Pandora’s First Ads Feature Surprise One-on-One Concerts By Lindsey Stirling
Pandora's new #ThumbMoments campaign may be awkwardly named but it's a pretty cool effort to delight individual fans. Basically a fan hits the thumbs up like button on an artist's song and they're surprised with a FaceTime video chat and personal concert by that artist. The program kicked off with Lindsey Stirling surprising some of her fans who then had a couple of ways to participate while Stirling played so they didn't just sit there. What a great #ThumbMoment!
Pandora posted about their "Thumb Moments" with Lindsey Stirling:
"Immediately after thumbing up one of Lindsey’s songs, eight of her listeners were connected via image FaceTime for a personal chat and an intimate, private concert. Taking it even further, they were able to control the lights with hand motions during her performance."
They also could hold up a colored item and the walls surrounding the performance space would change to that color. Check it out:
Pandora #ThumbMoments with Lindsey Stirling
Lindsey Stirling's just the beginning of the program. The NY Times has more on the campaign including the web ads that began playing this week:
"The advertising expenditure for the campaign, which will appear on websites including BuzzFeed, Facebook and Twitter, is estimated at $5 million."
"Coming commercials will follow the same format, but Pandora declined to name participating musicians. Soon, hitting thumbs-up for certain musicians — also unnamed — will result in listeners receiving 'thumb gifts,' like a signed guitar from one musician and a signed guitar strap from another."
Apparently the campaign is intended to evoke the power of Pandora's ability to personalize listeners' experience rather than being a sweepstakes-like ploy to raise listener numbers:
“We wanted to create an approach that was both innovative and thought provoking, but that also demonstrated the power of this personalization to create magic moments for our listeners…So this is sort of an extreme example of the delight that Pandora creates for 25 million-plus people every day.”
Thumbs up or down, Hypebot readers?
More:
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) recently launched DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
