SINGAPORE: A few hours before attending to screaming teenagers and YouTubers in a mall, Branded’s Jasper Donat was busy hosting the conference ‘All That Matters’ for digital media and entertainment professionals. This edition of the annual conference, which commenced on 20 May, was special as it celebrated its 10th anniversary. In addition to All That Matters, the company also organised the YouTube Fan Fest, which is among Branded’s newest event IPs.

This edition of All That Matters included Music Matters, Sync Matters, Live Matters, Video Matters and Sponsorship Matters, and had more than 90 speakers from across the globe. Talking about the sessions on Sync Matters, Donat who is the co-founder and CEO of Branded said, “The sync market, until now, is very small and fragmented across Asian countries. So some countries have a healthy sync market and some do not. We thought it was a good idea and appropriate to have a session on sync. I believe that the market is about to explode very soon.”

However, for the company, adding new sessions based on the growing the market is not a novelty as it has been done for ten years now. Commenting on celebrating ten years of All That Matters, Donat said, “It was the fastest ten years, it is crazy to think that but it has been more than a decade.” Reminiscing on the last decade, he said that ten years ago people were plugging their I-pods in their computers; today music is being streamed on their phones. “The ten years was not an easy ten years for the music industry. The industry is fighting its own internal issues. The majors have consolidated themselves and there are only three major labels. The industry had to re-invent itself and re-build business models. The market has moved ahead and the ‘Do It Yourself’ model among the artistes has also exploded.”

For a company like Branded which has doubled its size this year, as compared to last year, the challenge was always about moving ahead with time. The journey for the company started with Music Matters, later adding Digital Matters and then Music Matters Live. Then two years ago, it introduced with YouTube Fanfest.

Donat added, “Branded has a long way to go in Asia” even though it has done many events over the years in the continent. He also informed that the company will concentrate on taking “YouTube FanFest to new markets, not just in Asia but around the world.” However, when quizzed on his plans to expand to other countries with his B2B conference, he said that he would like to get Asia right before going to another place. Going ahead, Branded will bring in more sessions that will help new-comers in the industry to connect with the “big guys” from the music industry through Music Matters Academy.