PayMe creates refreshing experience for HKers with Songkran music festival

HSBC's PayMe will unveil the first party music event in town in August that combines electronic music with Thailand’s annual New Year celebration, Songkran, aiming to create festive experiences for HongKongers.

The festival's name "S2O", is derived from the word “Songkran”, which refers to Thailand’s biggest water fight - with water splashing to symbolise washing away bad luck and welcoming a new start, and "H2O" represents water.

Done with collaboration with digital and social agency RISE Creation, as well as PR agency Six Degrees PR, the festival aims to allow audiences to feel the entire festive experience, by combining water effects with live music performances. "You don't need to be an EDM fan or know all the names of the DJs, but you can still enjoy a massive party," said the release.

Available from 5 to 6 August, the festival will feature performances by international DJs and top stars, and 360-degree of water splashing experience that is synchronised with the music, allowing the audience to enjoy the music and the sensation of getting wet. The festival is designed to be a hedonistic spiritual revival of Songkran’s joyful celebration of life and fun.  

The festival will set up two separate stages “PayMe presents S2O Stage and “Summer Beats Stage” to offer different styles of music in one venue and features performances by international DJs and top stars such as DJ Alesso. As the theme of this year is “energy”, the music festival will use up to 200,000 litres of water to surprise at any moment to soak fans by the jets together. 

To engage with a wider audience, a mix of above-the-line and below-the-line placements and activities have been used to generate awareness and ticket sales.For offline promotions, PayMe focuses mostly on out-of-home advertising (OOH) which includes a S2O themed-tram waddling around the town for a month, tram shelters, bus shelters as well as street posters on multiple weekends.  

In terms of digital and social media, the campaign is promoted on the brand's own official accounts, as well as selected media pages for music lovers. Selected celebrities or KOLs will be invited to join the festival where they will support pre-event social sharing. 

Furthermore, the organisers have also planned a PR blast with a strategic approach to announce different key messages in different phases, from teasing the event, announcing the full lineup of S2O main stage and second stage, to highlighting different experiences and activations, to keep the momentum going and sustain ticket sales. Media exposure will be utilised to build brand awareness across mass media, EDM media platforms, travel and lifestyle media.

The festival's sponsors and partners include VLT as its beverage sponsor and a lucky draw campaign for tickets; livestreaming channel Uplive will also be recruiting the "God" and "Goddess of Water" for the festival.

Commenting on the initiative, Carvin Chan, S2O Hong Kong Organiser, said, "Our team aims to make S2O become one of the must-go event in every summer, creating a new benchmark of music festival in Hong Kong and we target to bring a wider variety of music genre into the festival to make S2O Hong Kong become one of the most unique festivals across different Asian cities."

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