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Marketing what was as soon as a reside music occasion and has advanced, in the meanwhile, right into a hybrid digital occasion, presents a contemporary set of challenges. At the Montreux Jazz Festival, one of many world’s main music occasions, this yr’s hybrid strategy requires a deft advertising contact.
I lately requested Montreux Jazz Festival CEO Mathieu Jaton to fill us in on how the pageant’s advertising methods have been advantageous tuned for 2021.
Paul Talbot: Please give us a historical past lesson… how has the pageant’s advertising advanced because the first pageant held within the Montreux Casino in 1967?
Mathieu Jaton: The pageant originated from a advertising thought within the first place! Claude Nobs, the founding father of the pageant, was working for the vacationer workplace of the city of Montreux and needed to prepare an occasion to advertise the vacation spot.
This is how the pageant was born, and for a few years it remained organized and financed by the city’s vacationer authorities. Even as we speak, it’s due to the pageant that Montreux is understood all through the world.
The Montreux Jazz Festival model has grow to be a world landmark by providing the audio and video tapes of the concert events recorded in Montreux to the artists. There are 1000’s of CDs, vinyls and DVDs of reside performances recorded on the pageant which have made and proceed to make a mark on musicians world wide. This has enabled the pageant to have a really sturdy resonance within the USA and Brazil, and to prepare delocalized variations of the pageant there.
But the very best advertising device of the pageant stays the connection. Claude had it in his blood, he knew how one can welcome artists and the general public, and create relationships that lasted all through his life. This worth of hospitality continues to be central to the MJF as we speak.
Today, we’re taking a brand new flip within the evolution of the pageant with a view to obtain a hybrid mannequin between bodily occasion and digital content material, utilizing instruments equivalent to social networks, streaming platforms and new content material creation companions.
Talbot: Who are your main advertising companions for the pageant and the way do you align your respective goals?
Jaton: All our companions are our greatest advertising allies. The thought just isn’t merely to make the most of their platforms to unfold the pageant’s picture, however slightly to create joint tasks that enable the 2 manufacturers to shine, equivalent to via the Fairmont World Tour, a world tour of concert events organized in Fairmont Hotels on 4 continents in February 2020.
Talbot: How has advertising for the pageant been revamped to assist the goals of this yr’s ‘reimagined’ pageant?
Jaton: Every yr, the pageant has its personal distinctive arrange and this yr isn’t any completely different. The reimagined pageant displays the truth that Covid has formed the world in a brand new method and adapting to this has meant reimagining the viewers expertise each on the occasion and on-line.
To kickstart the MJF2021 advertising, MJF needed to assist the worldwide creative neighborhood and construct on the success of the 2020 ‘Silent Shores’ poster competitors, by giving money prizes in addition to a chance to showcase 30 artworks through the pageant.
The partnership with Vaudois Assurances requested artists to reimagine MJF2021 underneath the banner of ‘RESTART.’ This generated 1,935 artists from 54 nations to submit their posters on a world on the point of restart.
With journey restrictions and artists not touring within the conventional method, it meant creating a brand new efficiency arrange that enabled individuals to proceed to share their music in a unique surroundings.
To guarantee Covid compliance however not compromise on expertise, MJF has designed a brand new lake stage with stadium seating that may showcase artists in a novel arrange with the backdrop of the encompassing mountains while the stage is within the lake.
Marketing this yr’s pageant shall be targeted on ramping up our digital providing and making certain it’s accessible to everybody, each inside Switzerland and internationally, by being reside streamed at no cost on the MJF Facebook web page, throughout the Stingray Qello platform and artist pages to allow as many individuals as doable to see this spectacular arrange and listen to world class music with the best audio and visible manufacturing.
Talbot: Are there any particular challenges this yr’s advertising has been designed to handle?
Jaton: The apparent level is private security and Covid compliance so naturally there shall be loads of communication round how the pageant is complying with Swiss Government pointers to make sure that the pageant runs easily and persons are free to benefit from the atmosphere.
Managing the truth that this yr can have a really restricted capability for attendance shall be an space we all know shall be a problem. We have a wonderful advertising and buyer care crew who shall be letting individuals know how one can buy tickets or entry the free streams and offering encompass content material to generate pleasure for the occasion on our social media and associate channels. We have a devoted social media crew to handle actual time questions and guarantee individuals really feel supported.
But above all, our best want is that the artists, our public, our companions, our volunteers and our crew can meet once more, in flesh and blood, after greater than a yr spent removed from one another. To rediscover a few of that intimacy so pricey to Montreux, that’s our best problem.
