[Press Release]

5th September 2011, Munich/Aylesbury (UK) – High profile rock band Marillion have been joining forces with pierlane, adding another valued customer to the constantly increasing roster of app service Songpier. Always cutting-edge, Marillion are about to reward their huge and loyal fanbase of 100.000 Facebook friends with a very special extra – an exclusive campaign to be available via Songpier apps only. The release of the upcoming apps marks the celebration and launch of the band’s double bill German tour with Saga which kicks off this November.

Years before crowdfunding became a household strategy in music, over 12.000 fans enabled Marillion to produce their album ‘Anoraknophobia’ in 2001. Now, after successful crowdfunding campaigns for their albums in 2004 and 2008 the band have always looked for new ways to communicate with their fanbase.

In Songpier, Marillion found the suitable tool matching their ultimate requirements: to provide fans with an extraordinary mobile app to get immediate access to a wealth of information. At the same time, the band is able to keep full artistic control – which is essential to any of the band’s projects. “We have been very impressed with our trial so far with Songpier and look forward with working with them over the coming year”, Marillion’s communication manager Lucy Jordache says.

Marillion’s mobile campaign will tweak Songpier’s functionality to allow for an exciting way to involve their core fanbase. Communicating via the app by hidden messages, Marillion will be guiding their fans through a fun packed competition.

The strategy perfectly illustrates Songpier’s flexibility as a promotion tool. The app effectively links online and real life in mobile promotion, as well as extending an artist’s site reach to mobile.

Songpier provides artists with the ability to build apps themselves – no coding required. Unlike other apps, Songpier is totally free in its basic version, with Premium services coming soon. Important to any up-to-date real life promotion campaign, Songpier enables artists to include QR codes in print material which allows scanning by mobile devices. To any app you build, you can find the matching QR code in the Songpier backend, ready for copy & paste. Once scanned with a popular QR scanner app, your mobile device displays the Songpier app, giving access to streaming, band info, tour data and more. Linking to the download and merchandise shop of your choice is integral to the app, as well as social media sharing functionality.

To get a first impression of the apps to come, here’s the link to Marillion’s latest one: http://songpier.com/marillion/fantastic-place – watch out for the availability of the exclusively messaging app promoting the tour to be announced soon at www.facebook.com/MarillionOfficial and songpier.com.

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