Sony Music: First Global Music Marketing Campaign with One Direction

 
Campaign Summary

By partnering with Kik, Sony Music helped connect fans with band One Direction (1D) in an entirely new way, giving fans continuous access to exclusive content that simultaneously engaged them, drove ratings, and improved brand profitability by enabling a one-to-one interaction with them. Kik also let fans easily connect with each other and share content on their social media channels through its innovative HTML browser.

Strategy

Objective and Context:

Kik, the first smartphone messenger with a built-in browser, lets users talk, browse, and share content with friends. It’s an extremely popular app for Millennials who meet across different social media apps to connect and chat. This campaign connected the young social-media-savvy One Direction fan base and gave them a unique way to connect to the brand via the Kik app.

When Kik, Sony Music, and Sony’s media agency implemented the first global music marketing campaign, the goal was to create a unique, fun, and interactive platform to connect the band One Direction with its fans. The challenges and opportunities were to reach 1D fans via mobile in a trackable, tailored way that allowed the band to participate in the conversations its fans were having and to be the first to start leveraging mobile messaging as a new marketing vehicle for music brands.

Kik connected fans with One Direction in an entirely new way, giving them 24/7 access to exclusive content that simultaneously engaged them, drove ratings, and improved brand profitability by enabling a one-to-one interaction with them.

Target Audience:

The target audience for the campaign was Kik’s 150 million global users and One Direction’s youth-heavy fan base.

Creative Strategy:

A One Direction Kik experience on its HTML5 platform launched in conjunction with the worldwide release of the new One Direction album Midnight Memories. This specific Kik experience gave fans access to exclusive content and up-to-the-minute news on the band. Kik became the destination for fans from around the world to connect, chat, and profess their love for One Direction.

Execution

Mobile Execution:

The campaign relied on Kik to connect One Direction to its youth-focused user base of 150 million people. Kik’s HTML5-based platform makes creating unique experiences outside of chatting features simple. With the help of that platform, 1D shared unique content with its fans and enabled fans to engage in conversations with each other. This platform also created an interactive experience for Sony Music that reached the youth-centric fan base and generated viral sharing of their favorite content. The entire campaign was mobile-based.

Unlike other messengers and apps, Kik has a built-in browser and an HTML5 platform. This means that developers can build anything from stickers to games; the possibilities for creating new experiences are abundant. For Sony Music, this meant that it could craft a powerful, content-rich, and interactive experience for One Direction fans. To interact with One Direction and receive the latest news and unique content, fans simply downloaded Kik to find the 1D experience in the browser. Once a user found the 1D experience, in just one click, Kik gave fans the ability to connect with each other and the band in real time. This campaign also used Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to the experience. This first-of-its-kind campaign creatively found a way to connect to overlapping fan bases.

Unlike traditional forms of media, Kik connected the target audience with a brand in real time. Because of its position as the leading chat network, Kik also became a natural space for fans to interact with each other and discuss the content they received from One Direction. Unlike traditional channels, the brand experience continued long after the content had been consumed within Kik. Other campaigns rely on consumers going from one channel to the next, and then to social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) to share an experience, but Kik users were immediately able to chat and share with others, which amplified reach instantaneously.

Results (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

The campaign ended up driving more than one million unique installs of the One Direction Kik experience, 2.4 million visits to the campaign experience inside Kik, and $1 million in earned media value. The 1D Kik chat room remains extremely active as fans continue joining the community.


Categories: Messaging | Industries: Entertainment & Sports | Objectives: Messaging | Awards: Global Finalist, NA Silver