The season of summer music festivals is (finally) upon us, and TD has kept a strong focus on bringing music to the masses.
The financial services company has done nearly $60 million in music sponsorships since 2003, and is lead sponsor on 60 music festivals across Canada, according to TD Bank Group senior vice-president of corporate marketing Chris Stamper.
TD’s brand promise is about ways to make people’s lives more comfortable, and Stamper told Marketing that supporting music-related events and initiatives is a way “to connect with customers in a unique way that gives them comfortable experiences.” He said sponsoring music venues, events and community groups are a way to bring music to everyone.
The TD Music Café featured a performance by Tegan and Sara.
TD brought music to everyone on the patio at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall on May 26 when it launched TD Music’s summer program at an event called TD Music Café. The pop-up event featured a performance by (and on-stage interview with) Canadian twin sisters Tegan and Sara, and TD set up lemonade stands, umbrellas and seating in the area around the stage.
TD Music hosted the surprise event as a way to put on a free, unannounced show by Canadian artists for music fans. Well, not entirely unannounced. In the lead-up to the event, TD did a teaser campaign that included tweets hinting about the show, street teams around Roy Thomson Hall and flags around the venue to get the attention of people in the area and draw them into the event itself.
More than 1,000 people showed up on the day of the event, and a couple hundred additional passersby stopped to watch the show from the street outside of the patio.
More than 3,000 people viewed content at TD music site TDLiveMusic.com over a four-day period around the event. “We had a lot of unique visitors that [visited] the site specially to get information on the TD Music Café,” said Stamper. “We had almost a 200% lift related to the content itself [during the live May 26 event].”
He added that an important component to TD Music Café was the connection with MusiCounts, a charity focused on music education in Canadian schools and communities. “It wasn’t a concert just for concert’s sake,” he added. “It was a concert with meaning. It [gave TD] an opportunity to support youth that wouldn’t have otherwise had an opportunity to experience and benefit from music.”
In addition to Tegan and Sara’s performance at the TD Music Café, some recipients of MusiCounts TD Community Music Grants also performed. The grants are part of expanded programming that began last year in which musical instruments are provided to youth in community centres, afterschool programs and non-profit groups.
Stamper said TD is looking to do other TD Music Cafés throughout this summer.
In the meantime, TD is the main sponsor of a series of large jazz festivals in major urban centres across Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax. TD has been sponsoring Jazz Fest since 2003. This summer’s lineups include Aretha Franklin and John Legend.
TD is supporting World Pride in conjunction with its Jazz Fest sponsorship this year. “We’re huge supporters of the LGBTA community and significant sponsors of Pride and World Pride,” said Stamper. TD supports and takes part in more than 40 Pride festivals in North America. On June 20, the World Pride 2014 Toronto opening ceremony will feature Melissa Etheridge and Deborah Cox at a free outdoor concert as part of the Toronto Jazz Festival, which runs from June 19 to 28.
TD is also the official bank partner of music event producer and ticketing company Live Nation. TD is sponsoring Live Nation’s concert series this summer, along with the series happening at TD Echo Beach, the concert facility adjacent to the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre in Toronto.
Reflecting on TD’s position in the somewhat crowded world of music sponsorships, Stamper said, “I find we are in a leadership position in this space and we are the bank of music. I think other financial institutions have chosen their path—whether it’s Scotiabank in the movies or BMO in soccer or Royal Bank in golf—we’ve gone down something that we feel connects all Canadians.”
