Some brands may just walk to the walk when it comes to marketing, but Skullcandy is taking it a step further and walking to the beat, with a content marketing strategy built around live concerts.
As Digiday reports, the audio brand is partnered with artists like rapper Smino for a 29-show tour, the Now Feel This concert series. Skullcandy is looking to strengthen its brand awareness over competitors like Beat, Bose and Sony, but isn’t mandating that musicians on the tour wear its earbuds or headphones.
Performances from the concert series are streamed on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, in partnership with First Tube Media, The streams are then cut into shorter videos on the Skullcandy website, which feature the brand’s logo but no products.
“We give [the artists] headphones. If they want to use them they can, but there’s no requirement,” Skullcandy CMO Jessica Klodnicki told Digiday. “Consumers today, young consumers are very savvy, and they’re very savvy about paid influencers. Obviously, we’re a commercial entity, and of course we want to sell headphones, but we want the music to be pure.”
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Skullcandy has traditionally invested in sponsorships, but over the last year sharpened its focus on music partnerships, with only 15 percent of its sponsorship dollars now going to action sports, such as skateboarder Trevor Colden and surfer Connor Coffin. (Skullcandy founder Rick Alden is himself an avid snowboarder.)
The concert series branding is also carried over to a podcast series on YouTube, You Feel Me, featuring athletes and musicians.
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