Rock the Vote’ Tour Wields Wireless Hook
The “Rock the Vote” bus made its last stop in New York City this week, capping a nationwide tour with appearances on morning news shows and a final wireless e-mail blast on Election Day to boost ballot counts.
Approximately 200,000 people, primarily college students and other millenials, will receive that e-mail blast, the last of the wireless alerts they signed up to receive at one of the tour’s 35 stops.
Those who don’t get that message may have seen the AT&T-sponsored “Rock the Vote” bus parked outside ABC’s “Good Morning America” studios in Times Square for a segment yesterday, or may see it in a segment on CBS’s “The Early Show” today.
The tour began at the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago last August, stopped at the “Rock the Bells” hip-hop tour and hit both major party conventions and all of the presidential debate sites.
The bus tour was intended to build awareness about the election, and enable people to register to vote on site. A few thousand people recorded their own public service announcements in the truck’s soundproof booth to be sent to friends and family, and some also posted on Flickr.
The AT&T branded truck touted various features of the company’s wireless products, including test messaging, which would enable mobile users to receive “Rock the Vote” alerts about the presidential debates, along with reminders about registration deadlines in different states.
“A lot of people had already registered, but they were really excited to record PSAs,” said Shannon Simpson, manager for Velocity Sports & Entertainment, which posted a selection of what it considered the best PSAs on a Flickr page.
AT&T signed on to sponsor the tour so it could target millenials with signage and demonstrations about its wireless options. A WAP portal offered visitors a free ringtone of the “Star-Spangled Banner” sung by Alicia Keys. Demos on music sites such as Napster, XM Mobile and E-Music, and playing “Guitar Hero” on a cell phone accompanied the pitch to register and vote.
Velocity made the link between the non-profit “Rock the Vote” and AT&T, and also executed the tour in collaboration with sister experiential agency Vivid.
“Rock the Vote” is the brainchild of MTV, which continues to support it along other companies and musicians who lend their talent to the effort.
