In this post, our friends at Splatter have taken a look at 2010’s hottest phenomena in China, the Music Festival. Below they touch upon what brands can gain from this phenomena. These benefits aren’t exclusive for the Chinese market though, but apply to many other markets.
Until relatively recently, China’s music festivalers were restricted to one option only, Heavy-metal heavy Midi which has been held in Beijing since 1999 and stood alone as the only regular event in China until, in 2007, two new players strode purposefully into town. Aiming at a more attractive (to marketeers at least) “indie hipster” crowd, Modern Sky Records in Beijing launched their eponymously titled 4 dayer, and Splatter’s sister company Split Works launched the Yue Festival in Shanghai, backed by Bacardi and Converse. Since 2007, Music Festivals have erupted in every corner of China, with (rough estimation) around 60 in 2010 and there is more to come…
Festivals are however an expensive game - creating a temporary village for 1-4 days, paying local and national government licenses and then of course artists fees, both international and domestic (domestic artist demands have tripled in the last couple of years due to the increased popularity and demand) - puts festival investments into the millions of RMB (1 RMB is approximately 0,15 USD). On the other hand, you look at the ticket prices of the average festival (60RMB/day) and the average attendances (2,000 – 8,000 – be wary of anyone who claims more, Splatter attend them all), it becomes clear there is a large financial disparity occurring.
How do the organisers make up this shortfall? In China, there are four ways currently:
A local government offers to underwrite the festival (Suzhou Holisland, Zhangbei Inmusic, Zhenjiang Midi Festival) as a way of promoting the town/ district
Sponsorship fees (Modern Sky, YUE, Nokia’s Strawberry in Xi’an)
Real Estate developers offer to host a music festival on their land to attract people to the area and then to hopefully sell them expensive property (Tianjin Dreamvalley, Great Wall Tanglewood)
Promoter funds the festival personally (at Niu Yu Hui near Guangzhou, the farmer whose land hosted the festival, sold his car and laptop in order to pay the bands due to poor ticket sales)
More often than not, festivals are funded by a combination of the elements above (e.g. Zebra Festival, a festival in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, is a joint venture between Zebra Media and the Chengdu Government/Chengdu Media Group and Suzhou’s Holisland was actualy underwritten by local government to draw attention to a new real estate development).
Because of the need for funding, brands and agencies in China are being approached by most, if not all of these festivals throughout the year. But, why would you want a music festival as a part of your branding strategy? Splatter tell their clients that music festivals scratch at least 4 distinctive itches.
First, brands get a great experiential and engagement opportunity to have a deep and meaningful interaction with their consumers. Going to a festival is the most exciting thing most people ever do; this makes them incredibly open minded to messages from sponsors.
Second, brands can use their participation at the music festival to tell a broader story to the media, by buying media and mobilising online communities. Festivals can deliver huge value in terms of PR and marketing when done well.
Thirdly, your brand benefits from increased awareness as well as a positive and often passionate association and alignment with the festival itself and the artists attending.
Finally, there are enormous sampling opportunities, which your target consumer will often pay for! On site, sales can be leveraged, and most experienced brands report substantial increases in sales post event.
Which music festival would fit your brand?
Splatter is a specialist music communications agency based in China. Split Works, Splatter’s sister company, is a Beijing- and Shanghai-based concert promotion agency. Together they maintain China Music Radar, a blog about the Chinese music industry.
Pepsi’s Refresh Project has generated tens of millions of votes and countless tweets and Facebook posts in 2010. Next year, PepsiCo will take it global.
In short: this year Pepsi shunned their US advertising budget for Super-Bowl (of over $20 Million) and decided to put it into social media and the Refresh Project instead. The project has generated tens of million of votes and a countless number of tweets and Facebook posts, and the Pepsi brand itself has reached more than 2.7 million fans on Facebook (a growth of more than one million within in less than two months and still counting).
This fall, marketing director for Pepsi, Ana Maria Irazabal, expressed that “the Refresh Project is helping sales by linking charity in customers’ minds with their feelings about the brand”, and she also expressed that Pepsi will expand the Refresh Project globally in 2011 (The Huffington Post).
The Refresh Project embraces the four Es marketing model and represents a shift away from traditional marketing to marketing with a higher purpose.
When Justin Bieber’s My World Acoustic was released exclusively through Walmart, it was one of many landmarks in his supersonic career that has taken him from webcam sensation on YouTube to one of the biggest pop stars on the planet.
It wasn’t easy though. In spite of a heavyweight co-signer in Usher, the record labels were reluctant to sign an artist without a major platform. In a recent interview with Billboard, Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun explains how the labels told him that Bieber had no way of breaking out through YouTube alone. The common knowledge was that you can’t compete with Disney and Nickelodeon.
In a lot of ways Justin Bieber is a pre-cursor of where we all are heading. Justin Bieber got his break on YouTube, and currently holds the #1 spot on the platform with 400 million views of the music video for Baby. More important than a marquee clip of Baby caliber though, is Bieber’s constant interaction with his fans through lo-fi video messages and tweets.
On a slightly smaller scale the two latest hip hop franchises, Drake and Nicki Minaj, also got their breaks with very little major label backup. Drake’s Best I Ever Had, off his selfreleased mixtape So Far Gone, was an international hit last year. He was the grand prize in a bidding war where Sylvia Rhone and Universal eventually had to back up a very big money truck in order to secure a deal, and he found himself nominated for music awards before he even had an official release out.
Nicki Minaj was featured on pretty much every single remix released for almost a year leading up to her album release. She surpassed 1 million Twitter followers months before her album Pink Friday scored the highest first week sales for a female rapper since Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation of… in 1998.
