EE has rolled out the official 2013 Glastonbury Festival free app, and, like sister brand Orange before it, the objective is simply to improve the festival experience through entertainment, sharing and utilities (and to showcase its 4G capabilities and to drive trial).
The branded app offers everything from real-time news, line-up schedules, personal event planners (complete with alarms and clash alters) and artist information, to GPS-enabled interactive mapping and social network plug-ins for sharing.
Perhaps most innovatively, it includes live streaming content for Glastonbury fans without tickets. The BBC’s live streams from Glastonbury can be played through the app during the festival weekend and the broadcaster has promised more than 250 hours of live coverage and streaming.
It also includes musician biographies connected to song clips designed to help users discover and experience new music.
EE has inherited the role of ‘official Glastonbury technology and communications partner’ from Orange, one of the two brands (the other being T-Mobile) which merged to become EE last year) and it is also carrying on Orange’s previous app partnership with The Guardian to supply a regular line-up announcements and competitions
EE is following up the app launch by leveraging its festival rights through above the line marketing and will further amplify its sponsorship through its social media accounts with artist content and competitions.
In fact, it was back in May that EE first rolled out its Glastonbury marketing campaign, led by a ticket giveaway, as it aimed to leverage its first mover advantage in the 4G race and pre-empt the impact of competitor 4G network launches.
The festival, which runs 26 to 30 June, has its own 4G for the first time ever as EE installs a Glastonbury-specific network that will provide campers and music lovers with considerably faster mobile internet speeds.
In classic Glastonbury style, EE has converted tractor to patrolling festival site venue Worthy Farm to act as a mobile Wi-Fi platform.
This farm machine network combines with the app and multiple charging stations across the site to help ensure festivalgoers can stay connected.
The former Orange ‘Chil ‘n’ Charge’ tents are being rebranded as ‘EE Recharge’ and they enable both customers and non-customers to recharge handsets and access 4G WiFi.
Comment
EE has been clear that it makes no apologies that much of its Glastonbury sponsorship activity is fairly similar to the work the company has done before through the Orange brand.
Why change something that has become almost iconic and synonymous with the festival itself?
But the message is evolving to match changes in consumers’ technology usage habits since the previous festival in 2011 (2012 was a fallow year partly to avoid a clash with the London Olympic Games).
‘We look for sponsorship properties and partnerships that help us demonstrate how good 4G is and showcase the possibilities it offers,’ says EE brand director Spencer McHugh.
‘With Glastonbury we are saying that wherever you are you can keep connected with EE. I don’t think I don’t think people are in the mindset at Glastonbury to sign up to a new phone contract there and then but it will definitely increase awareness of the brand and of what 4G offers.’
EE became the first UK operator to launch a 4G network in October 2013 and the early launch pof its Glastonbury campaign was clearly a tactic aimed to make the most of its first mover advantage as rivalsO2, Vodafone and 3 began deploying 4G services in June.
But the tactic of pre-empting its rivals didn’t go entirely smoothly.
Its Spring Glastonbury competition asked consumers to recreate famous album covers using ‘unusual materials’ and put up 10 pairs of festival tickets as prizes. The competition was extended to Facebook entrants, but EE failed to adapt the terms and conditions which reports suggested meant the company no longer had enough tickets and instead offered them Ticketmaster vouchers of equal value.
By June EE was consulting lawyers to see whether it should honour the competition prize for an individual who then used the competition confusion to start a social media campaign against the company.
Twitter user @Terry_Finnegan began a #GiveTerryHisGlastoTickets hashtag-led consumer campaign, which generated hundreds of tweets, demanding he be given the tickets.
EE eventually caved to the social media pressure and found tickets for Finnegan, but not before competitor O2 had offered the individual a free pass to its Academy venues for a year to take advantage of the buzz around the hashtag.
To complicate the story further it later emerged the entrant may have ‘copied’ his entry from artist Aaron Savage who originally created a Calvin Harris Lego album cover two years ago which had many similarities with the image Finnegan entered into the competition.
Links
EE Glastonbury Website
http://explore.ee.co.uk/glastonbury
EE Glastonbury App Download
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/glastonbury-festival-2013/id652845778?mt=8
Glastonbury Website
