Red Bull & Ö3 Concert Spectacle

In this week’s egtabite we showcase a large promotion campaign that perfectly combines the reach and call-to-action of radio with the power of social media interactions and communities.

Ö3, the youth-oriented radio station of Austrian public broadcaster ORF, teamed up with Red Bull for the second edition of the epic Red Bull & Ö3 Concert Spectacle - an exclusive free concert full of music stars including the popular German rapper CRO, Eurovision winner Lena and others. Over three weeks in August eight Austrian cities got the chance to compete against each other in an online voting contest for the privilege of hosting the concert in October. The city, which best managed to mobilise their citizens and collect most votes, won the chance to become the music mecca and the venue for the Red Bull & Ö3 Concert Spectacle on 19th of October 2019. The campaign was a great mix online marketing, social media and radio engaging communities and listeners across Austria.

Let the games begin

Ö3 promoted the competition via radio spots and promos as well as special programming that included reports from each of the competing cities.

The cities themselves took care of a large portion of the promotion and organic reach. Most of them shot their own promo videos inviting people to vote for them, posted actively on their social media channels and got video and photo endorsements with local celebrities such as football players, local clubs, firefighters, bands etc. The campaign tapped into the community feeling of each town and rallied up support of local citizens who also posted actively on social media encouraging more votes and promoting the Ö3 and Red Bull brands.

Tickets for votes

The concert itself is free of charge but there was only one way to get one of the 5000 tickets - become one of the most active voters. The voters could register either with an email or Facebook login and vote once a day for their favourite city on a dedicated website. There were various ways to earn extra badges (by sharing their votes on social media for example) that allowed them to vote more than once a day. Each vote got them one step closer to attending the concert event of the year.

The competition was closely fought right up until the deadline. In the end the city of Hard pulled ahead of Wiener Neustadt and won the big prize. The contest ended on August 29th and the winner was announced on August 30, 2019 on Hitradio Ö3’s morning show and the social media channels of Red Bull.

The lucky winners (so called Concert Citizens) were the 2250 top voters for the winning city, each received two tickets for the concert. On top of that, the top 25 voters from the other seven cities also received tickets as a reward for their great efforts, they became the Concert Council of each city. A city needs its own Mayor, so one voter was randomly selected from the top 25 and became the Concert Mayor. The special price for them was four tickets as well as a surprise on the day of the concert.

The whole spectacle concert will be moderated by Ö3 presenter Benny Hörtnagl and Ö3 will be covering the event with a special broadcast.