DIGITCOOL

BACARDI B-Live + Groove Armada

Last April, big beat duo Groove Armada took the move to leave Sony BMG and tie up with Bacardi to release their new material. Tom Findlay, one half of the act said at the time “It encourages people to interact with the music in a slightly deeper way than just nicking and downloading it”. With the likes of Paul McCartney signing to Starbucks, and ventures like RCRD LBL springing up, by-passing the traditional route of the record labels is becoming inreasingly more popular,

Enter Bacardi B-Live Share, a new platform allowing fans to sign-up in order to receive a free track and then access more free songs as they spread the word. Fans can share through specially-designed widgets and a Facebook application.

I love Bacardi as a brand. Having been involved in their campaigns in the past, they are always keen to do something new and innovative, and the B-LIVE events are awesome! I like what they are trying to acheive here, however I can’t help but feel it may have little impact due to its execution. Essentially this is just another branding excercise for Bacard. The association with a credible act like Groove Armada is definitely a smart move, but at present with only Groove Armada music available on the service, (and in the first instance, just one song!) Bacardi should have put much more emphasis on the tie-up with the duo and getting the music out there rather than trying to develop the B-Live Share service so quickly. With the first step under their belt, at that point they could have then built B-Live Share . It would have been wise to further leverage existing social networking environments and launch soley on Facebook for example, rather than facing the challenge of driving traffic to a branded destination where a visitor is forced to sign-up, and take tools from it to share elsewhere.

A great idea, but one that certainly requires a more tiered approach. What are your thoughts?