It’s old hat to radio stations, but Pandora Media has launched a new series of free, live concerts to promote itself to listeners. Not surprisingly, the first was in Portland, OR – the first market where Pandora opened a local ad sales office.
The first local concert was this week (12/13) in Portland, featuring Dawes, an emerging rock band from Southern California. The report by The Oregonian newspaper focused more on Pandora and founder Tim Westergren than on the actual concert, but said it “was a telling glimpse of the evolution in Pandora’s approach to mobility, marketing and fostering a ‘middle class’ of musicians.”
Invitations for the local concerts are being sent to Pandora users based on each listener’s musical preferences on the music streaming service, such as stations they have created and songs they have thumbed-up. Pandora data showed that Portland-area listeners are 25 percent more likely to enjoy a Dawes song and 30 percent more likely to create a Dawes station on Pandora than listeners in any other US city.
RBR-TVBR observation: No word yet on where other local concerts will take place. More important for broadcasters is having a local Pandora sales office open in your market. That’s a stated goal of the company and they’re going to be hitting the streets with their so-called “ratings” to pitch to local advertisers.
Publisher note: Radio broadcasters will or may wake up once they see Pandora’s sales people on the streets in their local market talking with their local advertisers and producing results. Radio, hear me on this, ‘The Internet’ is your best friend – develop it and embrace it as it will become a vital tool in your war chest of assets to grow and become competitive.
(RBR-TVBR is also doing as we preach – Look for our improved web portal, RBR.com, come January 2012.)
