Situation

Motion City Soundtrack’s bio aptly states, “You know who the fuck we are.” They’re a band with five dudes and make catchy pop-punk melodies that defined the emo years in the 2000s. Over their 25+ year career, they’ve nurtured a strong relationship with their fans through music and authentic offstage engagement. With an upcoming tour, the band wanted to make sure they were giving their fans who purchased VIP passes a special and memorable VIP experience.

Approach

I chose to conduct an online survey - a quick way to get a lot of quantifiable data from a large population via their fan email listserv. I hypothesized what the results would mean for what the band should do about them. For example, if fans value sound check performances a helluva a lot more than VIP merch, then focus the VIP experience on what drives the most value. By prioritizing high value drivers, it will save the band time and resources from making separate VIP merch since it’s not as big of a deal to fans. I then designed the survey questions and wrote outreach language for the band to use when inviting fans to the survey. As an incentive, MCS offered a 10% off online merch through the end of the month for completing the survey.

Result

In a matter of hours we achieved a representative sample that allows the band to be - nerd alert - 99% confident that all of their fans would have answered the survey questions as those who responded within 5 percentage points. Excuse me while I push my black framed glasses back up my nose. We also received a lot of helpful and unexpected qualitative insights just by asking a few open-ended questions. By refining the VIP experience through fan research, MCS is now certain they’re delivering a VIP experience that meets fan expectations.

Check them out at motioncitysoundtrack.com