HMV’s name jumped out at us during a trawl through the music headlines a week or so back. If you didn’t see it the entertainment retailer announced it would be taking advantage of empty real-estate in the recession-hit high street to open temporary pop-up stores in some of the UK’s mid-sized towns. Hats off to this great idea to cope with Christmas demand.But there’s no reason should this type of initiative should be confined to traditional retailers. While the concept of pop-up stores is not new, taking this principle and applying it to the world of music and brands might have some interesting consequences. What better way to drive awareness and engagement than by making a splash on the nation’s high street? Don’t wait for the customers to come to you, go and find them.Take a music service rollout that is struggling to gain traction. A simple pop-up demonstration store with some smart incentives and maybe a few bands would almost certainly draw a crowd. Alternatively a clothing brand with a music campaign in full swing could easily replicate the HMV model and establish a physical presence nationwide to support its core activity. There would be space for live music, unique dressing of the location and bespoke promotions that might not be feasible in the permanent stores. Flexibility has to be the key advantage here.Maybe we’re too focused on the virtual world and not enough on the real world on our doorstep. There must be logic in trading the social network site that’s attract a handful of would-be customers, for a pop-up store that brings your brand activity to life on the high street.Is this reality of a pop-up music brand experiences viable? As with anything it would depend on a lot of factors to consider – location, budgets, proximity of your target audience – but there’s no reason to think it won’t happen on a high street near you soon. Watch that empty space
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Vodafone is building upon it's presence in the micro-blogging platform Twitter in an attempt to drive traffic to its Vodafone Music store. The mobile operator has created a new service which it is billing as the "first-ever interactive real-time top 40 chart for music lovers". Making use of Twitter's 'hashtag' capabilities, users add the artist and track name that they are listening to, proceeded by the RealTop40 hashtag. These votes are aggregated on the realtimetop40.com website, where a constantly updating top 40 list sits and of course all tracks can be purchased from the Vodafone Music webstore.The headline-grabbing, investment-driving phenomena that is Twitter has stamped it's place firmly into the Zeitgeist. From Obama to Stephen Fry it's hooked an estimated 10m users worldwide, claiming consistent year on year growth of 1000%. If MySpace is synonymous with music and Facebook for friends. Twitter is about opinion and soap-boxing. What's more, researchers at Penn State University found that 20% of tweets are about brands, so harnessing and shaping the platform's chit-chat (and making it positive) has never been so vital.Along the same lines as wearehunted.com, the Real Top 40 is a neat activation. Music has broad appeal and people are willing express their opinions on it, so the activation is inherently viral. Moreover it makes use of the Twitter's hashtag functionality and carefully, almost surreptitiously mobilizes Twitterers off-site for a soft-sell with relevance.Four tips for mobilizing those Tweeters:1. Give them a reason to engageDeliver an activation that is interactive and go for instant gratification, Tweeters want to be a part of something there and then.2. Make it viralOf course the realm of Twitter is inherently viral, but build in broad appeal to your activation to ensure it echos.3. No one likes a pushy brandAllow the users to own it and let your brand take the back seat. This is their territory so be respectful. In the case of Vodafone's activation there is no company name grandstanding. The branding amounts to a logo on the website.4. Offer, don't sellOf course there is an end game to all this, but again don't be too pushy. The 'offer' should have relevance.
Recently music blog aggregator Hype Machine blacklisted 40 artists accusing them of creating fake accounts to manipulate its popular song rating in order to inflate the ‘Hype’ around them. This raises several questions. How much difference is there between fake and genuine hype and how can you build not only hype but engagement around music on social networks? From my experience of sponsorship I know the following scenario only too well. An agency creates a music programme for a brand and sets up the now obligatory MySpace and Facebook page. Within minutes there is an email circulated asking you to befriend the event or join the group, and to add a comment to the wall to enthuse just how good this event really is.All fake hype of course. You could argue all pretty harmless unless the intended target audience cottons on. Let’s face it in most cases this fake hype is painfully transparent especially when the 50 something finance director rocks up and joins in.Assuming you decided not to pursue this overtly fake hype route, the very next step may well be to brief the appointed PR agency to – you’ve guessed it, generate some hype. Not to say your event isn’t great, but let’s face it there is certainly a large element of fake hype driving your PR campaign and if the editor buys it to be genuine enough it will probably make it to press. This is great but “I want genuine fan engagement“ you can hear the brand manager saying. Now the challenge really begins. Once you have waded through your wall comments and removed the ‘Check out my band’ plugs how much positive and meaningful engagement can you really find?How to building genuine music engagement & hype online:1. Have a story: communicate why you are involved in music and your role from the start and continue to communicate it.2. Don’t waste time on fake friends: focus on quality over quantity, avoid creating your own clutter.3. Work hard: frequently update and refresh content.4. Provide a reason to engage: what kind of engagement can you expect from an endless stream of factual announcements?5. Go where the people go: consumers only visit a handful of websites, don’t expect to drive them to a new destination site.6. Have an off-season plan: ensure you have a plan to continue to engage fans when your activity ends
Playing night after night at the Hammersmith Apollo doesn’t seem so appealing to the exuberant performer in search of the next thrill. Ever since the Beatles pioneered the ‘gimmick’ gig by performing on a Saville Row rooftop, bands have been rocking out in all manner of places from high on snowy peaks (The Alarm) to leagues below the sea (Katie Melua). Brands have also got in on the act.
They’ve tried it all, from unusual locations, to mad stunts, but how can they be sure they are really adding value? Sony Ericsson, for instance, invited 200 people to sit on a plane at 35,000ft with a jigging Jamiroquai at their feet back in 2007. Unquestionably a unique camapign, but some may have struggled to find the immediate relevance to the Walkman handsets. Until it was duly pointed out it was to reinforce the message that you can listen to music without limitation. It’s no coincidence then, that most of the major brands active in music are all vying to find a more unusual place to host a gig, and all conveying the message that live music can be taken literally anywhere.
However, is this message getting lost amidst the gimmick itself? If you really have to choose an ‘original’ location, then do as Carling did when they invited fans to see their favourite bands play at festivals around the UK in the back of Carling’s refrigerated trucks. The gigs were an ancillary but popular part of the ‘Strike it Cold’ campaign and the Carling Cold Beer Amnesty, which all reinforced the unifying product message that ‘quality’ is best served cold.
Similarly T-Mobile ‘s ‘impromptu’ Pink performance for the ‘sing-along’ in Trafalgar Square was a well timed performance, following the hype from the flash mob dance in Liverpool St Station, that fitted rather snuggly into the ‘Life’s for Sharing’ campaign. Alternatively, if gigging in a manhole isn’t your thing, take things digital. YouTube hosted the world’s first collaborative online symphony concert, which invited musicians from all round the world to enter with the chance to play at Carnegie Hall in New York. The entire campaign was hosted, submitted and performed on YouTube allowing it to showcase its viral abilities and its wealth of credible content that goes well beyond wedding dances and two legged dogs.
A well planned stunt can unify a campaign and showcase your brand’s product and messaging very effectively. If finding a new location is what your brand needs it should complement a larger campaign and not be standalone. The key to capitialising on the inventiveness of a particular promotion is in maintaining a clear lead back to what makes the product itself unique. Full articles and comments are included in the new FRUKT Music Intelligence Report. To find out more visit www.fruktmusic.com. You can also follow us at twitter.com/FMInews
Chris Heath
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