So do we need to rethink what it takes to break a new franchise artist? What part should the record labels play and is there room for brands to associate with these artists BEFORE they become mainstream? Could Walmart have been an integral part of the Justin Bieber saga in 2008 instead of acting as a mere distribution channel in 2010? If brands are to be a relevant part of music and culture in the future, perhaps they need to step up to the plate and enter the game at an earlier stage?
Pre American Idol, the idea that anything but professionals could deliver content to the most important slot in the broadcast schedule seemed preposterous. Talent shows were something that the local promoter or indie label used to sell beer or t-shirts, and if they were televised at all the aura was more public service than Fox. So, what happened?
Leading up to the bursting of the IT bubble, interactivity made its first appearance as “the future”. Even though this future was mainly envisioned online, other media felt the need to keep up.
One of the first interactive formats that delivered more than the butt of a joke was Big Brother that premiered 1999 in Holland. Viewers were suddenly able to affect the programming by sending a contestant home each week with their votes. Today, interactivity has become an integral part of the broadcast business, and included in programs ranging from music to cooking.
In Sweden the two biggest TV formats today are Idol (the Swedish version of American Idol) and Eurovision Song Contest. In addition to boasting 2-3 million viewers on a good night (in a country with 9 million citizens) every episode generate millions in SMS fees and lord knows how much in advertising and sponsorships.
One of the hardest things to do is to build an artificial character that evokes real emotions. And even if you’ve done that successfully, there’s still the script writing, casting, arguing with directors and whatnot. What if you could get all of the ingredients for good TV drama by just filming a bunch of teenagers trying to prove themselves as the best dancers in the country? Or by just sheer volume of characters be able to almost expect a magical moment like Paul Potts to occur on your show sooner or later?
Authentic people bring a set of beauties and flaws rare in broadcast before, and the relatability of the characters evoke emotions among the viewers in a way most drama can’t.
Beyond the sponsor sign
Apart from being truly great TV the American Idol auditions also serve as event activation. The auditions reach tens of thousands of people, giving American Idol and any brand associated with them the opportunity to interact with their audience for an entire day. America’s Best Dance Crew has a less extended audition process, but let the finalists perform in malls and event centers across the country in between the weekly finals instead. Both scenarios give any sponsor a pull effect to the events that few could count on otherwise.
With further specializing and more channels than ever in broadcast along with skyrocketing license fees for high quality content, there’s a great opportunity for brands to get access to audiences in ways that traditional advertising just can’t.
Brand integration is becoming a standard operating procedure both for networks to fund their programming, as well as for top tier advertisers in order to leverage the effect of their regular TV spots. Some brands take it further though. Airing right now on BET is a Smirnoff branded DJ talent hunt where the “Master of the mix” is to be nominated. Smirnoff’s graphical elements are worked in into the graphic profile of the show and Smirnoff’s presence is crystal clear throughout the show. In addition to that, it’s a really good show if you’re interested in music, which means you will effectively be spending hours with the Smirnoff brand this fall.
As a promotion, the beer brand Beck’s gives bands a chance to perform live. The bands battle against each other to convince a jury that they are Beck’s European Newcomer 2010. The winner gets to play on the same stage as world famous French band Phoenix later this year.
Not so long ago, brands wanted nothing but the big bands – to promote their (often big) brands. Today however, global companies such as Diesel, Mountain Dew (Pepsi) and Converse have adopted the ‘exploration strategy’, to reach the crowd and build their own fanbases.
Many things have changed within the music industry during the last fifteen years or so. The business is growing increasingly diverse as music fans enjoy a wide range of platforms to consume music. In the 80s and 90s most brands strictly wanted the big bands to promote their brands, because only they would generate the desired customer attention and raise sales (brand managers thought). Now however, brands have started to adopt what we at Heartbeats refer to as the ‘exploration strategy‘. Instead of spending loads of money on our time’s counterparts to Michael Jackson, Prince or Madonna, brands choose to promote new and up-coming talents, the superstars of tomorrow.
An early adopter of this strategy is fashion brand Diesel, with Diesel:U:Music (D:U:M), launched 10 years ago, as a yearly unsigned music talent award and a worldwide support network with new artists, labels, radio stations, journalists and producers across the world. Recently D:U:M partnered with Sonicbids, a music gig discovery and booking website, to launch Diesel’s Stupid for Music World Cup in celebration of D:U:M’s 10th anniversary. In World Cup style, indie bands battle for a chance to win not only prizes from Diesel, but a professional PR campaign, music video production and recording session as well.
Another brand that has adopted the ‘exploration strategy’ is Mountain Dew (Pepsi) with record label Green Label Sound, where the brand gives away free downloads and promotes new artists and bands - giving their audience something more than just a soft drink.
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Yet, another example of a brand exploring undiscovered artists and musicians is Converse with its Get Out Of The Garage contest, as well as its global creative project ‘You’re It’, launched earlier this year.
New technology has definitely opened the door for these kind of marketing strategies. However, it’s not enough to only be present at places where the audience is, or own a platform. Rather, marketing needs a higher purpose. A number of brands have understood this, and they are now building the fanbases of tomorrow, yet there are many that still have a long way to go… The ‘exploration strategy’ is one proven path to take.
Sounds like Branding (How to use the power of music to turn customers into fans) is the forthcoming book by Jakob Lusensky, CEO at Heartbeats. The book takes you on an ear-opening journey through the history of music and marketing, from the humble jingle and Muzak to today’s music which is blurring the line between brands and bands; making brands in to the record labels of tomorrow.
