The Recording Academy®, the organization responsible for the annual GRAMMY® Awards, was seeking new ways to promote their annual event via digital technologies.

The Challenge

Develop a native iPhone application and companion Facebook application to engage the socially-aware youth segment of their audience, while incorporating the unique branding elements of the 51st GRAMMY Awards celebration.

The Solution

BrowserMedia worked closely with The Recording Academy® to design and develop a native iPhone application to help promote the upcoming GRAMMY Awards. The iPhone application was the first that the Recording Academy had developed, and so they needed a partner with the experience to help guide them through the process. The application is an interactive trivia game designed to test the user’s knowledge through a celebration of 51 years of GRAMMY history. Users are asked to answer trivia questions by selecting from multiple-choice options. Once a user selects an answer, they are presented with an animated transitional sequence that includes interesting supporting trivia information explaining the background of the correct answer, along with a running tally of their score. Upon completion of the quiz, users have the option to submit their scores to a centralized, web-based leader board. The application makes extensive use of the unique branding elements associated with the 51st awards, which was a core goal of the project, including the ability for users to download wallpaper artwork.

BrowserMedia also developed a companion Facebook application to further promote the GRAMMYs and offer an ongoing trivia contest beyond the awards ceremony. The Facebook application offers similar trivia functionality to the iPhone application, but also allowed The Recording Academy to take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook to promote their message.

The Results

The GRAMMYs iPhone application was downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users in the weeks leading up the event, while the Facebook application similarly proved to be a successful viral campaign. Peter Anton, Vice President, Digital Media of The Recording Academy, said, “BrowserMedia diligently and quickly worked with us to develop a GRAMMY application timed to this year's telecast. They are terrific allies, and we look forward to continuing our partnership as we develop additional applications to further promote the GRAMMY Awards.”