Chillhop Music
Brand Strategy
Creating a new positioning and brand strategy to support the iconic lo-fi beats YouTube channel as it enters its new stage of growth.
Defining the strategic brand foundations of an iconic lo-fi YouTube channel as it entered a new stage of growth.
CONTEXT
Chillhop Music is one of the most iconic lo-fi beats channels on the internet, with a global audience that returns daily for the soundtrack to their work, study, and rest. But for all the love the brand has earned, its strategic foundations had never been defined.
STRATEGY
We were brought in to define a new brand strategy, positioning, and messaging—to give the team internal clarity and a foundation for sustainable long-term growth.
DETAILS
SCOPE
Brand Strategy
INDUSTRY
Creator Economy
CHALLENGE
Loved by audiences, defined by algorithms.
Two challenges sat under the brief. The first was a lack of brand ownership: what had begun as a deeply personal music curation channel under Bas van Leeuwen's creative direction had grown to the point where Chillhop was increasingly being defined by distribution platform algorithms rather than its own vision. The second was a lack of clarity: a "known" but undefined brand vision had left the team unsure which business verticals to develop, prioritize, or let go.
“I would rather have a smaller business that’s true to our vision than a huge company optimized for the algorithms.”
Bas Van Leeuwen
CEO @ Chillhop Music
Quote
RESEARCH
Listening across the ecosystem.
To rebuild the foundations, we gathered information from every angle of the brand—the team, the audience, competitors, and cultural trends. Through desktop research, key stakeholder and user interviews, a team workshop, and a survey of Chillhop's audience database, a sharper picture emerged. Chillhop was cherished by its listeners but didn't hold the same reputation among mature artists: the Raccoon character was so beloved it left no room for the artists' personal brands to shine—a tension that wouldn't hold long-term.
What we did:
Desktop Research
Stakeholder Interviews
Team Workshop
Audience Survey
Chillhop Music isn't a record label, it's a creator brand represented by a raccoon. Recategorizing the company as a media business—not a label—put their characters and storytelling front and center, gave the team room to develop IP beyond music, and resolved the artist tension by changing the role Chillhop played in the ecosystem.
Key Insight
POSITIONING
A clearer path, a sharper IP
The new positioning as a media company gave Chillhop room to explore their IP with freedom, including visual collaborations that produced their first viral videos and grew their following. Internally, the restructuring that came with the new strategy gave employees fresh growth opportunities, a heightened sense of ownership, and a clear direction to follow. The brand is now built on foundations sturdy enough to support its next chapter—on its own terms, not the algorithm's.
What we did:
Brand Strategy
Positioning Framework
Messaging Architecture
Internal Direction
This new positioning and clearly defined brand strategy informed the redesign of their identity. To bring it to life, we partnered with Australian design studio LOVEWORK, who did a fantastic job creating a system and website that repositioned Chillhop as a media company.
