Month: May 2014

How Your Brand Can Rock the Socks Off A Music Festival

Kelli Richards May 26, 2014

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Summer music festivals are full of sunshine, fun, and community, but they’re also packed with thousands of potential customers and brand advocates. Advertising at these events is nothing new, but startups that can find a way to become part of the festival can reap significant benefits.

People love music festivals because they feel like they’re getting more value by paying one price to see several great bands. The music and the atmosphere can produce strong feelings of belonging and elation that are memorable and often affect attendees deeply. Having people associate your brand with that feeling is priceless.

We’re not talking about putting up a banner and handing out T-shirts; we’re talking about actually becoming an integrated part of the experience.

 

Rocking a Unique Approach to Brand Awareness

 

Music festivals provide unique marketing opportunities for startups — if they can just follow the music.

If your brand shares a target audience with a given music festival, you should attend and actively engage festival goers so you are visible and associated with their memories. Not only can your brand gain access to content that can be leveraged on its website, social media, apps, advertising, and marketing campaigns, but — if leveraged correctly — music festivals can provide a brand with:

 

  1. Awareness. Having your app deployed at a major music festival provides priceless visibility, exposure, and reach a startup could never afford to pay for otherwise. You can build your audience through mobile apps and social media initiatives by implementing social functions into your ads, making it easy for fans to share with their network.
  2. Research.  Music festival audiences are typically very receptive (and it’s a captive group in terms of mindshare). The opportunity to deploy your technology to this group gives you access to potential focus groups and case studies.
  3. Networking.  Working with a music festival gives you a chance to build relationships with artists, festival organizers, and other brands that can generate referrals and repeat engagements.
  4. Word-of-mouth advertising. This is invaluable because it’s authentic, and consumers are more likely to respond to someone they know and feel good about. If you do a great job and offer value at the festival, attendees can become powerful brand advocates.

 

Ben & Jerry’s takes advantage of the vibrant atmosphere. The company, which over the years has made ice creams in conjunction with musicians like Jerry Garcia, Phish, and Dave Matthews Band, is a celebrated regular at the Bonnaroo festival and even gives out free scoops of Bonnaroo Buzz ice cream. The company also operates a tent in the festival’s Planet Roo eco-village, where nonprofits and other organizations promote environmental and social activism. These approaches lead to positive and loyal responses from music and ice cream fans alike.

 

  1. Revenue.  If your tech startup is new and unproven and you’re working with an event organizer for the first time, you may choose to reduce or waive the fees completely to gain the invaluable benefits listed above. However, if you’re more established or offering something truly unique and valuable, you can charge the festival organizers, artists, brands, and even the fans if there’s sufficient value.

 

How to Become Part of the Experience

Forever 21 helped launch the 2014 festival season with an epic “Party in the Sky” at Coachella in Palm Springs, Calif. The party featured performances by artists like Azealia Banks and included two gifting suites, the premiere of Forever 21’s “Summer 2014” fashion film, and a 20-foot party pod suspended above the main event.

If you want to gain brand recognition by becoming part of the music festival experience, it’s time to get creative. The goal is to authentically integrate your startup into the experience beyond just being a sponsor. Provide something tangible that endears your product or service to fans. When leveraging a music festival to enhance brand awareness, there are three approaches you can take:

 

Deepen and enhance the fan experience. 

Use your technology as a tool for making the music festival experience better for attendees. FanFootage, for example, crowdsources fans’ videos and syncs them with high-quality audio of the show from the mixing console at the venue to preserve memories with optimal fidelity. You can also deploy a mobile app or social media campaign that’s contextually relevant and delivers value. Give fans a game to play or a chance to win prizes to make them want to share it with their friends.

Deploy “festival support” technology.

Festival goers aren’t the only people you could target; you can also develop tools geared toward artists, event organizers, and promoters. BeatSwitch is a relatively new event planning platform that helps streamline scheduling in fast-paced concert or festival environments.

Deploy “fan support” technology. 

You can use your technology to ensure fans don’t miss a band they want to see or an event they want to attend. Songkick allows you to track your favorite artists to ensure you never miss them when they come to town. You can also achieve this on a smaller scale and allow fans to schedule reminders for specific sets or events during a given music fest.

