Give an Unsigned Band Their Big Break
Airwalk Launches Online Voting for "Unsigned Hero-Road to Austin" Promotion With Dynamic New Website"
(ENGLEWOOD, COLO) Sept. 9, 2009 - The polls are officially open for youth lifestyle brand Airwalk’s fourth ‘Unsigned Hero – Road to Austin contest, an online competition that allows an up-and-coming band a chance to play the SPIN and MusicGorilla.com showcases at one of the world's largest music festivals in Austin, Texas in early 2010.
The winning band of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity will receive an all-expense paid trip to Austin as well as $5,000 spending cash and a package of Airwalk gear. For bloggers that partner with and post about one of the top 10 finalists in the USH contest, Airwalk will send “Thank You” packages of Airwalk gear. Even those who are not bloggers have a chance to win Airwalk prizes. By simply casting their vote, consumers and fans are automatically entered into a monthly drawing to win an Airwalk-engraved iPod™ nano!
This year’s ten finalists include: Audible Mainframe (Long Beach, CA); Awaking State (Claremont, Ontario); Boom Box Repair Kit (New York, NY); Dose of Adolescence (Long Beach, CA); Empires (Chicago, IL); Halos (Orange County, CA); Lucabrazzi (San Francisco, CA); Million Dollar Mouth (Los Angeles, CA); Oak is Keeping (Austin, TX) and The Flying Tourbillion Orchestra (Los Angeles, CA).
To kick off the voting phase, Airwalk has launched a newly designed voting section of its website, www.Airwalk.com/USH, which includes video of the finalists and incorporates social media to allow visitors to familiarize themselves with each of the participating bands. Airwalk partnered with Denver-based First Movement to redesign the creative and aesthetic aspect of the voting module.
On www.airwalk.com/ush, each band has a dedicated section complete with performance video captured by a team of Airwalk videographers who shot footage of each band in their hometown to give fans a candid look at the finalists. Additionally, users can read each band’s biography, check out photos of the group and listen to sample tracks, and dialogue with others through the site's social media channels, before casting their vote. To spread the word about the bands, each finalist’s module is equipped with a “Tell a Friend” option where users can effortlessly send an alert from the USH Web site to a user-entered e-mail address “telling” the recipient about their selected band. Also available on the USH site are downloadable MySpace and Facebook widgets. Fans can install a band-specific widget onto their profile pages, or can opt for the general USH competition widget.
“We really wanted to take our Unsigned Hero competition to the next level, and upgrading the viral and social media component of our Airwalk.com/USH site was a huge part of creating awareness, reaching fans and giving them the capabilities to share and dialogue about the bands they love the most,” said Eric Dreyer, Vice President of Brand Management at Collective Licensing International. “We know that the best way to reach our young demographic is through social media. The MySpace and Facebook widgets allow Airwalk and USH to have a permanent presence on the user’s pages.”
Voting is open until Sept. 30, 2009. Winners of Airwalk’s 2008/09 Unsigned Hero contest were The Monthlies, a band out of Los Angeles, CA, who recently dropped their first album, Monthlies Assemble! Check them out at www.themonthlies.com.
About Collective Licensing International
Collective Licensing International, a unit of Collective Brands, Inc. (NYSE:PSS), was formed in January 2004 and is the owner and/or license operator of the Airwalk®, Vision Street Wear®, Sims®, Lamar® and LTD®, World Snowboarding Championships™, Sugarboards®, Carve®, genetic®, Dukes™, Rage®, Ultra-Wheels®, Hind®, Spot Bilt® and Skate Attack® brands. Collective Licensing International is based in Englewood, Colorado.