Hikaru Utada, a New-York born Japanese singer and songwriter, who is one of Japan’s all-time most successfull artists, came up with a new promotion concept for her second English album ‘This is the One’. Utalizing the Japanese Karaoke platform from Myspace, fans can upload their own video recording of Utada’s new lead single ‘Come back to me’. Utada’s Karaoke Contest is featured on the main page of Myspace Karaoke Japan till the end of the contest and Utada herself will select the winner. The grand prize will be a special karaoke party with additional 3 friends and Utada herself in Tokyo.
SNS, USER-GENERATED CONTEND and LIVE CONTACT with fans: that’s what we call ‘MARKETING 2.0.’ Respect!
P.S. Unfortunately the marketing concept got a hype from the ’swine flu panic’ in Japan. In the Kanto area (Osaka) all schools were closed for weeks. “Tens of thousand bored students at home?!”, thought some smart karaoke bar owners and offered special courses for collage students. This generated a big hype and most karaoke bars had long lines of students waiting to sing. Big gatherings of students was exactly the opposite of what authorities intended. Closing school definately didn’t protect students from the virus, but might have helped to the big success of Utada’s karaoke campaign. What a coincident!
