Anyone who’s been to a pop concert lately has noticed that fans hold their mobile phones up in the air like a previous generation did with cigarette lighters. Beginning with the summer Clay Aiken tour, audiences can do a lot more with their phone than just wave it.
Boomerang Mobile Media founder and CEO Glenn Field said that large screens in each venue on the tour will offer audiences a way to display text messages for all to see. There also will be a call-in number for purchasing a variety of official merchandise.
“You see something you like, and we deliver it to your home,” Field said. “These are exclusive items purchased through the security of your phone, and the day it should have arrived you’ll get a follow-up phone call to confirm you received it.”
This is the first U.S. project from Boomerang and Simon Renshaw’s Strategic Artists Management, which recently announced their strategic partnership. Other Renshaw clients include Dixie Chicks, Anastacia and Miranda Lambert.
The companies first worked together on a promotion for Anastacia in Europe. Renshaw said the initiative generated thousands of messages at each concert at a cost to users of 1 euro ($1.26) each. He estimated that 10 percent of the audience participated.
“Fans loved the concept and were sending multiple text messages to our stage front screens in an effort to see their names, talk to their friends, tell Anastacia how much they love her and win prizes,” Renshaw said. “Fans were so excited about it that marriage proposals were proffered onscreen.”
Field said that additional e-commerce opportunities already were in the works, as was the ability for fans to send camera-phone pictures to the venue screens along with their text messages.
The mobile applications, however, go far beyond the live experience. The first time a consumer buys from Boomerang, a live operator intercepts the transaction and invites the user to register a personal PIN for future purchases and other products.
“A few weeks after the Clay Aiken concert, he could come out with a special offer for these fans, and they can just click to buy it,” Field said. “It’s quite surprising the requests we get from the fans. They ask for preorders, certain types of merchandise and more, and they’re doing it all from their phone.”
Boomerang is applying the experience it acquired last year when it worked with Def Jam Recordings artist Ghostface, who was on a festival bill with about a dozen other acts each day.
“We allowed Ghostface to connect with fans who ether were fans or who heard his music that day and became fans,” Field said. “We projected a number inviting people to interact -- to meet him, visit him on the tour bus, things like that -- and when you called you heard a recorded message from Ghostface. People got to hear their favorite artist talk to them on their most personal device.”
Field said that about 30 percent of audience members chose to interact, and that the artist’s management credited Boomerang with causing “a pretty big uplift” in album sales.
