Music Company Expands Event-Marketing Efforts Via Partnership With Starwood Hotels

Live Nation Aspires to Be One-Stop Shop for Sponsors

by Andrew Hampp Published: February 05, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The NFL, MLB and Live Nation? The world's largest concert promoter wants to be mentioned in the same breath as any sports league when marketers plot their event sponsorships.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts will be the official hotel partner for select Live Nation venues.

In recent months, the music company has been quickly consolidating its properties to provide sponsors the largest possible audiences at concerts, on the web and, now, in hotels, through a new partnership with Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Starwood, a hospitality group that includes the Westin, Sheraton and W Hotels, will be the official hotel partner for select Live Nation venues, including the House of Blues clubs, offering Starwood preferred-guest members special ticket offers, premium seats and exclusive artist experiences. Live Nation will also encourage its artists to stay in Starwood hotels while they're in town. (Note to fans: Stalking your favorite singer just got easier.)

Merger talks with Ticketmaster
Starwood will sponsor a special "Where to Stay" feature on LiveNation.com, the company's newly revamped ticketing site, originally designed to compete with Ticketmaster but now the subject of possible-merger talks.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 4 that executives at Live Nation and Ticketmaster were close to reaching a merger agreement that would give Live Nation control of ticketing for all Ticketmaster concerts, or 70% of the concert-ticket market, according to analyst estimates. Live Nation executives declined to comment.

A merger would face increased scrutiny under the Obama administration, given Ticketmaster's existing ownership of nearly three-quarters of the concert market. The combined corporation, to be called Live Nation Ticketmaster, received a neutral review from Benjamin Mogil, a media analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco, who called the deal "positive" for Live Nation.

Growing sponsorship branch
Live Nation's corporate mantra states that artists used to use their tours to promote albums, but now they use their albums to promote their tours. That's where the company's growing sponsorship branch comes in.

Russell Wallach, Live Nation's president of North American Alliances, told Ad Age the day before the merger rumors circulated that Live Nation's goal is to become the one-stop shop for event-marketing dollars. "I look at every league and believe no one can replicate the model we have in owning tickets, relationship with artists, owning venues and our digital assets combined," he said.

In the past year, that positioning has started to pay off for Live Nation, which saw a 12.5% year-over-year increase in sponsorship dollars to $74.8 million during the third quarter of 2008. Total attendance during that quarter was also up 5.7% to 17.5 million people, a sign that the looming recession had little effect on the summer concert season.

Anchoring Live Nation's summer sponsorships was Burger King, which teamed up with Live Nation for the Jonas Brothers tour to promote the launch of its apple fries. Not only did the fast feeder sponsor on-site product sampling, exclusive content and online tie-ins, it also produced a viral video halfway through the tour's run that has since generated more than 1 million hits on YouTube.

Multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal
A similar formula will be applied to the Starwood partnership, which Gretchen Kloke, the hotel company's senior director-global loyalty marketing, described as a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal. "Live Nation opens up the doors for us to get in front of millions of concertgoers in their venues and websites," she said.

Starwood will also be able to track any new revenue that comes into its hotels on a market-specific basis as a direct result of its Live Nation partnership, the key metric the marketer will use to determine the new deal's success. "The biggest thing for us is how our members will respond to the offerings we provide," Ms. Kloke said.

Live Nation is showing no signs of slowing its expansion: It also announced a new partnership with CBS Radio this week. Under the new pact, both companies will jointly produce live concerts and experiential events at CBS Radio stations and markets, giving CBS a crack at the growing number of marketers that advertise at Live Nation events. Live Nation's sponsors grew to 770 in the third quarter of last year from 719 in the same period in 2007.

"For many years we have enjoyed a very successful relationship with Live Nation, helping us grow our radio shows across the country into some of the biggest events of the year," CBS Radio CEO Dan Mason said in a statement. "With their national platform of venues and their team of talented promoters and marketers, we feel we will be able to expand the breadth of radio shows we offer on-site, on-air and online in a substantive way over the course of this agreement."

Venture into music distribution
Up next for Live Nation is its first venture into music distribution. It has successfully wooed artists such as Shakira, Madonna and Nickelback out of their major-label recording contracts into "360 deals," which give Live Nation the rights to everything from the artist's merchandise to tickets to new albums. Mr. Wallach said he expects to announce the first album to be distributed by Live Nation in the coming months, and he is already speaking with package-goods marketers to sponsor the new kind of album launch.

