Last week a friend uploaded a video to Facebook about Umphrey’s McGee, a jam band we listened to in college. To my surprise, this wasn’t shaky concert video from the Gorge, but instead a piece highlighting the band’s use of social media to create a custom, truly shared, live experience. Using a projected SMS feed, the crowd was encouraged to text styles, genres, or ideas of anything they wanted to hear, and as the texts rolled in, the band improvised their requests in real time.
This video made me wonder how else digital is changing the way we experience live performance. How are other live acts utilizing digital to enhance their presence? And what are the overall effects it is having on the live show experience? I found that digital is changing and adding value to the live performances in two main ways – greater access and crowd power.
Increased Access
Simply giving more people the ability to view the show changes access. With digital there is an opportunity to spread the experience beyond the physical limitations of a specified time and space.
- U2 streamed live on YouTube from their last tour.
- Lumeefly , Chicago based hip-hop production company, moves from viewing to virtually attending the show – for a fee you not only get digital access, but the ability to chat with other virtual concertgoers, send drinks and gain backstage access.
- Sony launched “Club Dates” music series in October showing live concert films in select movie thea
ters. - The Fray Live is a mobile app that gives users tour information, streams live show footage, allows users to upload their photos taken during the show and has a light visualizer (a virtual lighter to be held up during the performance.)
Although access can be gained, the question lies in how does this affect the experience? Is there dilution of value when exclusivity and perishability is removed? Or, more blatantly, is it worth paying the high price for a U2 ticket when you can watch the same show at home?
I feel the benefits offered by each experience are different enough that cannibalization will be slight. What live concert fans want – atmosphere, shared experience, bragging rights – will be hard to replicate through a digital viewing experience. The digital option lowers the cost of consumption creating a trial opportunity for a new segment of consumers. I think both can thrive simultaneously, so fret not Bono, your shows will continue to sell out even though they’re free on YouTube.
Crowd Power
The other way digital is changing “live” is by giving consumers power to actually manipulate the show in real time. Umphrey’s McGee showed us how digital crowd sourcing can be used to inspire and change the immediate experience. Another more unlikely example is the New York Philharmonic. During a performance last year in Central Park, the orchestra took a text poll on what their encore piece should be. After over 5000 votes rolled in, the classic orchestra ended the evening with “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. Now, rather than screaming “Free Bird” at the top of your lungs, consumers have a streamlined, audible method for reaching the decision makers on stage.
But crowd power can manifest in other ways than changing the set list. Created for an Edinburgh music festival, Fest Buzz is a social media application aiding festival navigation with the ability to contact the necessary people, receive immediate feedback and add reviews. What started out as an information source quickly turned into the guide that manipulated crowd flow. Bands that were putting on good shows got immediate promotion and the crowds moved in. And for bands that maybe weren’t so hot, the live feed let consumers know to focus elsewhere. This tool created a new level of accountability for the quality of the product being served and gave users a digital method to optimize their time and experience.
Consumer Benefits Turn into Lead Generation
Digital tools have added new dimension and real value into the live experience. Creating a genuine, custom moment for fans helps solidify fandom with an active role in the creative process. What’s more interesting is that benefit received is high enough for consumer to volunteer their information to participate. Experiences that create a more involved consumer AND capture valuable information about active target members? Seems like a rocking idea to me.
Recently, I’ve taken on a few clients for which raising money online is a big part of how they operate. And while most organizations we’ve worked with and have seen out in the marketplace have long understood that an online strategy is an important part of growing their donor base in today’s philanthropy world, just a select few are doing really innovative things in the space.
Here’s a short list of unique tools brands are using to connect with donors in new ways.
1. Online widgets/microsites that encourage interaction and competition
Online widgets have become a powerful way to connect with your donor base and give them a different way to participate in the cause than your typical donation page. We had the opportunity of working with an extremely well-known brand like the Salvation Army to develop the Online Red Kettle during their Christmas campaign in 2008. The campaign is idle now until the holidays ramp up again, but this past year was an incredible success. The keys to why this worked so well included its seamless interface, the ability to share news about the online red kettle easily from the site itself, and the competition it drove by highlighting the top teams and individuals.
Here’s what the site looks like now:
2. Smart website improvements that engage donors minds and hearts to where their dollars are going
We often see philanthropy websites built on a template that looks like every other donation site out there and has very little unique content. In a world where you’re competing for the limited dollars out there, we believe the keys are to create engaging experiences on your website and give the potential and existing donor a glimpse into where their dollars are going. There are a couple of examples of website that are doing a great job of this – one of them being my alma mater, Emory University and their capital campaign, called “Campaign Emory.”
Instead of a canned website, they have developed a unique look and feel and addressed the unique needs of touting the reasons to give for various schools within the university.
Another example of a philanthropy engaging donors through smart website improvements is NothingButNets.net, an organization dedicated to raising money to send anti-malaria bed nets to Africa to help prevent malaria, the leading killer of children in Africa. They’ve developed online game called Deliver the Net and an Interactive Net Distribution Map. The online game, while simple, is a fun way to get immersed in the experience of participating in the cause.
And the interactive map gives you the feeling that it’s real time and things are happening in Africa right now. Both engage potential and existing donors like few philanthropic organizations do on their websites.
3. Leveraging social networking for transparency and cross-platform sharing
This last one should be obvious. Social networking and philanthropy seem like the perfect match. But it isn’t as easy as developing a fan page that links to your donation page and waiting for the dollars to pour in. The most effective ways we’ve seen philanthropies use social networking is to leverage the transparency it offers and make it easy for users to spread the cause. The Humane Society has done quite a bit in the social networking space and has over 100,000 fans.
They utilize their page to share news stories that would be relevant to their audience as well as setting up events in local communities that users can RSVP to. Social networking is also the platform where users can easily find out pretty much all they need to know about the cause, through its Facebook page, Twitter feed and YouTube channel. There’s obviously much more happening in this space, but the Humane Society is one good example.
As innovations keep expanding the power of online, particularly in the mobile space, we hope more philanthropic organizations pursue these new methods of reaching potential and existing donors. The old rules of direct mail and cold calling may not go away anytime soon, but peoples’ taste for receiving those kinds of communications look like they’ll continue to decline as their receptivity to new and innovative ways of communication increase.
Consider the growth in e-commerce on mobile devices – already popular in some European countries and Japan, it seems like only a matter of time before it becomes commonplace here (remember a few years ago when it was hard to fathom entering your credit card information into a computer?) When that shift happens, philanthropies would be smart not to ignore this trend of people making these kind of financial decisions on the move. Other cutting-edge trends that philanthropies would be wise to keep an eye on:
- Facebook Causes: While these primarily bring in supports but few dollars, this is certainly an area not to ignore for general awareness of your cause and possibly in the future, as a regular source of donations
- Location-based social networking: Partnering with new social networks that find like-minded people near you geographically, philanthropic organizations could quickly put together events that bring these people together to support the cause
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