Global Summer Events—Cannes Lions, Bonnaroo and Wimbledon—Become Latest Event Apps to Leverage Urban Airship Push Messaging
Combination of mobile apps and push messaging drive engagement, improve experiences and keep attendees safe
PORTLAND, Ore., – June 18, 2013 – Urban Airship, the global leader in mobile solutions to build relationships with connected consumers, today announced the latest world-class events that will use its push messaging service to grow greater engagement with app users and offer exceptional experiences to both attendees and interested on-lookers. With the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival taking place this past weekend, the 60th annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity being held throughout the week and the 127th Wimbledon Championships beginning June 24, attendees and fans across the world will be more connected than ever through feature-packed mobile apps and high-performance push messaging.
Cannes Lions is the preeminent destination for global communications professionals to learn and be inspired by award-winning work—a fitting venue for the use of push messaging as marketing’s newest communications channel. The Cannes Lions app, designed and developed by The Bright Place, offers the ultimate personal guide to the festival and will use push messaging to deliver daily updates, time-sensitive messages and reminders.
With Bonnaroo’s massive, multi-stage venue and jam-packed lineup, its app, developed by Aloompa, offered many features designed to make festivalgoers’ experiences as enjoyable as possible. App users were able to create personal schedules and choose whether they wanted a push alert minutes or hours ahead of an artist going on stage.
Wimbledon’s app, built in partnership between the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) and IBM, allows app users to track up to 10 tennis players and receive push notifications on their progress throughout the tournament.
These 2013 events join many others including the London Olympics, SXSW, Lollapalooza, Coachella and Rip Curl Live Events app—in using Urban Airship’s services to connect and engage their audiences.
The London Olympics “Join In” app, developed by partner Xomo, used Urban Airship’s location-based push messaging to improve the visitor experience, achieving phenomenal results. During the opening ceremonies 50,000 push messages hit smartphones at once, and more than 10 million location-targeted push messages were sent throughout the games.
The official South by Southwest (SXSW) app, also developed by Xomo, used push messaging to alert app users of last-minute schedule and venue changes and breaking news. Among other metrics, 45 percent of app opens were influenced by push messages. Like both Lollapalooza 2012 and the Coachella festival earlier this year, SXSW also ended up using push messages to alert attendees to a dangerous approaching storm, helping to keep everyone safe.
“Push is one of the best ways to get important messages that cut through everything else,” said Michael Brown, technical project manager, SXSW. “When you send a push, people pay attention. You can gamble that someone is looking at Facebook or Twitter at the right time, or you can send a push and be sure. The storm proved that.”
The Rip Curl Live Events app offered fans the richest and most customizable way to experience the ASP World Championship Tour. Rip Curl used Urban Airship’s push messaging service to send rich media content including photos and video, as well as alerts to tune into the live stream when their favorite surfers were about to surf.
“We're delighted that so many global leaders, from events to brands, have found real success with our high-performance push messaging services,” said Scott Kveton, CEO and co-founder, Urban Airship. “We help companies connect with people over mobile and our proud of the exceptional experiences we power, but it’s a whole other level when we deliver potentially life-saving communications.”
About Urban Airship
Urban Airship enables brands to build relationships with their constantly connected customers through Mobile Relationship Management solutions that streamline delivering highly targeted, cross-platform mobile push messages and Apple Passbook passes. Billions of push messages and tens of thousands of passes are delivered each month, sparking exceptional consumer experiences, driving app engagement and increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value for leading brands such as CBS Interactive, Cinemagram, ESPN, Groupon, Walgreens and Warner Bros. The company’s solutions manage the end-to-end process of high-performance push messaging, location-targeted messaging and Passbook pass management. For more information, visit www.urbanairship.com and follow us on Twitter @urbanairship.