Weezer – Meet & Greet Mobile Campaign
Client Overview:
Weezer is a Grammy Award winning alternative rock band that formed in Los Angeles in 1992. The band consists of Rivers Cuomo (lead vocals, guitar), Patrick Wilson (drums, backing vocals), Brian Bell (guitar, backing vocals, keyboards), and Scott Shriner (bass, backing vocals, keyboards). Weezer has released eight full-length albums, six EPs, and a DVD. Weezer has sold over nine million records in the US to date.
The band is best known for their successful singles "Buddy Holly", "Undone - The Sweater Song", "Island in the Sun", "Beverly Hills", "Pork and Beans" and "Say It Ain't So". The band's eighth studio album, Hurley, was released on September 14, 2010 on Epitaph Records. Additionally, a deluxe release of their 1996 album Pinkerton and a compilation of rare and unreleased songs titled Death to False Metal was for released on November 2, 2010.
Goals:
Weezer was interested in working with indoorDIRECT to promote their new album in addition to tour dates in key cities (Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco). As part of Weezer’s outreach to their current fan base and in an effort to make new fans they authorized indoorDIRECT to develop a contest and give away tickets using indoorDIRECT’s mobile messaging platform. The special promotions included tickets to a private show at their rehearsal studios in Los Angeles, tickets to concerts, and special back stage passes.
In addition to increasing their fan base, giving away concert tickets, providing a special meet and greet for fans the band’s management was interested in leveraged the campaign through their strong presence on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.
Why The Restaurant Entertainment Network?
There are several factors why Weezer partnered with the Restaurant Entertainment Network for these exclusive promotions.
Among the main reasons were:
· Full Motion Video and Ambient Noise Detection
· Mobile Messaging component
· Geo Targeting capabilities
· Original content creation
· Presence in key DMAs
Full Motion Video and Ambient Noise Detection
One of the factors that Weezer cited for why they decided to partner with indoorDIRECT’s Restaurant Entertainment Network for this mobile contest was indoorDIRECT’s ability to run audio in the main viewing area and the positioning of the adjacent ad unit to the right of the main viewing area. This pairing of a main viewing area with an adjacent companion banner creates an effective way to promote special call to actions that integrates with the content being displayed on the main screen. Making sure that the volume was at an appropriate level was also a concern of the band’s management and they were excited to hear that indoorDIRECT installs ambient noise detectors in the dining room and that the volume fluctuates based upon noise levels within the main viewing area.
Mobile Messaging Component
To effectively and efficiently create a contest whereby viewers of theBITE in select markets could win tickets to concerts and special meet and greets it was important to have an easy to use method of entry and one that could be implemented on a geo targeted basis.
In order to increase the authenticity of the contest, which was being run out side of Weezer’s traditional marketing channels, indoorDIRECT selected keywords that were relevant to Weezer’s latest album and would resonate with the fanbase. The keywords used were based on the band’s name (“Weezer”), the current album title (“Hurley”) and song names (“Unspoken” and “Memories”) from their latest album.
Geo Targeted Content
Airing of the special content and promotions (hosted intro / outro about how to text to win a special meet and greets with the band and a special VIP event) aired only in cities where the band would be visiting and offering the meet and greet packages. In the other cities where the band was not making appearances the content in the main screen did not include hosted introductions promoting the text in component and concert venue. This solved a unique problem that’s experienced by artists such as Weezer that wants to broadcast their videos to a national audience but geo target the messages in the cities where they have upcoming concerts.
Original Content Creation
As part of the mobile contest one winner received two tickets to a private show at Weezer’s rehearsal studios in Los Angeles. In order to make the most of this opportunity, theBITE worked with music producer, Shawn Amos, to follow the winners when they met the band. In addition to the footage of the winners meeting the band an in-depth interview was conducted with lead singer, Rivers Cuomo, and clips from the interview were shown on segments of theBITE over the following weeks.
Presence in Key DMAs
The current leg of the Weezer tour was not yet national and they didn’t want to be airing promotions on the web or on their website that spoke to the entire country as they didn’t want to alienate their fan base and make them feel as though they were “missing out” on something special.
Because The Restaurant Entertainment has a strong presence in the markets that they were currently touring it made sense to promote the tour dates and special meet and greets utilizing indoorDIRECT’s geo targeting capabilities. The “Memories” video and acoustic performance of “Unspoken” was aired nationwide at over 1,000 QSRs. In the DMAs where Weezer concerts were being promoted a call to action was included in the hosted intros and outros and companion banner that provided viewers a way to text in to win. The markets that were included in the mobile messaging campaign included Los Angeles (#2 DMA), San Francisco (#6 DMA) and Atlanta (#8 DMA).
Locations for Geo Targeted Content / Mobile Messaging
Los Angeles 182
San Francisco 109
Atlanta 36
Total Campaign Locations: 327
Total Network: 1,070
Social Media Component
Weezer has become known throughout the music industry as one of the most influential bands utilizing Social Media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Weezer’s Facebook account includes over 1 million fans and their Twitter account has over 285,000 followers. The ability to extend a mobile campaign utilizing social media tools was why Weezer included mentions of the mobile contest on their social sites. Utilizing their strong social media presence extended the reach of the promotions seen on the Restaurant Entertainment Network and helped to create a more integrated campaign.
Facebook
Weezer created special geo targeted Facebook ads for promoting the airing of the special content on indoorDIRECT’s Restaurant Entertainment Network and delivered messages to fans in the Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco DMAs promoting the meet and greet mobile contest.
Twitter
Messages that were send out on theBITEshows Twitter account were retwteeted by Weezer in addition to original tweets being sent from Weezer’s Twitter account.
Website
The promotion of theBITE’s and Weezer’s mobile marketing campaign was highlighted on the front page of Weezer’s website as the date of each concert approached.
In addition to the use of Weezer’s social media platforms, indoorDIRECT utilized its own Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels to successfully promote the mobile campaign. The additional impressions generated by these social media efforts over the 4 weeks of the contest were approximately 2.5 million.
Results:
Weezer’s use of indoorDIRECT’s Restaurant Entertainment Network to promote their special performance, concert dates and special meet and greets garnered 675,080 impressions over the 4 week period and included social media, mobile marketing and place based media. This use of new mediums such as indoorDIRECT’s place-based-media network helped to increase the reach of Weezer’s traditional marketing and deepened the relationship between the fans and the band that already existed.
This is not the first time that Weezer has looked to indoorDIRECT to develop and execute a mobile campaign. The band’s management stated that they were excited with how easy it was to work with indoorDIRECT and that the campaign was executed flawlessly and they would look to indoorDIRECT to execute campaigns like this in the future.
The most beneficial aspect of the campaign that was noted by the band’s management was that they didn’t have to air the same promotions and content in each market and could tailor the text campaign to the specific tour cities. They were able to run one piece of content nationwide and indoorDIRECT was able to target the calls to actions in each market based upon where they were touring.
