Karaoke by the masses for the masses

 
Music Swisscom has found its karaoke star. The makers are delighted. They can look back on a successful campaign.  
The participants in the Swisscom competition had one advantage over other candidates in conventional karaoke shows. The amateur singers were able to practice until they were satisfied with their performance and only then send in their film. Despite the opportunity to avoid vocal embarrassment, the majority of the participants sang straight from the horse's mouth, which must have made the audience smile. Whether as soloists, in duets or as a group: the singers in the Swisscom karaoke competition were an amusing bunch of musicians. Looking back: Before Christmas, Swisscom launched an online karaoke competition. The aim: to promote the new Bluewin DSL 20 000 Internet access, which allows users to surf the Internet at express speed. Streams such as videos on YouTube should no longer stutter, music and e-mail attachments should be downloaded promptly. And of course: Online karaoke should also be child's play. Amateur singers could take part in the competition until January 15. The creators of the campaign chose the disco classic "Love is in the Air" (1978) by John Paul Young as the song.
Swisscom mobilizes the masses The karaoke idea was very well received by the target audience in German-speaking Switzerland. According to Swisscom, a total of 750 videos had been uploaded to the specially created karaoke platform Swisscom-karaoke.ch by the closing date. 260,000 people watched the films. The site was accessed two million times.
To conclude the campaign, the Bern-based advertising agency Contexta created a TV commercial that summarized the performance of the "love singers". The final film is entirely "user-generated", i.e. it consists of footage of the users who immortalized their performance with the help of webcams and cell phones. The spot is accompanied by an advertising campaign with a hidden object picture showing the many karaoke singers in action. The campaign is very similar to the autograph card of the Federal Council, which did not take part in the popular competition, even though Federal Councillor Micheline Calmy-Rey is a talented singer in the government.
The Jöö factor is decisiveThe winners of the competition have been announced. An expert jury consisting of Roman Camenzind (music producer), Jubeira Bachmann (Viva presenter), the singer Gustave and Bruno Bondi awarded prizes to the best videos. In addition to originality and vocal quality, attention was also paid to the cinematic realization. The winner was "Sandymove" ahead of "Los Ballerinos" and "The Heart". The Audience Award went to "Playmobil Love Story". Those interested can find out more about the judging and watch a best-of of the karaoke videos on Bruno Bondi's podcast. In it, the self-proclaimed Podfather explains why the Jöö effect was decisive for the win.
Christian Lüscher