 

Another great way to support fans is by appealing to their ancillary needs. What else do they need besides festival tickets and food when they’re at a live event? WaterIn is an app that reminds users to drink water, and Wi-Fi sponsors setting up stations at remote locations become heroes. Pamper festival attendees by giving them something of value, possibly offering special discounts and coupons that are available at the airport or hotel when they arrive in town for the festival.

If you’re on a budget, you don’t have to compete at really big events. Smaller local events still pull in large crowds and can sometimes provide better opportunities to increase brand awareness. Whether you’re headed to Bonnaroo or to the local blues festival, take advantage of these unique opportunities to get your name out there and demonstrate your value to all the parties in the festival ecosystem.

 

Until next time,

Kelli Richards
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

 

PS, The right mentor will also have the right CONNECTIONS to move any effort forward. Be sure to ask who they think they can bring to the table around advisor ship, possible collaboration and even funding.

 

How Your Brand Can Rock the Socks Off A Music Festival

Kelli Richards May 21, 2014

linked-In-150x150May 21, 2014,

LinkedIn Articles

The most talked-about “secret” of 2014 was Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats. Although it wasn’t officially announced until May 28, rumors swirled around the Internet for weeks.

Dear HBO, Please Keep ‘Silicon Valley’ Real!!!

Kelli Richards May 19, 2014

Startup life is a hot topic in Hollywood right now. From Joshua Michael Stern’s “Jobs” to the Amazon original series “Betas” there’s an undeniable appeal to life in Silicon Valley for those both inside and outside the startup bubble.

Of course, Hollywood is famous for exaggerating or overlooking important aspects of reality for entertainment purposes, but so far, HBO’s “Silicon Valley” looks promising. Despite the dramatic plotline and startup stereotypes, the show provides a mostly accurate portrayal of entrepreneurial life and may even help demystify some aspects of startup culture.

ID-10014351Can ‘Silicon Valley’ Avoid Hollywood Startup Myths?

“Silicon Valley” follows the lives of near-genius, socially awkward computer programmer Richard Hendrix (played by Thomas Middleditch) and his friends as he attempts to launch his company in the star-studded world of Silicon Valley.

The show was inspired by the real-life experiences of director Mike Judge, who was a Silicon Valley engineer in the ’80s. Living up to his “Office Space” brilliance, Judge carries the mindset of the tech community to the small screen and introduces a number of well-cast (if stereotypical) characters we can all relate to: that bright but socially awkward programmer and the naïve entrepreneur with a lot to learn.

“Silicon Valley” seems like a winner so far, but the question is whether it can avoid falling prey to a lot of the common myths Hollywood likes to perpetuate about startup life.

Myth 1: A good idea automatically equals success.

When all you read about are the multibillion-dollar success stories, it’s easy to think that success is a sure thing if you have a good idea — or that good ideas are immediately rewarded with plentiful funding.

In reality, it’s not that simple. The venture capital world is complicated, and there’s a lot of competition to secure funding of any kind. A good idea needs a good plan, a good team, and a lot of luck. And even with all those things, failure is all too common.

Myth 2: Genius and social skills are mutually exclusive.

In shows like “The Big Bang Theory” bright, technology-obsessed characters are often stereotyped as socially awkward geeks. Or, as we saw in “The Social Network,” brilliance in Hollywood often translates to arrogance, self-importance, or standoffishness on-screen.

While there are plenty of antisocial geniuses, tech shows distort reality. Succeeding in Silicon Valley is not for wallflowers. By and large, entrepreneurs must be bright, motivated, and willing to listen and learn, as well as equipped with good social skills.

Myth 3: It’s easy to put together the perfect team.

Television shows often give the impression that it’s easy to pull together a highly skilled, highly compatible team right off the bat. But in the real world, there’s no casting call for the right skills and the right temperament. The perfect team isn’t just sitting around waiting for your breakthrough. The right people can be challenging to find and motivate to join the team. Your team’s chemistry relies on a combination of referrals, trial and error, and luck.

Shortly into its debut, “Silicon Valley” has done a good job of presenting a microcosm of the real Silicon Valley, especially for first-timers. And it’s popular for a reason: To those outside the startup bubble, it’s a fascinating world with a mysterious way of doing business. Anyone who has spent time in the tech industry will see where Judge gets it right, and anyone who hasn’t will find themselves more informed about the realities of Silicon Valley.

