Ticketmaster Launches Fan-Friendly New Tech, Revived Brand
I joined Ticketmaster in late 2017 as Creative Director at an exciting time for the brand. After 40 years of receiving fan and artist wrath, C-Suite leadership saw an opportunity to rehab the Ticketmaster brand based on the success of several new digital products, specifically Verified Fan, which protected fans from online scalpers and bots. Notably, this product also brought previously vocally critical artists like Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews Band back into the fold.
Reporting to the CMO, I led a rebrand workshop to document a new, fan-centric Ticketmaster brand, then pulled together a content marketing strategy for projecting that brand across channels and user experiences, from email and SEM campaigns to blog and social, web and app shopping UX, live events, advertising, and more. Our strategy hinged on collaborating closely with talent and their brand cache, and showing the world that Ticketmaster were fans, too. This meant editorial content — from artist and athlete interviews to City Guides in partnership with The Infatuation, SEO-driven bios, and social media-friendly roundups of events news. This meant on-the-ground coverage from NHL press day, music festivals, the Super Bowl, and beyond. Together, this content blitz led to a 23% increase in brand sentiment — a staggering achievement for Ticketmaster. My team also experimented with editorial content in marketing programs, attributed to an 11% increase in last-minute ticket sales.
I also led the “Live Only Happens Once” campaign (LOHO, a la FOMO) with our exclusive ticketing partners in the NFL and NHL. See UGC-driven spots below. The team also spearheaded the creative effort to develop and launch the “Ticketmaster Touring Milestone Awards” to recognize the artists behind the top global tours. This was coordinated in partnership with artists like Beyonce, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters and others (see below — click thru the carousel).
Soon I was promoted to a Head of Brand Creative & Content Strategy role, which expanded my scope to include the UX for our B2C and B2B app and web experiences. We dug into the existing data and decided to focus on a refresh of Ticketmaster B2C app, introducing new features like “Favorite”-ing artist, teams, or events, which provided customers with push messages related to new events from that talent. We also led a refresh of the web experience for B2B customers.
