A Smart Marketing Tactic
E-Mart, a discount store chain in Korea, is set to launch “E-Mart Music Challenge” to discover hidden musicians who are talented but have no channel to meet the public.
E-Mart will be conducting a project to search for hidden musicians from next month to the end of October in cooperation with K-Music Academy, which is represented by producer Kim Hyung-seok, and the Korea Music Copyright Association. You can participate by submitting a song with lyrics to the E-Mart Music Challenge site in the form of a sound recording or a video.
Kim and composer Don Spike participate in the first screening and select 10 works. After that, an online vote will be held from October 2 to October 21. The weight of the first screening results in the final score is 30 percent while the online vote will account for the remaining 70 percent. The 10 selected teams will receive prize money of 3 million to 10 million won.
E-Mart will support the top 10 winners to record their music by receiving experts’ advice on directing and arrangement. The company also decided to play the winning songs at the E-Mart store for six months. Considering that E-Mart's annual number of visitors is about 25 million, it will be a chance to let more than 10 million people hear their music. The winning songs will also be put on music sites such as Melon.
The event is said to have been proposed by Kim, who said, "Talented students who major in practical music have little room to stand." Kim formed a relationship with E-mart in 2011 when he composed E-Mart's 18th anniversary theme song.
An E-mart official said, "In order to attract consumers to offline retail outlets, we need content with stories other than product competitiveness. I hope that new music, which is chosen by customers participating in the online voting process, will spread to E-Mart stores and music sites.”