2nd Chance Song

Background

Telstra was struggling to connect with young consumers. 44% of their Gen Y customers were classified as 'passives'. They didn't hate Telstra but they weren't fans either. Aggressive competition and this perception they were old-fashioned were hurting the brand. Telstra needed help to reconnect with these young consumers through music, one of their key marketing pillars.

Idea

In the history of Australian music, while some average songs made it to the top of the charts some great ones never got the recognition they deserved. The idea was to give one underrated song a second chance.

A team of music experts dug through a back catalogue of Aussie songs. 'Don't You Think It's Time', was discovered, a song that launched the solo career of Aussie music icon, Bob Evans but only got to No.22 on the charts.

To give this song the second chance it deserved, the idea was to make it the most covered song in Australia.

First, some of Australia's most respected and socially-connected musicians were chosen to kick things off. Megan Washington, Luke and Katy Steele, Illy and Sheppard all released versions of the song along with behind-the-scenes videos from their studio sessions. Next, YouTube content creators were invited to get involved. Their covers were hugely popular with fans online, spreading the concept to their hundreds of thousands of followers. Media partnerships with music websites and an interactive YouTube Masthead drove people to the 2nd Chance Song landing page. There, aspiring musicians were given all the tools they needed to create their own covers, including: sheet music, chords and even a video of Bob Evans explaining how he plays his song. All in all, there were over 30 pieces of video content created, 21 radio ads, 60 digital assets and over 50 pieces of social content.

Results

In three weeks, over 200 individual covers of 'Don't You Think It's Time' were recorded and uploaded to YouTube, or rather more than 12 hours of user- generated content. The public voted for their favourite cover and EMI Music Australia professionally recorded the winning version. EMI even filmed a professional music video for the winner. This proved to be a great PR story, earning coverage in Australia's largest news publications, popular morning TV shows and major music websites.

The campaign generated over 3.2 million YouTube views during the campaign period alone, double the target, and achieved more views than any top-rating music program on TV. Over 350,000 music fans visited the website and the equivalent of 621 days of video was watched.

One in five people who saw the campaign spoke about it with friends and family or shared it online. This was a really powerful and immediate advocacy outcome supported by the fact that young consumers became 14% more likely to recommend Telstra to their friends.

Our Thoughts

A US survey from way back in 2013 found that 68% of smartphone users aged 18-34 listen to music at least once a day.

It will be more than that now. Music, then, is pretty important to just about every mobile operator in providing a connection point, a shared language. One big Telco in Europe offered 10 free downloads, which was good. But shot themselves in the foot by failing to mention popular chart-toppers were not available. Telstra have established their credentials rather more credibly. The idea may be called “Second Chance” but its success is because what they were offering was a first chance to all aspiring Aussie singers.

It is a classic of ‘the rule of nine’ kind. For every person who uploaded a video to YouTube (200), there were 9 people in their social circles actively sharing the content (1,800) to as many as 90 others (162,000) who between them had a reach of millions.