But the truth is that startup life is not particularly glamorous or mysterious. It’s not about fancy campuses or billion-dollar algorithms — it’s about bright, motivated people who work very hard every day to make an impact on the world.

 

Until next time,

Kelli Richards
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

 

PS, The right mentor should also have the right CONNECTIONS to move you forward. Be sure to ask who they think they can bring to the table around advisorship, possible collaboration and even funding.

 

Originally posted: https://www.forbes.com/sites/85broads/2014/05/06/dear-hbo-please-keep-silicon-valley-real/

3 SEEMINGLY OBVIOUS TECH MERGERS WE’RE STILL WAITING FOR

Kelli Richards May 12, 2014

THESE TOP COMPANIES DO BIG THINGS SEPARATELY; IMAGINE WHAT THEY COULD ACCOMPLISH TOGETHER.

 

ID-100217410One of the best parts of working in the tech industry is having a ringside seat to watch heavyweights like Google and Apple duke it out for market share and to be the first to develop the next big thing.

When tech titans acquire smaller, hotter companies or struggling enterprises that have been around the block, the result is often an exciting jolt of innovation and a threat of a bold industry upset.

When Google acquired Nest Lab this year for example, it was great for business and the consumer. Google had a vision for Nest as a game changer in the smart home category, and Nest enjoyed a long list of benefits. Google accelerated Nest’s strategic initiative, took it off the market to prevent its competitors from acquiring it, and boosted its own brand appeal. Nest was young, sexy, and desirable–an image that Apple has dominated for years.

Likewise, Facebook acquired Instagram in April 2012, when it was extremely small, for $1 billion–inheriting a rock-solid user base and carving out a larger chunk of the social sphere.

Successful mergers drive the tech industry forward and make new devices and services accessible to the average person. In the case of Nest, it made the young company able to reach more consumers with its clean tech initiative, and Instagram’ following quadrupled to more than 150 millions monthly active users after its acquisition.

There are several tech giants that have been dancing around some promising acquisitions for a while now, and I think I speak for everyone when I say they just need to do it already!

1. APPLE ACQUIRING DISNEY OR NETFLIX

Everyone knows that Apple has a huge war chest to buy relevant companies, and of course they’ve employed it several times over the years.

While Apple devotees around the world were disappointed to learn an Apple-Tesla merger was not in the cards for Elon Musk (at the moment, anyway), a more likely scenario is that Apple will try to acquire a major content company like Netflix or Disney in the near future.

Of course, Disney would be a big catch for Apple. The brands both embrace creativity, innovation, and delivering an amazing customer experience. In a merger, Apple would be able to ship the long-awaited Apple TV with access to ESPN, Pixar movies, and other Disney content. Consumers would have access to a much broader content library largely on-demand in the cloud, and Bob Iger and Tim Cook would be a dynamic duo that could boost shareholder confidence and inject innovation into both brands.

Netflix boasts a similar advantage of on-demand streaming and high-quality original content. An acquisition would reinforce Apple’s commitment to a seamless customer experience by offering a completely integrated content ecosystem. Owning a major content company would give Apple greater leverage when negotiating other forms of movie, TV, and sports content and make it virtually unstoppable in the media space (beyond its existing bench strength).

2. AMAZON ACQUIRING RADIO SHACK OR BEST BUY

Amazon has long expressed a desire to have a retail footprint, and Radio Shack and Best Buy both need a savior.

Brick-and-mortar electronics stores can’t match Amazon prices, but people still want to go into a store to play with the products or speak with a knowledgeable representative. Most people will go to Best Buy to kick the tires, then turn around and buy a product for less on Amazon.

It makes perfect sense that Amazon would want to offer the best of both worlds. Jeff Bezos has expressed the idea that he would be interested in physical retail locations, but only if Amazon had a “truly differentiated idea.”

What better way to accomplish that goal than to acquire a chain of established stores and existing real estate in local neighborhoods?

3. SAMSUNG OR GOOGLE ACQUIRING FITBIT

These companies are focused on innovation, delivering seamless data integration across all their devices, and creating functional, stylish products that consumers rely on daily.

The race for the ultimate wearable is on, and both Google and Samsung have thrown their hats into the smart watch solutions ring.

