Verizon Wireless Stages Hollywood Concert
Verizon Wireless made marketing history last night with the first-ever live concert on the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles.
To support its Feb. 1 launch of its V Cast Music service, Verizon closed off the intersection for a pre-Grammy concert starring The Fugees.
Verizon Wireless distributed 9,000 to 10,000 free tickets, 5,000 of them via street teams that roamed Los Angeles in branded vehicles including Hummers and a double-decker bus with a DJ spinning tunes on the top deck.
Other tickets went to the Verizon Wireless subscribers who responded quickest to a text message. Their tickets were delivered to their phones via mms messaging; they showed a bar code on their phone screen to get into the show. (Radio station KKBT-FM gave away the rest of the tickets.)
The concert was streamed live on Verizon Wireless’ Web site and to V Cast subscribers’ phones; fans also can download a 35-minute highlights video via V Cast.
The concert, timed to capture fans’ interest in the Feb. 8 Grammy Awards ceremony, was a coup for Verizon Wireless: It’s the first time Los Angeles authorities have let a marketer close down the famous Hollywood & Vine intersection for an event. Momentum Worldwide, New York, handles V Cast Music marketing; Civic Entertainment Group, New York, lent a hand with the concert itself.
“Grammys week is the most important week in the music industry. We’re helping to make V Cast Music part of the culture of the music industry,” said Henry Johnston, VP-group account director for Momentum.
The Fugees— Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill and Pras Michel— record new music that will be available only on V Cast for a limited time, before wider distribution.
Street teams also will give away 15,000 CDs this week with five songs, a V Cast tutorial and a link to Windows multimedia player. Moxie Interactive created the premium.
Verizon Wireless unveiled V Cast Music at the Consumer Electronics Show last month: The service lets Verizon Wireless subscribers download music to their cell phones or PC, and transfer tunes between phone and PC.
Subscribers can sign up for text-message alerts when their fave artists release a new track or album, and can preview new songs. Subscribers pay 99 cents for each song, or $1.99 to download it immediately to both the phone and PC.
Bedminster, NJ-based Verizon Wireless will have 1 million songs available this spring via deals with major music labels including Warner Music Group, EMI Music, Universal and Sony/BMG, as well as independent labels.
Verizon Wireless showed off V Cast last spring on the red carpet at the Oscars, showing Best Actress winner Hillary Swank clips from her early movies on a V Cast-enabled cell phone as she entered the theater (July PROMO). V Cast launched with news, gaming and some video content in 2005.