"We want to see how we can distribute music globally, selling music in locations from Maine to India," he said.

Travel Wiki

Start up AdventureDrop is launching what seems to be a very, very rough beta version of its wiki-based travel portal focused on providing an easy way to find adventure travel by location and activity. The site's wiki platform allows others to edit, add and share adventures with the community.

AdventureDrop currently only features somewhat dull U.S. travel adventures. For example, if you do a search for travel in a jungle, most of the locations that appear are in the U.S., including the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Texas and the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River in New York. And the user rating for both of these "top jungle adventures" is four out of five stars. Also, the site doesn't list providers for all the activities.

If AdventureDrop goes global and can hone its searches, it has the potential to be a nifty resource for those wanting to find the ultimate trip involving scuba diving, mountain climbing or a hot air balloon. And the site has a few innovative features, including allowing users to create customized itineraries, the ability to rate adventure travel spots and form groups based on a particular adventure travel activity.

No doubt, the site needs some work. But if it can expand its global reach and use the user generated concept to its advantage, it could give National Geographic's Adventure Travel Portal a run for its money.

TVtrip Raises €7 Million More For Hotel Video Reviews

Posted: 02 Feb 2009 03:41 AM PST

Paris-based TVtrip has scored €7 million (nearly $9 million) in venture capital funding on top of its previous $4.8 million Series A round, bringing the total of capital invested in the company up to a healthy $13.8 million (excluding the undisclosed angel funding the company raised to get started). Previous investors Balderton Capital and Partech International participated in the second round and were joined by AGF Private Equity this time.

TVtrip is essentially a guide for hotels from around the globe, but centered around video reviews and enhanced with third-party reviews from sites like HotelClub and Venere. Visitors are offered unbiased, professionally produced video reviews for hotels and get to book straight away through affiliate partnerships with booking sites.

So far, the guide covers 157 destinations and 2900 hotels worldwide, and has built up a directory of about 9800 videos.

The service's main selling point in my opinion is the rich video player, which lets you jump to different rooms from one and the same hotel, offers a direct booking link, lets you view the location on a map inside the interface, switch to a photo gallery, etc.

Ever since TVtrip launched, I've been wondering why they didn't offer a way for people to embed / share videos. I used to think TVtrip simply wanted to position itself as the premier destination site for video reviews for hotels, without the option to share its content on other places, but I was wrong. Co-founder and CMO Marc Pfohl tells me they did actually share embedding functionality on demand, and that they will be opening up more when they launch their next version, due March 10. The reason it took so long, he says, is because they wanted to be able to track where the videos appear with great detail.

TVtrip was founded by 4 ex-managers of Expedia Europe and backed by former Expedia CEO. The startup faces competition from (the equally French) Trivop, Tripr.tv,Travelmedia, Hotelly and Travelistic.

Difference marketing

Vegas Turns to Reality Show Amid Recession

Ditches 'What Happens' Campaign, Takes Townspeople on Vacation and Posts Video YouTube

By Natalie Zmuda 

Published: January 29, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" certainly seemed ready-made for reality TV. But it's a new campaign, "Take a break USA," that is getting star treatment.

As winners of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority contest, the residents of the rural outpost of Cranfills Gap, Texas, were greeted in Vegas by 'The King.'

The popular branding campaign that promoted Sin City as a high-rolling destination where anything can happen has been shelved in favor of a more recession-proof strategy. The "Take a break USA" campaign was quickly developed last fall when it became clear the recession would take a dire toll on the travel industry.

"It is a direct response to how the economy is affecting people's use of discretionary dollars and the impact on travel budgets," said Terry Jicinsky, senior VP-marketing at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "We're very focused on helping people eliminate the hesitation they have. ... Many of the messages received through the campaign are about impromptu travel."

Dwindling revenue
Mr. Jicinsky said he hopes the campaign, which is rolling out now and will run through at least March, will lead to short-term visits and stem fast-dwindling revenue in the city. It replaces R&R Partners' first effort to address the economic uncertainty, a short-lived campaign called "Crazy times call for crazy fun," which launched in June. Preliminary figures for 2008 show a 4% decline in visitors and a 4.5% decline in hotel occupancy in the city. Both figures had been relatively flat before taking a nosedive in the fall, Mr. Jicinsky said.

