Live Music's Marketing Marvel: Leveraging Concerts & Tours

Authored by Hamza Kazi, Head of Music, Dharma Cornerstone Agency

A vast open ground spreads across hundreds of acres. It is hot, but your favourite band is performing, and you have been looking forward to this revitalising weekend. While you sway to the music, there is an alcoholic beverage in your hand that's barely contained by a glass. After an exhilarating performance, you dig into some delicious grub at the food stalls and top it up with some lip-smacking desserts from new brand pop-up stores peppered across the venue. Sounds familiar?

The above scenario has been the most common experience for concert-goers in recent times. In today’s day and age, live music events are not only restricted to music but go beyond to give a first-hand immersive experience. They have become a one-stop-shop for communal convergence, sowing the seeds of community amongst the audience. Likewise, such events are also an adjunct of experiential marketing, where a variety of brands are sponsoring artists or bands through brand activations and IPs. Why? Firstly, unlike traditional marketing, experiential marketing provides an enhanced sensory experience where people, in real-time, witness the unfolding of an event while interacting with brands across different media. Secondly, the growing number of attendees at live concerts post-pandemic provides a fertile marketing ground. As per a report by the ticketing enterprise BookMyShow, a staggering 13.5 million people attended over 26,359 events in 2023. The saying “Where words fail, music speaks” is now extended to brands.

Take, for instance, Coachella. One of the most popular music festivals in the world, it has evolved from a small-time event into a monolithic entity. And while doing so, the festival now includes a larger ecosystem where businesses and creative entities are thriving. In 2024, brands like YouTube, Pinterest, and Heineken, amongst others, had innovative pop-ups and lounges. This provided 200,000 attendees with an immersive experience transcending music while also helping brands leverage experiential marketing to amplify consumer convertibility. 

In India, too, experiential marketing at concerts and tours is not a new phenomenon. Brands have strategically associated themselves with such events to gauge consumer behaviour of the demography they are catering to. If we take the example of alcohol brands like Seagram’s Royal Stag and Bacardí, there was a lack of advertising space for them on conventional channels. However, when they created their IPs through music weekends, it became easier for them to advertise and earn revenue. And like Coachella, India soon started to see numerous flagship music festivals where brands could thrive, bolstering their visibility and improving their affinity among the young audience.

For instance, the NH7 Weekender, powered by Bacardí, has helped the brand reach a wider and younger demographic. The young audience will not only reminisce about the core music memory, but the rum cocktail’s lingering taste will serve as a great recall value. In fact, in 2023, Bacardí earned ₹500 crore in revenue, with partial credit to the experiential avenues. Likewise, Mahindra has sponsored the Mahindra Blues and the Mahindra I-Rock music festivals, paving the way for young and upcoming talents to showcase their musical finesse. At the same time, it has allowed the brand to sanitise its image as a rugged old brand to a more soft and diversified entity.

From a small part of the entire sonic experience, brands have become autonomous entities creating their separate IPs while providing an all-encapsulating, immersive experience. Zomaland, a carnival-themed experiential marketing initiative by Zomato in 2019, has become a rage among the attendees as it is not just a food carnival festival; the audience had a unique gastronomic and musical experience. With a footfall of 1,20,000 attendees, it contributed to the whopping revenue of ₹2.3 million to Zomato-Live in 2023.

Through the assimilation of such music events, brands have created a symbiotic relationship with the audience, building a thriving avenue to expand the consumer base along with enriched experiences. Furthermore, they are pushing the envelope with these experiential marketing events by switching to cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), which enhance visibility and brand affinity. The latest example of AI’s penetration into the marketing industry during a concert was when Sprite enabled Drake fans to morph their faces into the rapper’s in a commercial at all the venues during the ‘It’s All A Blur’ North America tour. Ryan Keen, Senior Marketing Manager at Coca-Cola, said, “It creates much more customised creative that couldn't otherwise be done on a manual basis at scale.”

The synergy between business and music has produced a multi-sensory experience for the audience that remains ubiquitous post-events, creating a sub-system with an already prospering ecosystem.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.