How Sweet the Idea, Verizon Wireless!

Of all the emerging digital platforms, the one that is least intuitive for me is mobile. I know the stats, I know what's going on, and intellectually I understand the power behind it. But it's tough for me to feel it because for me a cellphone is a utility, not an entertainment device.

But when I saw the "How Sweet the Sound" Gospel promotion from Verizon Wireless, I could finally feel it. I am a gospel fan, though perhaps surprisingly I am not a terribly religious person. But anyone who has visited a large black church (I prefer "urban contemporary" or "black" gospel, but there are four other subgenres with their throngs of devotees) with a good choir knows that you don't need to "believe" for Gospel to put a smile on your face and lift your day.

How Sweet the Sound is a gospel choir competition in which choirs record vids of their choirs and submit them to the contest. there are two tiers:

Small/medium choirs of 6-35 participants
Large choirs of 36-100 participants

Piloted last year in Memphis only, HSTS is now a national program. Any church-related choir can participate - the church needs to be a 501c3 nonprofit. Choirs are judged on a battery of criteria -- here is the list.

In the first round, 5 minute vids are submitted and a subset will be posted for consumer voting. From there, the semifinalists will be judged by professionals. These regional winners will be selected at an in-person event.



From there the regional winners advance to an in person national event. Verizon Wireless will be videoing the winner, and making the video available as part of its popular VCast entertainment offering. Additionally, they'll be offering downloads and ringtones, to make it a truly mobile-integrated program.

What I like about this program:

1. It is a music program beyond the kerplunk hip hop music competition genre that has been adopted as the defacto way of reaching an African American audience. I am not disparaging hip hop but rather saying this to celebrate Verizon Wireless's wisdom in finding other genres where its program can stand out and reach a broad audience.

2. It has online, mobile, and in-person components. Ya gotta have in-person because there's nothing like gospel in person, and it will give Verizon Wireless opps for signage, messages, and sign-ups.

3. It reaches out to (mostly) black churches -- there is a lot of research that suggests that black churchgoers are highly brand loyal and reward those firms who support their organizations with purchases and brand loyalty. Basically what Verizon Wireless is saying with this program is that they want to be part of this massive and eminently positive network of organizations that are firmly connected to thousands of communities across the country.

4. It is commercial but respectful. It invites people to use Verizon Wireless, but it doesn't demand it. I bet loads of people will accept the nice invitation.

5. It showcases VCast and the plethora of mobile phones they offer that provide good sound fidelity and streaming video.

6. It recognizes the absolutely gigantic gospel fan community -- with one in four Americans being "born again," you better believe that there are throngs of people buying albums, MP3s, and ringbacks.

This is a great program, and I bet it really pulls in the subs. People like companies that support what they love. I'll bet a lot of them'll be saying ATT can keep its iPhones. ;-)

I'll leave you with a bit of Yolanda Adams. She's got pipes -- and should be on that playlist of yours.



Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.