You may or may not have noticed but last week was Budrising week in Dublin and what a week it was.. Jam packed full of already established bands like Hard Fi, The Streets and The Ting Tings and up an coming acts such as Hadouken! and Ravonettes, the gigs took place in urban venues around the city from Monday 9th April.
The week finished on a high with a purpose built stage being erected on the docks of the IFSC. The stage was graced by The Streets and Mix master Mike (I think?? He is the DJ who previously played with the Super Furry Animals).
The Budrising Street Party was a low key event with all 1,000 tickets having being won by those who had pre - registered their details online.
Having attended the gig myself (we did some work there -- see below!) I can honestly say, as branded experiences go, it was top - class.
Upon arrival (after a walk along the red carpet) there were a myriad of activities in which to spend your time including a strong man competition, a vintage shop, a shoebox disco, a falafel stand...the list goes on.
The venue itself (inside the tent) was pimed out to the max with LCD screens placed from front to back so that anyone who was any height could catch the main acts.
As for the acts.. Mike Skinner & co put on a rockin show to a limited audience of 1,000 people and with their new found intimacy had to deal with neglige being chucked at them! The band responded well by getting everyone to kneel down for parts of songs before jumping back up for cresendos.
Something that I'm sure was a first experience for all.
In between acts break dancers entertained the crowd and also got most of them involved in some way or another!
For our part, we provided Bluetooth for the gig which was a bit of a first in terms of placing multiple bluetooth pods or units at an event.
The units were fully branded and spouted out ringtones from 'The Streets' and also a handy mobile venue guide.
The venue guide was a video and gave everyone who received it the opportunity to get a taste for the main attractions of the night.
Other mobile stuff at Budrising included SMS alerts around concerts, Mobile internet advertising and WAP site for information and content and finally Bud Snappers who took pictures of everyone as they arrived.
The pictures were saved and subsequently sent out to all those who wanted them.
A great Festival enjoyed by all - looking forward to Budrising Summer 2008 now!!:)
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Tags: budrising, dublin, mobile content, return2sender
With the imminent release of Madonna's big comeback album "Hard Candy" and Justin collaboration "4 minutes (to save the world)" the pop Queen is pushing promotion through alternative media channels. Firstly Madonna debuted the single in a Unilever ad (US) for Sunsilk and now she is attacking mobile with gusto!
This time Madonnna will be releasing the new album (7 tracks) exclusively to 250million Vodafone customers worldwide before the album hits the shelves.
The tracks will be available from the 21st of April and will be released at the rate of "one a day" for the week leading up to general sale. Each track will remain live for 24 hours and then replaced with the next one. The exclusive will be advertised on the Vodafone portal and a support site will also feature associated mobile content including ringtones, ringback tones and SMS tones.
John Reid, vice chairman of Warner Music, said: "This is an innovative way to reach millions of Madonna fans around the world, building anticipation and excitement around this landmark release and helping to create a real event for Vodafone customers."
Vodafone is the number one digital music service provider in the mobile industry in Europe and number two digital music service provider overall.
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Tags: madonna, hard candy, mobile music, mobile content, vodafone
Music producing Svengali Timbaland ia about to make history by recording the first ever mobile only album. The artist/producer has teamed up with mobile network Verizon to launch their ""Mobile Producer in Residence" program where Timbaland will release a new song every month from March. The music will be solely availble to Verizon customers.
The plan is for Timbaland to collaborate with a new guest artist every month and all tracks will be recorded from the fully equipped Verizon Mobile recording studio bus.
As the bus stops in cities around the US, fans will be able to catch a glimpse of Timbaland's recording process by gaining exclusive access to the Bus itself.
Read what Timbaland has to say on the partnership here.
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Tags: verizon wireless, mobile music, timbaland
The mobile phone has become integral to the concert experience as now equipped with Camera’s and Bluetooth on their mobiles, concert - goers regularly record their memories by sending pictures to loved ones, film a band singing their favorite songs and after the event, post it all on YouTube. Bands and popular music acts are embracing the behaviour rather than admonshing it by integrating mobile marketing into the concert program. At recent Gwen Stefani concerts, as many as 20% of the audience entered a text to win competition and agreed to pay 99c per text to be in with the chance of winning better seats. Matthew Knowles, Beyonce's father and manager, said that he intends to use the thousands of numbers collected on her recent tour to pitch a variety of products, including a Beyonce phone!
We haven't had a great summer of it but it has to be said that in Ireland the popularity of festivals and big outdoor gigs is growing massively and providing the perfect opportunity for brands to enhance the experiences of revellers.Bacardi do this with their hugely popular “Live” tent and Budweiser do it twice a year with it’s BusRising series. Having everyone in one place is a great way to really reach your audience whether a band or a marketer. Mobile offers endless opportunities for advertisers to communicate with crowds of this nature and this is why experts predict a growing mobile presence of brands at concerts and festivals over the coming years.
We were helping out at BudRising this year and by using mobile the brand enhanced the consumer experience by adding new levels of interactivity. Pictures taken by promotional staff were sent to the Big Screen, numbers were simulateously gathered and the activity was followed up by sending consumers out branded print outs of their concert pictures; A Mobile Internet site was developed where people could download videos and ringtones from their favorite bands. They could access stage times and download a map of marlay park; Finally, a text and win promotion on the day, linked to purchase of Budweiser gave away 100 pairs of pit passes via SMS, which we authenticated with PDAs.
The opportunity is there at these massive events to target specific audiences and capture their mobile number for possible future communications either during the festival/night itself or in the weeks and months that follow, creating the ultimate in brand experience that speaks with consumers; making them feel welcome.
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Media analysts Screen Digest forecasts that the over the air mobile music market is likely to grow to €1.6 Billion by the end of 2012 it was reported today. This would mean the market would be worth 10 times today's value within the next 5 years. In 2006 the market for mobile music was valued at €166 Million and the majority of this was generated by single track downloads by U.S consumers.
Dan Cyan, digital media specialist with Screen Digest says that it is a very exciting time for mobile music right now as consumption habits and attitudes to music are changing rapidly. People are developing different habits for when downloading music to their phone as opposed to their pc and for use on digital devices.
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Pepsi have just introduced bluetooth as part of their US Marketing efforts. The brand is using bluetooth in 120 transit shelters across Los Angeles, Washington, New York, Pittsburgh and Denver.
The bluetooth bus shelters recognise enabled phones with it's vacinity, send out offers of a free music video and if the receiver accepts they are directed to check out Pepsi's branded music site - Smash. Also, with added coolness these bluetooth posters as they light up each time a user accepts a download! In each city the video opens up with a local hero who introduces the acts in the video.
There have been acquisations that this sort of promotion is verging into spamming territory but largely those voices have been silenced through the fact that the downloads are valuable to the receiver/consumer and so they're more acceptable. Bluespamming is when bluetooth is used to send marketing messages in an untargeted manner to any/all phones that happen to be in the area at the time. Using Bluetooth in this way has been largely criticised in the UK and more so in the US where it is used more frequently.
This is not to say that using bluetooth in a marketing context is wrong but just that randomly spamming people is (In any case really). Bluetooth like all mobile marketing works alot better when it is an "opt - in" communication rather than one - way. When the consumer decides to initiate the dialogue the whole interaction becomes more powerful and ultimately longer term. Still though, Fair play to Pepsi.
UPDATE: According to Picturephoning.com, In the first week of the Pepsi campaign, opt-in rates to download content were reported to be 27% across the network of 120 bus shelters.
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