Target Goes All Out On Social Media With #MoreMusic For Imagine Dragons Live Ad Concert During Grammys

Last night during the Grammys, Target aired a 4 minute commercial but it did things a bit differently. First, the ad was live. Second, the ad wasn’t for Target products, rather, it was a live concert performance by Imagine Dragons, which was estimated to cost $8 million according to Billboard.

The live commercial, shot on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, serves to promote a special edition of the new Imagine Dragons Smoke + Mirrors album — with four bonus tracks —  available only at Target beginning February 17.

The live performance, attended by 300 invited fans and directed by Jonas Akerland, will be cut down to a 30-second commercial which will begin to air February 15.

Now that the Grammys have aired, Target is following up the effort by trying to keep the buzz going — encouraging followers to tweet to “unlock” more content and running paid search ads to capitalize on the interest it’s generated so far.

Here’s a time-lapse of the concert set up:

And here’s an interview with Imagine Dragons leading up to the concert:

Leading up to the live concert, the brand unleashed all manner of digital promotion under the hashtag #MoreMusic. First, the band teased the concert on Snapchat with a video of the set up and sound check:

The brand made mention of the concert on Twitter and Facebook with images of a Target-branded guitar pick:

And touted the concert and the hashtag from its Twitter account:

During the concert, the brand actively tweeted the performance:

Popular internet personality Justine Ezarik (1.75M followers on Twitter) and her sister Jenna along with Vine celebrity, Lele Pons, were in attendance and tweeting:

Ezarik and Pons were also involved in the promotion of the concert:

Pons (127k followers on Twitter), Ezarik and sister, Jenna (87k followers on Twitter), even tweeted their experience and front row antics during the concert:

Following the concert, Target thanked the band, the fans and began promoting the special edition Imagine Dragons album:

UPDATE: A previous version of this story included a tweet by a person identified as a Target employee. That identification was incorrect. The story has been edited to remove it.

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Steve Hall

Steve Hall is a marketing professional, publisher, writer, community manager, photographer and all-around lover of advertising.