With research showing that consumers believed Las Vegas was grinding to a halt -- media reports have highlighted the slowdown in new construction, and travel agents are offering steep discounts -- R&R Partners, the visitors authority's creative agency, set out to show consumers that simply isn't the case.

"Consumers wanted to know that Vegas was alive and vibrant and that they'd have the same experience as the last time they were there," said Rob Dondero, exec VP at R&R Partners.

To that end, the organization wanted a campaign that would be more retail-oriented, promoting local attractions and accommodations without focusing on discounted prices. "If you use price to market a destination and prices go up, the campaign you used previously works against you," Mr. Jicinsky said. "It's one of the things that people who market destinations are very conscious of."

Appealing to cash-strapped consumers
The concept of documenting a citywide vacation for one small, quintessential American town of hardworking, deserving individuals was settled on as a way to appeal to cash-strapped, stressed-out consumers. Some 125 towns were considered, as the agency looked for a cross section of residents that would match the diverse array of visitors Las Vegas attracts. After narrowing down their choices, agency execs visited several towns and began identifying potential storylines.

Cranfills Gap, a rural outpost some 100 miles southwest of Dallas, was eventually chosen. Roughly one-third of the city's 350 residents took a five-day trip to Las Vegas in December, agreeing to let the agency chronicle their adventures reality-TV-style.

The residents were organized into groups such as the "Vegas Vixens" and "The Wild Bunch," and itineraries were created accordingly. But there were still some surprises along the way, Mr. Dondero said. One couple got engaged during dinner early on in the week, and an 81-year-old woman decided she simply had to go skydiving.

Online component
An online component of the campaign features those itineraries so other visitors can recreate the experiences. Through a partnership with YouTube, about a dozen webisodes are being broadcast atvisitlasvegas.com and youtube.com/lasvegas.

The partnership with YouTube is a first for the visitors authority, Mr. Jicinsky said. He said he believes that social media and viral marketing are little-utilized channels that destination marketers should be looking at more closely. "Rather than just relying on 30-second television spots or print ads, [we all] really need to ramp up this social-media and viral-marketing aspect," he said.

Traditional media, including five 30-second spots, as well as newspaper and magazine ads, is still a part of the campaign, however. The campaign cost about $2.5 million to produce and has nearly $13 million in media buys behind it in the first quarter. Executives say that is on par with previous campaigns.

wheres that at?

VisualPin Will Plot Your Videos On The Map Posted: 29 Jan 2009 08:10 PM PST Australian start-up VisualPin allows users to "geocode" their videos by adding a Google Map to each different location in a video, with the map appearing to the side of the video. Here's one of the best examples on the site. To be honest, I find the map somewhat distracting from watching the video but I think it could be useful when it comes to documenting travel, news or current events. The technology creates a virtual-location table of contents, allowing the user to click on a marked location to find the corresponding video content. This appears to be a variation of existing technology that embeds YouTube videos in Google Maps listings. Also Google Maps mashups became particularly useful for news media sites during the inauguration; CNN, Oprah.com and WashingtonPost.com all featured geocoded mashup videos from inaugural events in Washington D.C. Perhaps NBC's Today show could use this technology for its next Where in the World is Matt Lauer series.

Keeping Track

TripIt Launches An API. Travel Sites, Please Use It

Posted: 26 Jan 2009 09:19 AM PST

TripIt, the helpful travel site that lets you generate an itinerary by simply forwarding the service your Email confirmations from hotels and airlines, has opened up an API for outside developers. The API will give third party applications access to TripIt's itinerary sysytem, which now accepts data from 350 travel sites. Developers can find all the details for joining the program here.

A number of applications have already used the API to implement new features. Expensd, an online service that helps business travelers manage their expenses, will use TripIt to automatically import your transit and hotel expenses. Popular iPhone application FlightTrack will use TripIt to automatically look up your flights to see if they're on time. And Where I've Been, a social network application that plots your travels on a map for your friends to see, will use the API to automatically look up your destinations. Other potential uses for the API include an 'Add To TripIt' button that would allow travel sites to transmit your booking data to TripIt so you won't have to forward your confirmation Email.

TripIt is a great service, especially for frequent travelers (it has been on Michael's list of products he can't live without for two years running). I'm excited to see what developers can come up with - hopefully some major travel booking sites will get a clue too, and start offering that 'add to TripIt' button so we can skip the Email forwarding.

Is Humanity a Spacefaring Race?

