CHALLENGE

Dutch cover band Allstars needed more bookings. They asked us to create a smart and cheap campaign to promote them. Target audience: potential booker's of cover bands (parties, weddings, festivals, birthdays). A very broad audience, so we wanted to generate as much free publicity as possible.

INSIGHT

A great coverband should be able to play all kinds of famous songs, sounding just like the original artist.

IDEA

We came up with a fun experiment: let's prove that Allstars is a great coverband by fooling Shazam (the well known app that recognizes music). Here's how: Allstars plays a famous song. If Shazam thinks it's the original artist playing, Allstars must be The World's Best Cover Band! Well, according to Shazam.

We created simple and short videos of Allstars playing various songs. Set up in their rehearsal space with an iPhone/Shazam app in front of them. One video for every song we managed to fool Shazam with.

We put all the videos on theworldsbestcoverband.com and sent a press release of the project to relevant blogs/media. The project got picked up and shared A LOT.

KEY PR ELEMENTS

- Tapping into the popularity of one of the biggest music platforms (Shazam).

- Doing something that's never been done before. Hacking-the-system by fooling Shazam.

RESULTS

- 40% increase of bookings

- 700,000 impressions (site views, blogposts, social shares)

- Allstars was invited to fool Shazam live on national radio 3FM (and nailed it four more times)

Limited by the budget of a cover band, we had to go for a free publicity approach:

We created simple and short videos of Allstars playing various songs. Set up in their rehearsal space with an iPhone/Shazam app in front of them. One video for every song we managed to fool Shazam with.

We put all the videos on theworldsbestcoverband.com and sent a press release of the project to relevant blogs/media. The project got picked up and shared A LOT.

Except for some gas, pizza's, a big background banner (€200) and lots of hours, no money was spent creating this campaign. The idea, videos and website were all produced in-house.

Despite the low budget, we got Allstars 700,000 impressions online, a live performance on national radio 3FM and a 40% increase of bookings.