Last weekend, we were invited to the 3rd episode of the Pepsi “Voice of a New Generation”, the televised Battle of the Bands competition that Pepsi have spent US$35m on. We have spent time and energy on profiling this competition. You can see HERE and HERE.
The show has been running for over 3 months now – regional trials in 24 cities apparently attracted over 6,000 bands (although that’s the official line – we know how few bands there are here in China, so either they were picking anyone that had ever played an instrument with a friend, or they are embellishing) – and in some cities, the heats had attracted crowds of 10-12,000 in the stadiums in which they were held. Let’s face it – if this is true, then it’s pretty smart of the brand. Filling such stadiums for sponsored gigs costs millions of RMB in talent fees, so there are some significant cost benefits to offset the huge investment immediately. This is also what Pepsi want to achieve with this campaign. Genuine, grass roots appreciation for their brand as an enabler of entertainment, an association with something pioneering, and lots of TV time (branded content – very valuable here in China), plus a halo effect with media like this here blog talking about the brand/ campaign ad infinitum.
A couple of caveats:
1) There have been some pretty severe teething problems, but a campaign like this was always going to be difficult for the music industry at large to accept it. Unfortunately, it does seem that in the pre-TV rounds, there was a genuine lack of care, attention and investment. You can read the various opinions HERE and HERE. This was a shame, because more buy in from more credible (and better) bands would have done wonders for the competition.
2) an anomaly that we noticed in researching this article was the fact that this huge branded TV campaign was experiencing almost unbelievably low numbers across social media platforms. The Youku videos of Fall Out Boys performance, and the performance of the winning song had only received 300 odd views each. We did a bit more digging and found that the Voice of a New Generation competition had only 8 fans in their Douban group! Then we found a great article detailing exactly this. Rather than reinventing the wheel, you can read the full article HERE.
After the trials, we are in the televised part – one live show every Saturday, 7.30 – 9.30pm, broadcast on the Zhejiang Satellite network, a medium sized player (below the CCTV, SMG and Hunan behemoths. According to Ato Ato, the production company, the show debuted at number 6 in the (timeslot) rankings, got up to number 2 the following week, but suffered a dip in ratings week 3. Every week, there is a celebrity performance and a celebrity judge. Insiders feel the dip in ratings may have been due to the celebrity in week 3 being foreign (more on that later). Ratings were highest during Mayday’s performance in the opening show.
For the studio, Pepsi have taken over a pretty incredible building in Shanghai’s Baoshan district, around 45 minutes North East of downtown if the traffic is light. Check out the façade, fully lit:
Of course, our taxi driver got hopelessly lost, so by the time we arrived (having picked up two local Baoshan residents en route to guide us) we had missed Fall Out Boy’s short performance. Rumours of the Fall Out Boy appearance have been doing the rounds for a while.
Fallout Boy
Foreign bands often ask us how to break the Chinese market. If you ask marketeers here in China, the most effective way to hit the masses is using TV, so we think it’s a pretty smart move on the band’s behalf to get a song on Prime Time, plus a guest spot on the judging panel. Still, it was pretty bizarre to see them hunched over the judging table, incredulous for most of the time at the mix of metal power chords and balladic vocals from the blonde Mohawked band in front of them. FoB seemed to enjoy their quick stop in China. Pete Wentz gave us this in appreciation of both the country and the quality of the artists:
When you get to a place as far from Chicago as China, everything seems awesome. You could probably give us a pair of plain white socks and we’d go “check out these awesome plain white socks. You can only get them in china!”… even if the ones were getting in the U.S. are from china anyway. Also, “the wheels” (i think that’s their name – ED: it is indeed) covered a version of our song “take over” better than we used to play it when we first wrote it.
Fallout Boy performing in Shanghai’s Battle of the Bands, sponsored by Pepsi
The set up was everything you would expect from a massive project like this. Green rooms, huge wardrobe and makeup, screens everywhere and a suitably bling, Pepsi set, with room for about 300 studio guests. The room for the bands to wait for their show was full of young hipsters nervously waiting to go on stage. The stage itself was a huge revolving disc split in half. On the front side, the band would perform live, mere centimetres from the star studded judging panel; on the back side, chaos as the next band got set up and soundchecked.
As for the talent, it was what we expected. In a country where alternative music is in its absolute infancy, it isn’t surprising that the bands are raw, highly derivative (mostly of domestic pop music) and sound pretty ordinary. Some off key vocals, lots of missed beats, and as alluded to before, a weird combination of live instruments and super saccharine vocals.
A performance at Pepsi’s Battle of the Bands competition
Pepsi and the production company have been pretty prescriptive to the bands about what will “work” on the show. Beijing based band Perdel, who were reputedly by far the most accomplished band in the trials, pulled out of the competition, not liking the level of prescription from the brand. Other bands had been told to modify their hair, wardrobe and musical style. A shame, but this is mainstream Chinese TV, so not unexpected.
In summary, of course yes, this is an amazingly high profile and heavily branded campaign. It is Pepsi we are talking about here. It is also a pretty bold move by the brand, in a country where brand managers are generally loathe to take risks. The music is way ahead of anything else on national television, and the campaign, if successful, will be hugely influential in giving status to the idea of being in a band. If nothing else, it will certainly give a certain amount of fame and fortune to some hard working bands, people who actually play their own instruments and write their own music (although we haven’t heard any of that yet – during the first rounds, it is all pre-approved covers – the original stuff comes in later rounds). This can only be good for the future of China’s music industry, and for that Pepsi, we salute you!
We leave you with the video of the winner, covering Shin the Band.