By Seth Shostak SETI Institute posted: 15 January 2009 8:57 am ET

We're destined to go to the stars. That's the assumption we've been making for a century, and I daresay most readers believe this as surely as they believe we'll eventually cure dandruff.

Our anticipation of an interstellar destiny is not merely the consequence of too many couch-hours spent watching Spandex-suitedastronauts in Star Trek, Star Wars, or Futurama. It's been a subtext of our space program. You might recall a low-grade, 1960 biopic about Wernher von Braun entitled I Aim at the Stars. Or perhaps you know the sunny motto of the National Space Society: "ad astra" ("to the stars"). Boldly sending our descendants into the galaxy's stellar realms seems as inevitable as teen sex.

I like the idea of becoming a spacefaring society. It's just a matter of how far we'll fare. Yes, we'll colonize our cosmic backyard; after all, if our species has not spread beyond Earth within a century, then we're headed for eternal internal conflict and armageddon@home. In the words of rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, humans can't stay in the cradle forever.

I trust we'll soon be landing people on Mars, and eventually the satellites of the outer planets. I anticipate the construction of space habitats on the moon, the asteroids, and in orbit around Earth.

But colonizing the vicinities of other stars is enormously harder than settling the solar system. Our fastest rockets can take us to Neptune in less than a decade - a long ride, but not inconceivable.  On the other hand, a trip to the closest star system, Alpha Centauri, would take 75,000 years.

Since our lifetimes are typically a century or less, practical travel to the stars requires relativistic velocities. Sending a 100-ton habitat, stuffed with a small crew, to Alpha Centauri at a speed that will deliver them before they turn up their toes requires as much energy as the United States consumes in a year. At standard utility rates, that will cost you about $3 trillion, just for the fuel.

Now this is a familiar discourse, and the usual rejoinder is to appeal to the inevitable development of faster rockets. We'll still go to the stars; we just need better transport.

But permit me to point out something both relevant and important: our remote sensing technology is improving much faster than our rocket technology. And that is a game-changing circumstance.

Let's look at some numbers. Von Braun's V-2 rockets crossed the English Channel at 1 mile per second. NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto - the fastest spacecraft ever launched - is headed to this erstwhile planet at 10 miles per second. That's an order-of-magnitude improvement after 70 years.

Now consider one component of our remote sensing capabilities - our ability to "see" what we're exploring. The Mariner 4 spacecraft - the first to snap decent photos of Mars - was fitted with a monochrome TV camera having a resolution of 40 thousand pixels. In the summer of 1965, it sailed by the red planet while imaging craters as small as a few miles across.

Today, the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter boasts a resolution of 200 million pixels (and shoots in color). It can discern items on the surface as small as a horse. 

In other words, in seven decades our rockets sped up by a factor of ten, but in little more than half that time our cameras improved by a factor of five thousand. There's no comparison: probe technology is marching to the beat of a faster drummer.

Probes have always offered the advantage of lower cost and minimal risk. For interstellar travel, their smaller size makes them especially practical. For the same energy bill, you could propel a one-ton reconnaissance craft to another star in one-tenth the time of sending even a small clutch of humans. 

Now you might argue that human exploration is qualitatively different than sending mechanical proxies. We humans want toexperience the frontier, not just watch it come up on our computer screen. We want to smell it, feel it, and look around.

OK, but what if we could send back all those sensations with a fidelity as good as being there?  That's becoming more and more practical. The bandwidth of a single human eye, recently measured at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, is roughly 2 megabytes per second.  The bandwidth of your ears is much smaller - no more than a few hundred kilobytes per second.  Your fingertips and other parts of your anatomy require even less of a data pipe.

In other words, we could send back everything a human could sense with a telemetry channel of, say, 10 megabytes per second. This is roughly the data rate you'll soon be getting off a blue-ray disk.  It's not trivial to send data at this rate from star to star, but it's a lot easier than sending ourselves.

The technology that can propel us virtually into deep space is quickly outstripping the technology that can propel our protoplasm there. So while we envision our 23^rd century descendants cruising the Milky Way in search of other beings or fresh real estate, my guess is that we'll send small robots instead - extensions to our neurons that can be both cheap and expendable. 

To spread our descendants among the nearby worlds of our solar system is more than our destiny: it's an imperative for our future. But galactic exploration will be different: that's something we'll do from the comfort of our own homes. And we won't need the Spandex.