Portugal. The Man Reaches Fans With Evil Friends Digital Sticker App For iOS
By David Chaitt (@chaitters), a SoundCtrl Board Member.
Going to Ad Age Digital Conference, I had little or no understanding of photo app developer Aviary. Tobias Peggs, their CEO, was one of the most fun and informative speakers I’ve seen in a while. He gave the audience a full download on all things #mopho aka mobile photography, which is a term with which I admittedly wasn’t familiar.
Aviary powers the photo editing functionality for 3700 apps including Walmart, Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, and their own app. Their filters have been used on 3.5 Billion photos. Needless to say, they are experts at what they do. They know what #mophos want.
During his presentation, he also briefly alluded to a recent partnership with Atlantic Records for the launch of Portugal. The Man’s new record “Evil Friends”. All I gathered was that users could download a photo app powered by Aviary where special photo filters could allow users to create stickers inspired by the band. Take a look at the Instagram photo stream to put a visual to what this exactly means.
To get a little more context and detail to what the partnership entailed, I reached out to Atlantic and was put in touch with their Director of Digital Marketing, Thanh Nguyen. He had the following to add:
John Gourley, Portugal. The Man’s frontman, is also a visual artist. Along with his art collaborator, Austin Sellers (together known as The Fantastic The), Gourley designs all things visual for the band—album covers, photo illustrations, tour sets, and more.
The Evil Friends sticker pack with Aviary was a perfect partnership, as John was already creating images on his own by drawing on photos to correspond with the theme of the album, Evil Friends , and posting them on the band’s Instagram. Aviary’s technology allowed us to give fans a chance to create their own artwork inspired by John’s.
Because Portugal. The Man has always been so hands-on in all visual aspects of their music, a photo centric campaign just felt very natural for both the band and their fans.
Aviary has an amazing product with a large network of users, so they were the perfect partners for us. It’s often easy to have low quality photos/submissions when you’re running a UGC campaign, but with an app like Aviary and the Evil Friends sticker pack, a casual user can easily create their own images in line with the artist’s vision and aesthetic.
Whether you’re a fan of the band or not, it’s probably a good idea to download the app and try to think about how you can push the needle a little more to engage all the #mopho junkies out there.
Be sure to Vote For Your Favorites in SoundCtrl's 4th Annual FlashFWD Awards.
