Blood, sweat and tears
Using media and marketing power to launch a successful girl group
Goldbach Media passed the first big public baptism at its new location in Küsnacht. Far more guests than expected attended the lavishly endowed Mediarena event package (see box). The new event for electronic media offered a broad mix of theory and practice, with the show element not neglected either.
The best example of how to provide the required audience with information and at the same time excellent entertainment was the case of the Swiss girl group Tears. Including live performance of the four girls.
One after the other. The great era of the retort bands began in the eighties. Hundreds of boy and girl groups tried to follow the path to success designed on the drawing board and steered by a lot of media and marketing power. Several of them reached the finish line, as names like New Kids On The Block, East 17, Spice Girls or Take That testify. The Swiss me-too bands, on the other hand, failed to achieve success. At the end of the 1990s, the boy band Code 5 disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. And Pure Pleasure did not make the breakthrough either, despite the name recognition of their protagonists Sven Epiney and Reto Peritz.
Low half-life of the retort bands
It was not until the TV program "Popstars" on TV 3, a format that had previously been successfully aired abroad, that the breakthrough came. Starting in September 2001, more than 1,200 young women competed in front of the camera for 16 weeks. The problem: When TV 3 went off the air on December 23, 2001, the Tears lost their platform.
As Mehmet Inan and Etienne Bujard of Goldbach Media explained, this meant that what had previously been a small contract became a big one overnight. Goldbach Media was given the task of ensuring and coordinating broad coverage in the area of electronic media. This included not only the networking of the electronic off- and online media TV, radio and Internet - the integration of events, B2B, sales/distribution and promotion were also part of the complex job. In particular, synergies with the sister group No Angels (RTL 2) had to be used in the best possible way. An important step: The Tears, who had made it to the top of the Swiss singles charts with their hit "Music," were allowed to provide the theme song for the new show "Teen-Star" on RTL 2.
The next step is to sell the Tears in Germany. But whether the success achieved in Switzerland with a lot of TV and marketing power can also be transferred to Germany remains to be seen. The same applies to the durability of the success already achieved. Because as experience shows, the half-life of test-tube bands is generally short.
Mediarena: To be continued
Organizer Goldbach Media is more than satisfied with Mediarena, the new communications forum for electronic media, which was held for the first time on June 5 and 6 in Küsnacht and Zurich. On each of the two days, 230 guests followed the presentations given in parallel in two rooms. Around 400 people enjoyed themselves at the closing party in the Werfthalle Zurich-Wollishofen. "We were literally overrun, as we originally expected only 150 people," says Bettina Singeisen, spokeswoman for Goldbach Media. The content of the event was also well received by the audience. "We've never had such a positive response to an event before," says Singeisen.
The Mediarena will therefore certainly have a sequel. "Perhaps already this year on a smaller scale," explains Singeisen. For example, one could well imagine institutionalizing the Mediarena as part of other Goldbach Media events. What exactly will happen is the subject of internal discussions that are now being held intensively.
