"The evaluation provided by Redmandarin for our Ibiza Rocks project gave us a clear insight into how successful the activity has been. It has enabled us to ensure that in future years we address more of our audience in a more targeted way. It has proved invaluable."

Richard Dorman, Marketing Manager UK & Ireland, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications

Sony Ericsson - looking for legitimate credibility

Encompassing the indulgence of the Ibiza party scene, the hottest UK rock acts, and the promise of visits from the indie music glitterati, Ibiza Rocks has the potential to give Sony Ericsson a legitimate claim to credibility amongst often fickle UK music consumers.

The 2006 Ibiza Rocks programmes expanded the concept to incorporate a series of gigs in the UK.

Sony Ericsson was keen to have an objective evaluation of the programme to enhance its effectiveness and assess its performance against their three key objectives:

Increase awareness of Sony Ericsson and its music handset range amongst the UK target audience

Use the programme to position Sony Ericsson as a credible music brand amongst the UK target audience

Increase consideration of Sony Ericsson amongst the UK target audience through image enhancement

An evaluation framework was designed to understand the impact of the sponsorship against key performance indicators (KPIs) amongst Sony Ericsson’s target audience at different degrees of proximity to the events.

Response amongst both UK and Ibiza attendees was assessed using re-contact interviews, phone numbers were collected on-site and respondents re-contacted in the days after the event. To evaluate the broader impact of the sponsorship an online survey was carried out with a representative target audience sample.

The gigs in the UK were underperforming and leaving attendees with a fairly low opinion of the gigs and no knowledge of Sony Ericsson’s involvement; a combination of poor weather, less glamorous artists, and uninspiring on-site activations.

The Ibiza gigs, benefiting from the more exciting location, better weather, and improvements put in place after the UK experience, received a much more positive response from attendees at the events.

The research helped Sony Ericsson to adjust a number of aspects of the Ibiza Rocks programme, and their broader music strategy, to improve its effectiveness.

One of the key findings involved the nature of the Ibiza Rocks audience. Using proprietary Redmandarin modelling techniques we established there was a greater opportunity in promoting the virtues of the Sony Ericsson brand and reinforcing the loyalty of existing customers than had previously been exploited and, for the Ibiza gigs and going forward in 2007, the programme has been adjusted to provide a richer brand experience.

In addition, Redmandarin carried out work to scope out opportunities in the UK music landscape and provide resources with which to develop Sony Ericsson’s music strategy in 2007 and beyond.