The Les Paul Skill Check
Gibson Guitar GmbH, Shazam Entertainment Limited
Issue 36 | September 2015
Agency
serviceplan
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Alexander Schill Executive Creative Directors Matthias Harbeck Hans-Peter Sporer Creative Directors Franz Roeppischer Lorenz Langgartner Copywriter Florian Daldrup AD/Screen Design Shari Bremer Art Director Nicolas Klein
Production Team
Agency Producer/Producer/ DoP Stephon Karolus Illustrator Frank Graefe Programmer Philipp Schmidt
Other Credits
Account Supervisor Juliane Weber Music Consultants Bjoern Gelotte Felix Hofer Felix Duczek Julius Conrad Tom Batoy Demuda Klaudweet Henan Wiesink Media Planning Lukas Pachoinig Senior Client Services Manager Hollie Parlour Head of Music Licensing GSA Jan Kubran Vice President Synchronisation DACH Marcus Gums
Date
April 2015
Background
Epiphone by Gibson made guitars including the legendary Les Paul, played by legends like Slash, Jimmy Page and John Lennon. Now there was a new Signature edition, designed by Bjo¨rn Gelotte, guitarist in top Swedish band In Flames.
New guitars are not cheap. Also, a Les Paul lasted forever. So the challenge was to raise interest and drive sales of the new model.
Idea
Through press ads and in-store posters, guitarists were asked: Do you deserve a Les Paul? They were challenged to play a difficult guitar solo written by Bjo¨rn Gelotte and play it to Shazam. Only if the guitarist played the piece well enough would Shazam recognise it. Only then the Les Paul website was revealed to the musician, who could then pre-order a guitar and enter a competition to win one.
Results
It was difficult to estimate the number of guitar players who tried and failed to get a result in Shazam but just over 250 were able to play and get a match. One lucky guitarist got a Les Paul for free. The first batch of guitars had sold out before it could get to the music stores.
Our Thoughts
I know Shazam has been used in the past by advertisers inviting people to tag the audio of a TV commercial to get extra content. I’ve also read that Calvin Klein has used Shazam to create in-store sound installations so if a customer opens up the Shazam app and scans the music being played, she can get money off a purchase, a free music download etc. This, though, is exactly what the platform stands for – music recognition but with the bar moved up incredibly high. As an idea, it is very knowing of its target audience. Guitarists, it turns out, are ferociously competitive.