Music 4 Food Brings Kids and Communities Together

Selling to Kids, March 8, 2000

We've heard of marketing campaigns that bring causes to kids. Hi Frequency Marketing and Food.com are bringing the kids to the cause with Music 4 Food.

The campaign, which ran between Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year, combines a food drive, hot bands and a major grass-roots event to get older teens involved with the community - and ordering from Food.com.

Food.com, an online food takeout and delivery service, wanted to do something different to draw older teens, including college students, onto their Web site. University program manager Dyana Nafissi came up with a food drive concept and worked with Ron Vos, Hi Frequency president and founder, to develop the campaign.

Vos, whose marketing credits include promoting a variety of bands like Buckcherry and Limp Bizkit, brought up-and-coming alternative artists together to donate 16 unreleased tracks to a compilation CD. Hi Frequency also coordinated alternative concerts to be held in Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. Admission for the concerts in Chicago and San Francisco was $5 and a food donation, and students were given the CD and food provided by Food.com's local restaurant partners. The Seattle event was postponed and will take place on March 11.

Hi Visibility

Food.com was featured on the CD covers, as well as on posters, booklets and other materials handed out on campuses and in local hangouts by Hi Frequency field staffers. The takeout and delivery company also got a high profile at the events, especially since hungry teens were enjoying free food. And all the exposure seems to have paid off in a big way. Food.com saw a 200% increase in registered college student users and a 150% increase in orders during the threeweek period around the Chicago concert, Nafissi says. Orders and registered users are growing like gangbusters in San Francisco, as well. The campaign also generated hundreds of pounds of donated food for local food banks.

The whole shebang, including costs for 45,000 CDs, 90,000 CD covers (used as handouts), on-site promotions in local teen hangouts and radio promotion deals with stations like 107.7 The End in Seattle, cost $100,000. A good part of that was defrayed by snatching up other student-targeted sponsors for the shows, including Bigwords.com and Student Advantage (a student discount card), Nafissi says.

What would they do differently? Never plan an event during a World Trade Organization conference, laughs Nafissi - the original schedule called for the Seattle concert to take place immediately after the Chicago date. Riots in Seattle forced Music 4 Food to postpone until March. The delay has given Food.com and Hi Frequency a chance to make other changes, however.

Streamlining the message of the campaign was an important goal for the Seattle event. In San Francisco and Chicago, students were asked to bring food to local retailers or to the show. The message became confusing and didn't always accomplish the goal of getting people to the live event. The companies now favor a message instructing kids to bring canned goods to the concert. "A real challenge to marketers is to [effectively explain to] people what we want them to do," Nafissi says. A bigger name headliner - Guster - also has been secured for the Seattle venue.

The basic concept, though, was a tremendous success, according to Vos, because it made kids a part of the campaign. "We market with them, not at them. That's an important distinction," Vos says. Older teens often are jaded about marketing. The only way to engage them is to "create vehicles they're interested in," he says, like a high-tech twist on takeout and delivery or a marketing campaign that offers bands they love and a way to give back to the community. (Food.com: Dyana Nafissi, 415/403-5282; Hi Frequency: Ron Vos, 919/942-9244)

Hi Frequency Marketing

200 North Greensboro St.,

Suite D-2A

Carrboro, NC 27510

919/942-9244

http://www.hifrequency.com

Hi Frequency Marketing was founded in 1996 by Ron Vos. The company has a field staff of 150 employees who conduct on-site efforts like posting fliers in music stores and setting up displays. Vos' primary expertise is in the music industry, but Hi Frequency has conducted a variety of campaigns, including an in-store signing promo for designer Todd Oldham and promotions for films like "The Wedding Singer." MTV called on Hi Frequency to drum up interest in its Choose or Lose campaign for the New Hampshire primaries, and Music 4 Food is slated to become an ongoing program.

A Boy Britney?

Be on the lookout for Swedish pop artist Bosson to be breaking tween girls' hearts in the near future. The 25-year-old singer begins touring with Britney Spears this week, and his album, "One in a Million" is getting attention from Top-40 stations.

Hi Frequency will be doing on-site promotions during the Britney Spears tour, passing out cassette samplers and stickers and making sure Bosson signs his share of autographs. >TK