Headphone MusicFestival

Whilst more and more people were listening to music through their smartphone devices, the majority were still using the default earphones that came with their devices. The task was to influence consumers to switch to Sony headphones for a higher quality music experience. Under the circumstance that live music experiences like rock festivals were gaining massive popularity amongst the youth, we thought that creating a brand new music experience using smartphones and headphones would be more effective than conventional IMC for changing behaviour, and developed a virtual rock festival in the city called ‘Headphone Music Festival’ - the world’s very first virtual music festival using Sony’s proprietary 3D augmented reality technology, ‘SmartAR’, and original live AR video contents of four popular local rock groups. People were able to participate in the festival via their smartphones on the streets of Tokyo, select shop networks, or retail outlets across the country. At each venue, we offered a free trial of Sony’s latest headphones. It earned huge publicity coverage with many participants, and the featured product became the number 1 selling headphone on Japan’s leading price comparison e-commerce site.