Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions 2012 in Association with Toshiba 3rd December, 2012

Slingshot were back at Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions to witness one of our agency’s favourite events of the year.  We always have a great time over at the St-John-at-Hackney and this year was no different with Gary Barlow, The Maccabees, Ollly Murs, Amy Macdonald (pictured) + many more performing in this truly spectacular venue.

An added dimension for 2012

This year saw Toshiba come on board as Headline Sponsors, in what was their first venture into music sponsorship.  Given it was their first foray into partnering with a music event Toshiba got some great engagement through the platform, utilizing an extensive range of channels to truly leverage their sponsorship of Little Noise.

‘Little Noise Sessions’ app – Creating Excitement

Toshiba’s ‘Little Noise Sessions’ Facebook app held competitions, quizzes and artist bios that got excited fans even more excited during the build up to the week long series of gigs. With the Little Noise Sessions now in its seventh year, the page was full of interesting pieces of information on a range of legendary artists that have performed at the series of acoustic events.

Driving traffic through Pre-Sales & Auctions

In addition to Toshiba’s Facebook app, Toshiba also ran a number of pre-sale ticket promotions to give fans the chance to get their hands on the prized Little Noise tickets, which could be accessed through their Facebook page.  These pre-sales not only drove fans to the fun and interactive content held at ToshibaUK, but meant Toshiba were rewarding the hardcore fanbase that attends Little Noise each year, ensuring higher levels of brand engagement.

Spotify Partnership

In addition to their own activity Toshiba teamed up with one of the other sponsors Slingshot brought on board – Spotify.  Toshiba used Spotify playlists in the build-up to Little Noise to illustrate the calibre of acts that have played in the previous six years, as well as providing more content for their Facebook fans.

On-site Activations

This Spotify partnership supported by an amazing Toshiba ‘section’ full of Toshiba products, some of which held a playlist competition. Users selected a song, with the chance for their song to be played as the opening track for the evening’s entertainment, as well as the chance to win a Toshiba tablet.

There were also promotional staff in the Toshiba section, showing people how to use the latest Toshiba gadgets, along with a photobooth, which gained extensive traffic in between acts.  Check out the photos from all 6 nights here.

Overall, there were 563 photobooth photos uploaded to Facebook, which with an average of 2.5 people in, means 1,400 used the Toshiba Facebook photo booth.  Given that around 9,000 people attend the events, about 20% of those that attended used the Toshiba photobooth over the six nights.  Users got a Polaroid of themselves and were encouraged to go onto the Toshiba Facebook to tag themselves in the uploaded images.

In terms of their digital engagement, Toshiba saw their Facebook following increase from 28,000 – 40,000 in the space of a little over a month.

Charity tie-in

One of the most important aspects from Toshiba’s perspective was the opportunity to get involved in helping out Mencap as a charity.  Not only did Toshiba run a number of fund-raising initiatives during the events (e.g. selling lanyards that contained exclusive Little Noise content), but also got their entire marketing team to volunteer at a local Mencap centre to help a number ofpeople with learning difficulties.

In short, Toshiba’s sponsorship Little Noise allowed extensive engagement through a fantastic music platform, while supporting an extremely important charity.

A huge thank you must go out to everyone at Mencap, Toshiba, Spotify, Jo Whiley and a whole range of other contributors who made the event possible.

The line-up from the six nights:

Monday 19/11/2012 – Gary Barlow, Laura Mvula + Josephine + Nell Bryden

Tuesday 20/11/2012 – Olly Murs, Lawson + Loveable Rogues

Wednesday 21/11/2012 – Richard Hawley, First Aid Kit + King Charles

Friday 23/11/2012 – The Maccabees, Jamie N Commons + Jessie Ware

Saturday 24/11/2012 – Noah and the Whale, Villagers + Lucy Rose + Tom Odell

Sunday 25/11/2012 – Amy Macdonald, Karin Park, Newton Faulkner