants to increase its exports of sophisticated products. Also, the country’s luxury market, where UK fashion designers fit, is the largest in Latin America, accounting for 70% of the segment. Opportunities in this field are distributed along seven promising cities in addition to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 2012, another luxury landmark will be inaugurated in Sao Paulo: JK Mall. This shopping centre will be home to the first Topshop store in Brazil.
The major sports events that Brazil will host in the next years (2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Rio) will propel the role of art, culture and Creative Industries in general. New ideas, especially in services, design, branding and marketing, will certainly be explored.