Country Karaoke has come of age. Entering the fund-raising arena as a way to get people engaged with Country Music, promote it while raising money for causes is a unique way to use Karaoke for sure.
Karaoke is getting a better name these days and having a fund raising opportunity for a product, a non-profit and Karaoke all at the time is a unique thing.
One example of this was the CMA (Country Music Association deciding to get out there and promote Country Music using Karaoke as the medium. The charity was the Second Harvest (which several years ago was just starting to need some fund raising activities and now needs another boost in funds to support all the people in ened during these tough economic times too).
A sponsor to join in the project several years ago was actually Prilosec OTC. A surprising product to get engaged in this fund raising but the charity got the attention of Proctor & Gamble at the time who saw a good linkage opportunity between Second Harvest & their food needs & Prilosec as a product that could use some promotion too. But the products promotion was very loose as the main attribute of their product, heartburn relief, needed raising up in the eyes of people as a cause as I were. The cause can be related to the disease caused by neglecting & not treating heartburn, which in its worst incarnation results in diseases like esophageal cancer.
Uniquely this event was promoted with a cross-country bus tour. You may ask what is the connection to Karaoke. That’s a natural question to ask as you wonder with all this mix of product, music, cross-country bus tours & awards concerts in the mix you would wonder where & how Karaoke fits in.
The organizers made a very wise decision to create events around the bus stops in 18 cities. Not only could they relate the bus stops in cities where Second Harvest operated, but the event could raise awareness with “Sing, Learn and Win” approach. That was a very ingenious way to combine Country music with the opportunity to learn about FHB (frequent heartburn) and not only just give the attendees a chance to sing country music in a karaoke format, but to win prizes for doing it. Then with the connection to fund-raising, Prilosec OTC would make a donation for every singer who came on the buses, met with a clinician, learned something about FHB, and maybe even got to meet a country music star on the tour bus in the process. In a couple of cities they even got to hear some country music stars put on a small concert too.
So everybody won in the process. This was a very creative way to promote an issue to the public, get country music (and the CMA) in front of the public as a benevolent organization and get karaoke out there too as an “industry” who had grown up & out of the bars & night clubs into mainstream as an activity engaged with the real world & its issues & concerns.
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