I just got back from a concert at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. It’s really an event that you have to see to appreciate,” Jeff Slater recounts. “There must have been 50,000 people there. For one act, Kenny Chesney, it rained for an hour and half, and everyone stayed right through it.”
Those words come not from a rabid fan who happily got drenched at a recent stop on the 10-city George Strait Country Music Festival tour, but from the vp of marketing for GoodMark Foods, a Raleigh, NC-based division of ConAgra. GoodMark’s Pemmican Beef Jerky brand is an associate sponsor of the Strait tour for the second year in a row, and Slater was in Charlotte soaking up consumer reaction to the promotion along with the raindrops.
“The best research is being in the crowd, watching people sampling product and hearing their response to it,” Slater says. “One of the things I love about being at the concerts is that it’s really rare to hear guys getting into the music and singing along. We’re trying to connect with that emotional relationship.”
So are plenty of other marketers, who are increasingly recognizing the benefits of aligning their products with country music artists and events, as well as with the growing legions of consumers who love the music. Country no longer means just Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton, long the standard-bearers of the genre and adored by a passionate – though confined – demographic.
HATS OFF
Things first started changing in the 1980s, when newcomer Garth Brooks sold millions of records and attracted a wider, more diverse audience. While tradition still matters to hard-core enthusiasts, cross-over artists such as Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chicks are giving country a new, broader appeal. Country is being heard more in movie soundtracks and TV commercials as well.
“Country music has become mainstream in consumer marketing, a viable vehicle for reaching new consumers,” states Rick Murray, senior director of strategic marketing for the Country Music Association, the 42-year-old organization that sings the genre’s praises to corporate America from its headquarters in Nashville, TN.
That crop of new consumers is more diverse than the stereotypical Coors-drinking, Chevy truck-driving yokels most often associated with country music, which is why companies including GoodMark, Chiquita Banana, and Proct er & Gamble are getting in on the act.
“What I see is that we’re not even scratching the surface with promotional marketers,” Murray says. “What I’m hearing is that companies are just beginning to experience how effective country music can be.”
The CMA, whose 6,300 members in 38 countries include not only musicians but the companies that make the records and the radio stations that play them, has developed an “America’s Sold on Country” campaign to advocate the market. It makes a strong case.
Primarily using MRI data, CMA boasts that country is the nation’s most popular music genre (although sales of hip-hop records have recently outpaced country sales). It’s the leading radio format, with 2,105 stations playing it full time. (Adult Contemporary is second with 1,482 stations.) Every week, more than 40 million Americans tune into those country stations, representing 23.6 percent of all adult listeners and 65.7 percent of those between the ages of 25 and 54.
A majority of country fans are women (53.1 percent), three quarters are homeowners, and more than half (56 percent) are in families of three or more, living mostly in the South (43.7 percent) and Midwest (28.5 percent).
What’s more, their brand loyalty tops out at a robust 83.5 percent.
In defining its target consumer, CMA looks at someone who listens to country radio, watches Country Music Television (CMT) or The Nashville Network (TNN), reads Country Weekly magazine, buys country records, and attends country concerts. “That gives us what we call a Country Fan Definition, which is cross-tabulated with demographics, psychographics, and brand information,” Murray explains.
Roping Shoppers
That’s the type of marketing fodder that sold Mike Buescher on country. Buescher is director of marketing promotions for Greensboro, NC-based Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, which operates 31 shopping centers in 22 states that draw 65 million shoppers every year. “It appealed to me right away, because many of our centers are in Southern states,” he says. “Plus, the centers use country music radio stations to advertise, and many of their retailers sell country products.”
Tanger’s first promotional foray into country was a month-long sweepstakes in May that tied into CMA’s 29th Annual International Country Music Fan Fair, a five-day program of concerts and appearances by dozens of top artists at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville. The event is expected to draw more than 20,000 devotees. Shoppers entered the sweepstakes at Tanger Centers, by mail, or on the company’s Web site to win a grand-prize trip to the show. Promotional partners were American Airlines and CD retailer Music For a Song.
Fan Fair is also the focal point of a unique tie-in with 20th Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising, a Los Angeles-based unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. On May 21, the season finale of Fox’s animated sitcom, King of the Hill, focused on the Hill family’s road trip from their home in Texas to the fair. To promote the episode (aired during ratings-critical “Sweeps Week”), Fox created a sweepstakes in conjunction with Southwest Airlines and Country Weekly to send 22 winners to the event. In addition, Fox will be on-site giving away special King of the Hill merchandise and hosting various entertainment.
“What this does is make a connection that was never officially made before,” says Susie Romano, brand manager for Fox Licensing. “Fans of King of the Hill love country music, and country fans love King of the Hill. This is definitely niche marketing, bringing together two core audiences which really marry well and leveraging that marriage.”
As a key member of the wedding party, Nashville-based Country Weekly – which ran four full-page ads touting the sweeps – encountered a similar fit with Fox’s 1999 Emmy Award-winning series. “If you look at Fox programming in general, it doesn’t really fit our audience,” explains Sheri Warnke, vp-publisher of the 400,000-circulation biweekly (published by American Media), whose readership is 70 percent women around 40 years old. “But King of the Hill is a perfect fit.”
Country Weekly’s dramatic 30-percent jump in circulation in the 10 months preceding May is further testament to the genre’s widening borders. So is Pemmican’s sponsorship of the George Strait tour – as well as the brand’s own grassroots road show, which this year features up-and-coming artists performing about 1,000 concerts in smaller venues around the country.
“This is exactly our consumer: males 18 to 34 and females 34 to 45,” says Slater.
Miss Chiquita Two-Steps
Pinpointing demos for average banana eaters may not be so easy, but Cincinnati-based Chiquita Banana North America does know there are fewer of them during the summer months, which is why the company has drummed up a seasonal promotion in each of the last seven years. This time around, it’s a Miss Chiquita’s Summer Fun Music Fantasy Sweepstakes surrounding the 2001 Country Music Awards, sponsored by CMA and aired on CBS every fall.
The promotion includes point-of-purchase displays in supermarkets and Wal-Marts inviting consumers to fill in lyrics missing from the famous Chiquita jingle. Four grand-prize winners receive trips to next year’s awards ceremony in Nashville; 2,000 others get Sony CDs.
“We were looking for a music-themed promotion, and found that country was the best fit for Chiquita,” says Andy Dimenstien, account manager for The Botsford Group, the Atlanta-based agency handling the program. “So many country superstars are crossing over to [adult contemporary] radio stations,” he notes.
You can also find Hill in a “Joy of Pepsi” commercial and as the spokeswoman for Cover Girl’s CG Smoothers line. And as long as record companies keep pushing new mainstream acts (Sony has an 11-year-old sensation named Billy Gilman in the pipeline) to attract new fans – while keeping purists content with the likes of Willie Nelson and other traditional acts – country’s tie-in popularity is bound to keep growing.
The genre is finding friends in high places, now.
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