Concerts with a cause - 12 Oct 2009

Music festivals - they annually invade quiet little farm towns and for three days straight it's mostly all about sex, drugs and rock n' roll. Since Woodstock, when 500,000 fans descended on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York to promote music and peace, festivals such as these have always struck a cord with attendees in one way or another. And if you're trying to connect with the youth market - this is the time and place to do it.

Take South Africa's Rocking the Daisies for instance - a weekend celebration of South African music held this past weekend in Cape Town promoting green living. In the lucky packet received on arrival, among other miscellaneous goodies, everyone was given a condom and some large plastic bags to dispose of rubbish - a green one for recyclables and a black one for non-recyclables - promoting safe sex and a cleaner, carbon neutral environment.

These events also provide the perfect opportunity for brands to get involved and this is where guerrilla marketing comes into play. Those bin bags that everyone received were sponsored by Tuffy and those condoms - if anyone bothered to look at the packaging - were branded by Levi's with a pair of jeans designed in the shape of the red AIDS ribbon with the tagline - "Red for Life".

It's not easy getting the youth to buy into a brand, but music festivals are a great place to start if you want to crack that market or maintain your standing with them - especially when there is an opportunity to associate your brand with notable humanitarian and environmental causes.