Guest post by Brett Jones of Music Allies:
My boy and Sprout evangelist, Joey Mucha, noticed that I had created an interesting Sprout to help promote the Outside Lands Music Festival and asked if I would be interested in sharing my thoughts on why I chose Sprout for the job. Here are my thoughts and process on how we executed this campaign and why we chose Sprout.
Let me give you some quick background info: now in it’s second year, The Outside Lands Music Festival (taking place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco Aug 28 – 30) has quickly become a premiere national music event. This year’s headliners are Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Tenacious D, and many more. Not surprisingly, big music festivals are subject to a fair amount of speculation and interest. Will two amazing artists team up on stage for a one-off performance? Will Jack Black and Jack White meet up with Black Joe Lewis? In short, there is a vast community of music lovers giddy at the thought of so many talented people hanging out at the same food cart backstage. Oh, the possibilities. Some music fans seek this information via sites like Consequence Of Sound (CoS). CoS has become one of the top referring websites to major music events in the country. They keep their site clean and simple and provide a popular forum to discuss breaking festival news and the latest most-likely-to-be-true rumors.
Sadly, one of the festival headliners, The Beastie Boys, were forced to cancel all performances after it was discovered that member Adam Yauch had developed cancer. The good news is Adam is getting the care he needs and is expecting a full recovery. Still, this left the festival in need of another headlining act – without much time to promote the addition before the curtain rose.
We realized that this unhappy development also brought a new opportunity to engage fans of the festival. Why not ask them directly who would be a great addition? Better yet, why not reward someone for actually guessing the correct replacement? Doing this on a site like Consequence of Sound was a no-brainer. What was a little more challenging, however, was figuring out the best way to do it. Because we had some fantastic assets from our design team (floating Bison heads anyone?), I decided to build an interactive quiz. After correctly answering a few questions visitors were encouraged to post their guess as to who would replace the Beasties. The right answer (chosen randomly from multiple correct entries) would win a prize. A ”super duper secret” prize no less.
Take a look at the image below. This was my “eureka” moment. And it was a little ugly to be sure.
Now take a look at the finished product below. I took that chaotic scribble from idea to sketch to finished product in about 2 hours. Seriously.
The crew at CoS loved the idea of running such a unique promotion for their visitors, and the festival received excellent placement on the site. After the official announcement had been made and the contest ended, I needed the ability to update the information with the big news of our new headliner – none other than Tenacious D! Adding an announcement of The D within the promotion after it had launched was a breeze.
Thanks, Brett. Great article!