Grammy Award winner and international country music superstar Keith Urban was perched on a stool at the front of a New York-bound Amtrak train this week, armed with little more than a guitar and amplifier. Dozens of his luckiest fans watched him with wide and watery eyes as he sang stripped-down versions of his greatest hits.
Urban had spent the day on the rails, having performed two pop-up shows–one at New York’s Penn Station and the other and Philadelphia 30th Street Station–as part of his “Get Closer to Keith” promotion with Amtrak.
The singer’s latest album, “Get Closer,” was released Tuesday, and his label reached out to Amtrak last week to give it a last-minute promotional jump-start that had never been orchestrated before. The event was brokered by Amtrak’s entertainment-marketing shop, Matter.
“This is a one-of-a-kind event for both Keith and us,” said David Lim, Amtrak’s CMO, who also rode Urban’s train Tuesday. “If you look at what his top cities are in terms of ticket sales [New York and Philadelphia], they’re also our top cities. It lines right up with us.”
Pop-up concepts have become a surprising marketing tool for many brands, especially for retailers looking to generate some buzz in an area where it has yet to take root. And musicians are no strangers at giving surprise public concerts–think back to The Beatles 41 years ago playing on the rooftop of their Apple recording studio, or just this Monday when pop star Rihanna took to a pop-up stage in Times Square during rush hour–to promote a project or album. The pop-up concept, or concert, is part branded entertainment, sampling and multi-brand marketing channel, and, like its kissing cousin the flash mob, it’s reliant on social media to add a sheen of mystery to an event, making fans of a brand feel in the know.
In this case, it was a quick and quirky surprise for the singer’s fans, who were alerted cryptically late Monday night and early Tuesday morning via Twitter and the Facebook pages of both Urban and Amtrak that the singer would be staging secret shows.
Lim said Amtrak has had some success with events and celebrity partnerships stemming from its National Train Day celebrations, which have been institutionalized since the success of the first in 2008. Since then it has hosted several prominent events on or around its trains with personalities such as Buddy Valastro of TLC’s The Cake Boss, Dr. Phil, who shot an entire episode on an Amtrak Acela train in 2009, and even President Barack Obama, part of whose 2008 campaign was captured on an Amtrak train from Philadelphia to Washington D.C.
Lim said these partnerships are effective ways to get would-be riders in the doors of train stations, or at least serve as reminders that rail travel is a viable option.
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