MusicCityNetworks helps Lady Antebellum fans "Own The Board"

MusicCityNetworks has been Lady Antebellum’s web and digital strategy partner since the beginning of their career, and we’ve assisted with everything from new website designs to full fan club management. Needless to say, when we began brainstorming ideas early this year for their third album release, we knew we wanted to think outside the box.

MCN crafted the idea of doing a comprehensive online scavenger hunt that would leverage all of Lady A’s official online properties, such as their website, YouTube channel, Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc. In order to maximize the exposure and recognition for the album release, we went beyond including the sites where Lady A already had a healthy number of increasing fans, and we proposed incorporating sponsors, partners, and third-party sites. The overall goal of the scavenger hunt was to increase followers and fans on all of Lady A’s social sites and, more importantly, to increase the number of engaged fan email addresses.

MCN worked directly with Lady Antebellum’s management team, Borman Entertainment, to sift through the many details involved in such a large endeavor. Social and mobile application company hyfn was brought on board to develop the custom game app that was embedded on LadyAntebellum.com. The app allowed fans to activate and play the scavenger hunt by creating a profile using their Facebook account and login. Fans authorized the app to save the email address associated with Facebook, and they were then able to begin entering clues to help solve the daily riddle. In an effort to ensure fans felt an ongoing sense of engagement, winners were selected each day to receive prizes, such as discounts in the merch store, iTunes gift cards, free fan club memberships, and more. To make the grand prize even more enticing, management and the band agreed to give away concert and meet and greet tickets for a special, intimate show.

The “Own The Board” game, as it was ultimately called, turned out to be a huge success for the album release and showed significant increases in fan awareness and engagement; Lady Antebellum saw growth in their email address database, Facebook likes, and Twitter followers. The promotion also garnered industry attention when Billboard.com praised the scavenger hunt in a feature article and mentioned it in a Billboard Magazine cover story about Lady Antebellum’s successes.

The ultimate success of the promotion was a team effort between MusicCityNetworks, Borman Entertainment, and hyfn. Special thanks goes out to all of the fans who participated and “Owned The Board.”