RadioandMusic
| 09 Nov 2024
Radio One the bridge for international concerts and brands

MUMBAI: After a long period of time, an international act, Guns N Roses had sold out concerts in three cities in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.

Credit undoubtedly goes to Mooz entertainment for their flawless understanding of the audience and organizing every detailed aspect of the concert. However the promotion strategy was also unique which was worked out jointly by Mooz entertainment and Radio One.

The promotion strategy adopted by Mooz used Radio One as a lead vehicle where as other international concert promoters in the recent past, have been print heavy and used mass hindi radio.

It is quite surprising that Sunburn has tied up with a mass hindi radio station where the spillover to non relevant audiences is almost 84 per cent!  A similar mass hindi station approach was also used for the Enrique concert and the buzz was below expectation as the spillover to non relevant audiences was huge. This is because a mass hindi radio station cannot play out international content related to the artist as part of its programming. Even so much that the ‘special listener’ awarded to meet Enrique on stage did not know of a single song sung by the artist. Clear proof of the lack of listener connect!

Radio One as a lead medium worked because of the following reasons. Radio One delivered in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai as it caters to ‘high net-worth audiences’ who are more global in their outlook and this is important as international concert ticket prices are higher than local ones. Almost 95 per cent of Radio One listeners are connected online because the component of SECA listeners is very high meaning the media multiplier with social media works very well. Thirdly, Radio one used a combination of five stations to create city and satellite promotion. So while promotion was heavy in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, Pune was used as a satellite push for Mumbai and Chennai as a satellite for the Bangalore push.  There was substantial attendance at the concert from the satellite cities. This is a stronger approach than using ‘single city’ radio stations.

Radio One ran not only high impact spot promotions but also had a most interesting high impact content property on air called ‘friends of Guns n Roses’ where celebrity fans of GnR spoke about the band. Certain time bands were fully dedicated to Guns and Roses songs for eg :The Rayban Legends hour. A contest was conducted where local bands could upload the best cover of a Guns and Roses not to mention karaoke bar promotions to get people excited about the band’s famous songs

Brands like Budweiser, Nokia, Sennheiser, VH1 used Radio One to promote their products/service and add more weight to their Guns and Roses sponsorship by creating special promotion for free ticket give aways. Kyazoonga the ticketing partner too received a huge amount of media weight in the right target audience.

When we began talking to Mooz there was an instant ’feel’ for the music and agreement on how Guns N Roses needs to be promoted. Almost everyone at the concerts said they had been ‘activated’ by the Radio One promotion. Even at the karaoke promotions, our hosts, other employees including myself sang Guns and Roses songs and gave away tickets as prizes! It was a pleasure working with Mooz who are so passionate and detail oriented. We look forward to future popular international acts coming to India and supporting them in our seven metros.