Category: Featured News

Burberry’s first Apple Music channel to launch

A new partnership will make the U.K. fashion design label the first brand with a dedicated channel.

Recent reports have shown that Burberry and Apple Music have entered into a new deal that will make the luxury fashion designer the first brand to have its own dedicated channel over the streaming service.

This channel will be hosted inside the streaming service’s “Curators” and will offer unique features.

For example, the Burberry Apple Music channel will feature new British acts in live performance videos. This will include certain performances that will be exclusive to the channel, such as video from the Burberry Womenswear show that will be taking place later in September, in London. The Curators section of the streaming service has already played host to channels that have been established by genre experts, musicians, and even from music critics from such top publications as Pitchfork, NME, and Rolling Stone.

The Apple Music channel is only the most recent in a spectrum of efforts that Burberry is making.

Apple Music - New Channel from BurberryThe brand is attempting to bring its name closer to the music world, in an effort that it began a few years ago. Other notable projects that it has launched over the past few years have included the Burberry Acoustic series, which started five years ago as a route for the company to be able to boost the way people view it as a lifestyle brand by connecting with the indie music scene in the United Kingdom.

This most recent partnership is also considered to be important as it represents the first time that Apple and Burberry have worked together since Angela Ahrendts stepped down as the chief exec for the designer in order to become the senior vice president of retail and online stores for the tech giant.

Once Ahrendts made her way from Burberry to Apple, rumors have been swirling about partnerships that may form between the two brands, especially after the launch of the Apple Watch was first announced. It is not clear whether or not Ahrendts was directly involved in this partnership with Apple Music, but it may represent only the first deal of many that will occur between these two companies.

iBeacon tech to boost Pittsburgh Penguins fan experience

This will be the result of a new partnership into which the NHL team has recently entered for this purpose.

The Pittsburgh Penguins NHL team has now entered into a new partnership with Rover, a proximity marketing firm that will be using iBeacon technology to help to enhance the experience for fans.

The idea is to use the geolocation technology in conjunction with the use of the Rover proximity platform.

There is already existing iBeacon tech installed at the stadium and by bringing this together with the proximity platform at Rover, it will become possible to create a beacon-triggered experience for fans. This will send them content that is location specific by way of the Penguins app. Fans who have the app on their smartphones will be able to access exclusive content when they attend games at the CONSOL Energy Center during the length of the 2015 to 2016 season.

As soon as fans with the mobile app step into the arena, the iBeacons will provide an “at the game experience.”

iBeacon - Consol Energy CenterOnce fans are in the arena, the beacon-triggered content is released, greeting the device users with special content. Once they reach the Mario Lemieux statue, an interactive experience is launched and they are provided with various types of discounts and offers for concessions.

According to Erik Watts, the senior director of technology for the Penguins, “We are excited to partner with Rover. Rover makes it easy for us to deliver relevant content to fans, and provides us with a platform to which we can have input and help develop an experience that is exciting and engaging for our fans and corporate partners.” While they started to successfully use the geolocation technology beacons for the 2014-2015 season, this year they are hoping to be able to “take it to the next level,” with the added advantage provided by Rover.

Rover CEO, John Coombs explained that the company is hoping to eliminate the complexity that is associated with the use of iBeacons and location based marketing, and will continue its evolution on making it simpler to take advantage of the power of this tech.