MasterCard at the 2015 GRAMMYs
As a primary sponsor of the 2015 GRAMMY Awards, MasterCard wanted to bring #PricelessSurprises to life in a big way. (#PricelessSurprises are incredible, once-in-a-life time rewards and experiences that cardholders can win, you guessed it, by surprise.)
MasterCard needed an engaging way to get fans excited about #PricelessSurprises at the GRAMMYs, an idea that would spark social conversation and build affinity with music fans.
Social media users don't want to talk to brands during awards shows—they just want to talk about the music and celebrities. So we didn't make it about us; we became part of the GRAMMYs conversation instead.
Leveraging a team of artists, we commissioned a series of unique artwork based on the popular song titles for the most important awards of the night. The artists developed content inspired by and depicting the name, album or song titles.
To circumvent rights issues, we used the nominated songs' titles as the inspiration for the pieces. Fans got to see their favorite artists’ work come to life in a whole new way on social, and they could share the artwork as a show of support. They could also use them to "predict" who would win the next award.
As for the results?
Named one of the two best live-event activations by AdWeek
1.5MM engagements on GRAMMYs night
84.1 MM impressions on GRAMMYs night
3.9% engagement rate (Twitter: +11% above benchmark, Facebook: +133% above benchmark)
192 pieces of original content
276 @replies (I was very chatty on GRAMMYs night)
9.4% mentions driving 98% positive/neutral sentiment
The interpretation and sentiment of the pieces were up to the artists’ personal style and ranged from artistic to humorous. For example, the song “Chandelier” by Sia could be an actual swinging chandelier, or even with a dancer underneath it similar to the music video.
Left to right: "Chandelier" by Sia, "Flawless" by Beyonce, "X" by Ed Sheeran, "In The Lonely Hour" by Sam Smith, "Chandelier" by Sia, "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith
On Social
On the day of, we launched the artwork on Tumblr with a general teaser messaging so fans could see/share the art before, during, and after the GRAMMYs. During the show, we encouraged fans to reblog on Tumblr and share the artwork to support their favorites or to make a prediction who will win.
As the winners were announced, we syndicated the winning pieces of art to MasterCard’s social channels for promotion in real-time, so fans of that artist were instantly able to celebrate the win using our unique artwork. Media also promoted these pieces specifically to fans of the artists and songs as a way to ensure that we were targeting people who would be excited and more likely to share our content.
All the while, we brought #PricelessSurprises to the GRAMMYs social conversation, surprising fans with rewards and giveaways throughout the night.