Samsung released its Gear Fit fitness tracker in April. The verdict is still out about Gear Fit’s performance, but if it’s not a blockbuster success, Samsung may want to consider buying Fitbit to knock out its chief competitor. Samsung would also gain Fitbit’s audience, technology, and great customer experience.

Google hasn’t come out with a smart watch yet, though the Google Gem is rumored to be almost ready for market. The Gem is reportedly clunky, so it may fail to take off simply because it’s too large and unwieldy. The ability to offer consumers the sleeker Fitbit may appeal to Google, especially because it would take the company off the market for Apple or Samsung.

Industry behemoths will only make a move to acquire another company when they see the potential for huge returns (or a threat from a partnership with their competitors).

These players are primed to disrupt the industry together, and these acquisitions would also bring exciting changes for the consumer. These companies already provide a great customer experience individually–just imagine what they could do together.

 

Until next time,

 

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group.

 

PS, The right mentor will also have the right CONNECTIONS to move any effort forward. Be sure to ask who they think they can bring to the table around advisorship, possible collaboration and even funding.

 

Originally posted: https://www.fastcompany.com/3029955/3-seemingly-obvious-tech-mergers-were-still-waiting-for

 

Dear HBO, Please Keep ‘Silicon Valley’ Real

Kelli Richards May 7, 2014

Forbes-150x88May 7, 2014,

Forbes

Startup life is a hot topic in Hollywood right now. From Joshua Michael Stern’s “Jobs” to the Amazon original series “Betas,” there’s an undeniable appeal to life in Silicon Valley for those both inside and outside the startup bubble.

3 Seemingly Obvious Tech Mergers We’re Still Waiting For

Kelli Richards May 5, 2014

Fast-Company-logo-150x150May 5, 2014,

Fast Company

One of the best parts of working in the tech industry is having a ringside seat to watch heavyweights like Google and Apple duke it out for market share and to be the first to develop the next big thing.

What are the 5 Best Steps to Deepening Your Relationship with a Mentor?

Kelli Richards May 5, 2014

ID-100235440Once you’ve chosen a mentor, or accepted a mentee, and established the ground rules of working together, the pressure is on to keep the conversation productive and relevant. After you’ve built a solid rapport, consider using these unconventional questions to deepen and advance the conversation into new areas of insight:

 

1. What qualities do you look for in the people you hang out with? Have you ever heard the saying that you are the average of the top 5 people you spend time with? A top performer knows that their time is valuable and not to be wasted on people who don’t help them become better in some way. If you can start a conversation with those you mentor about what they look for in others, you will get a 10,000 foot glimpse of the qualities they are trying to develop within themselves.

 

2. What values are you committed to? Having values at the center of your business is invaluable. In fact, one of the little-known secrets to Apple’s success is its unwavering commitment to challenging the status quo. Strong values such as these provide grounding and direction whenever you are faced with a new problem or opportunity. Spend some time defining and exploring a time when remaining true to their values required a mentor or mentee to embrace extra work or strong personal or professional sacrifice.

 

3. When is breaking the rules okay? Rules exist for a reason, but a top performer knows that many rules regarding “the way things are done” are simply a product of social construction, and no heads will roll if you break them. Why not ask for the story of a time when your mentor or mentee decided to break a rule in their own business and how it panned out. How did they evaluate the risks and benefits? Would they do anything differently today?

 

4. How do you keep your feelings from clouding your decision-making? Humans are far from purely rational beings, and yet we’re expected to make hundreds of decisions every day from a place of logic and reason. Top performers recognize the powerful role emotions play in tough decisions and develop constructive habits to raise their own awareness. Talk this over for a while to gain more insights into both parties.

 

5. How do you challenge your underlying beliefs or assumptions? While it’s not easy to prevent emotions from clouding one’s judgment, it’s even more challenging to recognize when you are operating from an assumption that may not be true. Top performers know that they don’t have it all figured out; the most successful people actively seek out new perspectives that challenge them to grow. Talk about how each of you challenges underlying beliefs and stringencies.

 

Until next time,

Kelli Richards
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

 

PS, The right mentor will also have the right CONNECTIONS to move any effort forward.  Be sure to ask who they think they can bring to the table around advisor ship, possible collaboration and even funding. If you’d like to discuss mentorship with me and learn more about my own connections and process, please reach out by email.

 

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