Mobi promotion will bring back ‘Brown Bags’
In a bid to connect with the lucrative youth market, wireless telephone provider Mobi PCS plans to partner with the Music Foundation of Hawaii to resurrect a popular talent contest for high school students.
While the revamped "Brown Bags to Stardom" is positioning itself to be a Polynesian-teen version of "American Idol," Mobi's sponsorship promises to let the company connect with teens in a way that goes far beyond simple advertising.
A talent contest typically held in high school cafeterias and gyms, the original program was not televised, but broadcast live on the radio, and winners were selected by judges.
Under the new format, high school students will submit original music videos, and a television show will feature five to seven of the videos per 30-minute episode, said Johnny Kai, chairman of the Music Foundation of Hawaii. The show is open to students from Hawaii as well as American Samoa, Kai said. It will be televised on OC 16. Viewers will be able to vote for their favorite video using their cable television remote control, by going to the show's Web site or by sending a text message via their Mobi phones.
The use of Mobi's phones for voting is just part of company's campaign. In addition, Mobi is sponsoring its own contest to accompany the show. Known as the Teen Video Challenge, the contest is a sort of advertising version of "Brown Bags to Stardom."
Contestants will submit their own video commercials touting Mobi's product. The top 32 finalists will be interviewed by a panel of judges; those who make the first cut will be invited to be a guest co-host of "Brown Bags to Stardom," and their winning commercial will be aired during the program. The contest is open only to high school students in Hawaii with a grade point average of 2.5 or higher.
Contestants must submit their videos in DVD or mini DV tape format by Nov. 6. The tapes can be sent to Mobi's Honolulu headquarters or dropped off at one of its retail locations. "Brown Bags to Stardom" will air weekly from Jan. 14 to March 11.
With its video contest, Mobi appears to be part of what may be a budding trend of using students to make television commercials. Earlier this year, students from eight schools in Hawaii were selected to work with Hawaiian Airlines' advertising agency to create commercials that completed the thought "Our Hawaii is ... ." In addition, students from the University of Hawaii's Academy for Creative Media created three commercials for Scion Hawaii that were broadcast last year.
Joyce Vicente, marketing coordinator for Mobi, said she was unaware of the previous student commercials when she and Kai devised the plan during a brainstorming session on the roles Mobi could play as a sponsor.
"We were just trying to come up with an idea to get Mobi more involved," she said.
Since it started up in Hawaii in December, Mobi has carved a niche in Oahu's highly competitive wireless phone market with its simple, flat-rate calling plan that requires no contract. While executives say the market response has exceeded their projections, they do not know to what extent Mobi's message has reached the coveted youth market, said Renee Awana, Mobi's marketing director.
The contest and sponsorship will enable Mobi not just to weave its company's name and image into the television show, Awana said. It also will let the company understand how teenagers view Mobi by seeing how they would market it to their peers.
"We're thinking we're going to learn a lot from it," she said.
In the age where television viewers increasingly cut out commercials using digital video recorders such as TiVo, advertisers have created clever ways to place products and messages into the content of television shows and music videos. While Mobi's contest might seem to be part of that trend, Awana said Mobi's aim wasn't to do cutting-edge product placement.
"That wouldn't be so much the goal as how to reach that (high school) demographic," she said. "How do we talk to them, and what can we learn from them?"