UNBOUND Technologies helped VIBE Media Group achieve dramatic results from its "VIBE Verses" rap battle contest through social media marketing. Using its database of influential hip hop artists, UNBOUND engaged these "influencers" to share contest information virally. This drove a 100-fold increase in video streams to 1.2 million, generated 60,000 new community members, and resulted in a 800% return on investment for VIBE Media Group.

1. UNBOUND TECHNOLOGIES TAKES 'VIBE VERSES' VIRAL
Social Innovative Social Media Marketing Solution Ignites Hip Hop Contest,
Delivers Dramatic Results to the VIBE Media Group
In January 2007, VIBE Magazine started the
quot;VIBE Versesquot; Rap Battle Competition with AT&T Wireless. VIBE put up
$10,000 in cash and a free recording session in Los Angeles to find the best
amateur rapper in the country. AT&T Wireless branding was integrated on all
program elements promoting a new cell phone plan and options. VIBE Verses
attracted instant attention. More than 70,000 users signed up to listen to
4,000 user-generated
videos. Within two months, 340,000 people
watched 1.5 million videos. The contest winner
was Lexington, Kentucky-based Old Skooly High
with artists Richard Roe, Jae Derty, Uncle Mic
and DayV.
UNBOUND Technologies provided its innovative
social media marketing solutions to enable the
VIBE Media Group to achieve dramatic results,
including an extremely high return on investment,
from its VIBE Verses Rap Battle contest, the
world’s largest online rap battle competition giving
emerging artists a new, global platform to
showcase their skills.
Expanding Brand Awareness
VIBE Verses was launched because the VIBE
Media Group was interested in growing traffic on
its VIBE.com site, expanding brand awareness,
and increasing online ad revenues. The
publishing company, whose VIBE magazine
maintains a strong franchise among the urban
demographic, believed that this special contest
would help it to achieve these objectives. VIBE
invited independent rap and hip hop artists to
record lyrics and post them on the VIBE Verses
website where fans would vote on them.
Sapna Rohra
Along with the contest sponsor AT&T, VIBE required a differentiated Shivani Thakkar
social media experience targeting the urban community and
leveraging social networks and the highly connected quot;trend
spreadersquot; within them. To support their Rap Battle Contest, VIBE
needed precise targeting, quality submission, user-generated video,
pre-licensed tracks and voting. To ignite its marketing efforts and
ensure success, VIBE engaged UNBOUND Technologies.
www.unboundtech.com

2. UNBOUND Finds ‘Influencers’
“
UNBOUND immediately identified highly-connected rap and hip hop artists
—the influencers for this contest—in its massive social graph database,
engaged them and provided a widget for them to share lyrics with their fan
UNBOUND took us from 10,000
base. Within four weeks of engaging UNBOUND, the contest had gone
to 1.2 million video streams in a
viral, resulting in 60,000 newly registered VIBE community members,
month…more than a 100 times
”
375,000 unique visitors to the site, 1.9 million widget views, and 5 million
monetized ad impressions. lift!
—John DeMarchi
quot;VIBE needed a social marketing platform that would jump start Vibe General Manager
Verses,quot; said John DeMarchi, General Manager Vibe Interactive Media. VIBE Interactive Media
“We were serving 10,000 video streams a month prior to the start of the
campaign, and in one month, with UNBOUND’s assistance, we served 1.2
million video streams—more than a 100 times lift. UNBOUND’s expertise
and technology made it possible.”
Summary of Campaign Results:
• More than a 100-fold increase in video streams per month (from 10,000 to 1.2 million)
• 60,000 new members registered with the VIBE community
• 375,000 unique visitors to VIBE.com
• 775,000 media views (widget views, display ads, images, etc.)
• 5 million monetized ad impressions from premier brands such as Microsoft and Miller beer
• An 800% return on investment (ROI) for VIBE Media Group
High Consumer Traction Via Widget
The entire quot;VIBE Versesquot; Rap Battle Competition program was launched on a turnkey vertical social networking
platform, which enabled control of the video content with insertion of pre-roll advertisements and high impact flash-
based profile sponsor ads.
Social influencers and trend spreaders were provided an interactive video widget containing uploaded content used to
drive the target audience to the sponsor's message. Matching the right artists and their fans created the right amount
of trend spreaders to copy and paste their interactive video widgets to all of their fans for sharing. The trend spreaders
and their fans then shared the video widget among other social trend spreaders. This assured attraction of the target
audience to the sponsors brand messaging.
AT&T leveraged the video pre-roll within the widget and interactive banners on the social site targeting the urban
market. All contestants had access to free-of-copyright material so that the artists could apply their own rap lyrics over
MP3 tracks provided by VIBE, circumventing any copyright issues and enabling the placement of winning submissions
on iTunes. Submissions had to align with the sponsors’ requirements and the initial trend-spreader social
demographics had to provide quality independent artists possessing high social density in the target community.
The combination of a quot;stickyquot; social site along with viral targeting pulled together like-minded individuals, producing a
robust community experience. All content submissions were fully controlled, protecting the brand and keeping the
quality at a high level to bring in more artists/fans, thereby demonstrating to the community that VIBE Verses was
authentic. The willingness of both artists and fans to push the video widget out to the urban community created the
viral traction required for a successful campaign. What began with fewer than 21,000 targeted trend spreader “artistsquot;
involved ultimately resulted in more than 1.2 million video streams, 40,000 registered users, and 26,000 Widget views
per day in just 36 days.
535 Cowper Street, 2nd Floor
Palo Alto, CA 94301
888. 377. 1264
www.unboundtech.com