Fort Worth, Texas — RadioShack is sponsoring the U.S. dates of The Rolling Stones’ year-long Bigger Bang Tour, which returns to North America this fall.
The move represents a major marketing initiative for the CE chain, which is attempting to rebound from recent sales setbacks and senior management changes.
The sponsorship will help refresh the company’s image, provide brand exposure on the national and local levels, and afford promotional tie-ins both in-store and online, said Tori Binau, RadioShack’s marketing senior VP.
“The Rolling Stones continue to reinvent themselves, and we have to too,” she told TWICE. “We have to build relevance with consumers.”
Binau, who joined RadioShack from McDonald’s in March, said another driver of Bigger Bang sponsorship is the overlap between the band’s fan base and the retailer’s target consumer. The Rolling Stones provided RadioShack with extensive demographic information on its followers, Binau said, which correlated with the chain’s own research on its core and future customers.
RadioShack was also attracted by the tour itinerary, which hits 17 key markets in advance of the holiday selling season. The company will deploy its field marketing team to each of the tour dates to further leverage the tie-in, including a kickoff promotion in Boston on Sept. 20 that coincides with RadioShack’s birth there 85 years ago.
Another point of convergence is Sirius Satellite Radio, which maintains a dedicated Rolling Stones channel and represents an important business area for RadioShack, Binau said.
Multichannel tie-ins will also include “special opportunities tied to the tour” for customers, details of which are still being finalized, she said.
Past RadioShack sponsorships have included MLB All-Star games, the Texas Motor Speedway Samsung/RadioShack 500, Major League Soccer and the NBA.
The Rolling Stones launched their Bigger Bang tour last summer in Boston. Their return U.S. engagement begins Sept. 20 in Boston’s Gillette Stadium and will end Nov. 18 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The band will mostly play large venues, and is lowering ticket prices by an average of 10 percent to 15 percent. In a statement addressing the tour and guitarist Keith Richards’ recent head injury while vacationing in Fiji, Mick Jagger said, “Keith’s fine, his head’s better, he’s playing well and enjoying himself, so we’re all looking forward to this leg of the tour.”
