Zippo Partners With Bandsintown For Music Merch and Virtual Lighter Tour Dates
Zippo continues its involvement with music by partnering with Bandsintown to power concert listings on its Virtual Zippo Lighter and to provide musicians with their own customized lighters for merch sales. Zippo Encore has been a big sponsor of summer concerts this year but these two offerings via Bandsintown give them a way to become more a part of the life of both fans and of DIY and indie artists.
Zippo's announcement of their partnership with Bandsintown was presented as good news for fans because now they can get tour dates in between flashing their Virtual Zippo Lighters for iOS and Android.
It's also being billed as good news for artists because now they can use Bandsintown Specials to offer customized real-world Zippo lighters to their fans.
But it really seems like a great deal all around for fans, artists, Zippo and Bandsintown.
Battlecross got to be an early adopter of the program:
"Using Bandsintown Specials, the band's management team polled their nearly 40,000 Facebook fans on which Zippo Windproof Lighter out of four custom designs they would like to see put into production, with hundreds of fans chiming in to voice their opinion. The final design was selected and is currently on sale for $29.95 through the band's Facebook page."
This isn't Zippo's first foray into music marketing. Zippo Encore's summer marketing program included customized lighters for summer tour acts.
In some ways this partnership takes things a bit deeper for Zippo by turning the Virtual Lighter into a useful information source that fans will keep using. And by offering customized lighers more broadly they tie Zippo, DIY and indie musicians and fans together.
More:
- Bandsintown Adds In App Ticketing, Shares Survey Of 40,000 Users
- Bandsintown Gets More Social With Mobile Apps
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
