Crowd sourcing and UGC are the buzzwords around marketing initiatives these days. Since Trent Reznor opened up Ghosts to create a Youtube “Film Festival” in 2008, and Radiohead allowed anyone to remix their song Nude from core components around the same time, bands all over the globe have been trying to engage fans in all elements of the production process. The explosion of the tools and distribution methods online have allowed this to happen more easily and frequently, and most recently Imogen Heap received plaudits from all over when she invited all her fans to absorb themselves fully in the production of her latest album, a painstaking 2 years of communication that led to this little known indie artist amassing nearly a million followers on Twitter.
Of course agencies are never far behind (although most always behind). Converse’s new campaign is the latest on this bandwagon with “Let’s Play”, where they enable Queen Sea Big Shark, a band they have built significant ties with over the last 12 months, to write a new song and crowdsource some of the lyrics. The initiative runs 15 August to 14 September and you can see the progress HERE
Finally, the winning songsmiths will receive
• Converse products worth 2000 RMB
• One pair of free flight tickets and free accommodation in Beijing
• One pair of free tickets for the Converse sponsored Modern Sky Festival
When the competition closes, Converse and QSBS will choose the winning application and use it in the song “Let’s Play”. They will also encourage people in 10 cities to come out and participate in the filming of the video to accompany the song.
The Good:
Converse set out their stall with 2008’s “Love Noise” campaign to support the tiny independent music community in China, and they have continued with this strategy by supporting music festivals (InMusic and Modern Sky upcoming) and many of the bands themselves (through free product sourcing). This is another example of the brand giving China’s “underground” some much-needed spotlight.
They also set out to avoid the bigger cities (as was the case in “Love Noise”), and the 10 cities chosen to audition for the music video are all second tier. Shanghai and Beijing are already saturated with advertising and entertainment. The campaign should create significantly more noise in these other cities.
The Bad:
While the creative has been well conceived and executed, the campaign itself has been relatively poorly “attended” and disseminated. The lyrics segment has been well received, but possibly not that widely exposed. We don’t have access to the number of video views (you have to be admin for this), but there have only been 1,500 people signing up to the lyrics “event” on Douban, and only 100 comments on the Converse microsite.
For the MV activity, around 800 people have signed up to the events, and around 40 people have commented.
But the major issue that we have with the campaign is the confusion created by having two points of concentration – the Douban microsite and the official Converse microsite. We believe strongly that brands should go to where the kids hang out, rather than making them come to the brand, signing up for something new and trying to force them somewhere different.
Apart from this, it is an interesting extension of their other activity and we look forward to seeing the results.
PS. Does anyone else think that QSBS look a bit past it in these videos? Perhaps a little bit overbranded and overexposed – which is strange to say, I know for an underground band. Just too much Converse, perhaps, and trying a little bit too hard…