StarHub youth bid

The initiative taps into StarHub’s Ripplevox.com, which launched just under six months ago.

To kickstart the competition, fellow concert sponsor Channel V and radio station Power 98 pushed traffic to Ripplevox.com, where local acts could upload their audition tracks. Ripplevox members would then cast online votes to shortlist their favourite five, which would be narrowed to one following a live audition in front of select judges and fans.

According to Ian McKee, CEO of Vocanic and designer of Ripplevox, the site had received 57 uploads as Media went to press.

“We didn’t want to just sponsor the concert and give away free tickets,” explained Shu Fen Lin, manager of integrated marketing, StarHub. “We wanted to bring the band to our youth audience in a more interesting and relevant way — after all, music fans are often musicians themselves.

“We feel that it is important that they have a voice that matters, which is the spirit of Ripplevox — and drives the programmes we design with our partners.”

Along with partners such as Sony Ericsson and Roxy, StarHub has launched 20 word-of-mouth campaigns on Ripplevox to date, with over 10,000 applications to become members and test new products for free.

McKee added that more than 100 MySpace pages were discussing the platform, while most visits to the website were via blogs rather than sponsors’ websites.