Thousands of young people spend an August weekend spread out across a grassy field, grooving to their favorite band on stage.
It isn’t Max Yasgur’s Woodstock, NY farm in 1969. It’s 2009, and the “grassy field” is the $20 lawn seats available at most Blink-182 concerts this summer.
The farm is State Farm, the unlikely sponsor of the Blink-182 reunion tour.
State Farm had a need to reach young people who are in the market for insurance, particularly car insurance.
Blink-182 had a need to reduce ticket prices for their tour. They didn’t want to join the ranks of bands charging outrageous amounts for their shows.
So the partnership was born. Blink-182′s Travis Baker offered up his car, a 1966 candy apple red Cadillac Coupe de Ville, as a prize. Blink fans could enter on-line to win the car, and they could also purchase tickets to the concerts in the process. State Farm set up booths at the concerts, displaying the car and accepting contest entries.
Blink-182 will personally award the car on October 6 in Charlotte, NC when the band will make the drawing on stage in front of 20,000 fans.
What makes this partnership cool is that the band offered up something personal. Anybody can buy posters or CD’s or concert tickets or signed guitars. Blink-182 offered their fans something that nobody can buy. You can’t stop by the Cadillac dealership after work and purchase Travis Barker’s 1966 Coupe de Ville!
That personal touch takes this from “sponsorship” to “partnership”, and it takes the State Farm message from “advertising” to “informing”.
In today’s world, a “informative partnership” is so much more likely to succeed than an “advertising sponsorship”. If you can find a way to make that leap, you are on a winning path.
