Roland Inglewood Studio

Conceived, pitched and established as a place to efficiently produce branded content at scale, the studio ultimately grew into a world class artist showroom, event space and co-working space for Roland employees in Los Angeles.

9,000 sqft

Production Facility, Artist Showroom,
Event Venue & Office Space

165%

Increase in Viewership
& Engagement

The Backstory

When I joined the company Roland was in the midst of winding down it’s US headquarters office and, with it, the makeshift studio conference room that the photo/video team had been working out of for the past decade plus. It was clear that there would be a period of ~6-18 months between that space closing and a new home being found. The expectation was that we’d put all of our equipment in a storage unit and shoot everything on location. It was also clear that the photo/video team needed a dedicated space that was purpose built for production, not a converted conference room. We needed secured parking, easy load in, no noise limitations, significant storage space and the ability to quickly switch between multiple looks. The search for a new space began.

The Challenge

Roland product launches were historically driven almost entirely by the creation of product demos. These demos were enormously time consuming, expensive to produce and were not delivering the viewership, engagement or interest required to drive mass awareness or consideration. My first month at Roland was largely spent auditing and understanding the workflows of the team, identifying areas of frustration and areas where we could find impactful wins. Overhauling our approach to product demos was an incredible opportunity for transformation.

The evolution of this content strategy would become central to our pitch for a dedicated production studio.

The Solution(s)

First, a new content strategy grounded in consumer and platform insights. We consolidated all product demos into one episodic YouTube series dubbed “Everything You Need to Know” and optimized the format to create consistency from episode to episode from a consumer perspective but, more importantly, to streamline preproduction and script development. It evolved from 45 minute video versions of a user manual written by and for engineers to a 7-10 minute concise overview of the 3 killer features of the product with links to dive deeper elsewhere.

Second, we sought to consolidate all product demo production to one consistent location. Instead of sourcing bespoke locations for every product and every category, we wanted to create one environment that could house all of our product lines from keyboards to synths to drum machines, amplifiers & effects, pro A/V and acoustic drums. A space that looked and felt like a fully kitted rehearsal space was a natural home for all of these categories.

Now we knew what we were looking for in a space.

Artist Showroom & Live Event Venue