Kulturbolaget

From Erikslust in Malmö to grand concerts and festivals – KB has attracted audiences and more than 3,000 artists for over 40 years

Wow, wow, wow. Kulturbolaget (KB) is unlike any other club. It’s a business that has been around for over 40 years, starting at Erikslust in Malmö in 1982, when The Cramps almost swallowed the microphone during their performance, and has since grown into an internationally renowned venue. As one of Scandinavia’s oldest organizers, it has attracted over 3,000 artists. And it’s not just a large number of artists, but big names as well. Surely you recognize names like Britney Spears, Ryan Adams, Björn Skifs, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, and Queens of the Stone Age?

From Erikslust to the red brick house on Möllevången in 1993, both venues are based in Malmö. Today, however, KB has grown into a thriving business. They are now a significant organizer in south-west Sweden and run gigs in both Malmö and Gothenburg. The number of concerts and venues has increased, and they’ve also organized festivals such as 'Metaltown' and 'We Who Love the 90s,' along with expanding to a new office in Gothenburg. A fascinating story, isn’t it?

When we ask Grant Murdoch Purdy, a marketer at KB, to tell us about the venue and the types of gigs they organize, he answers:

– We arrange around 200 concerts per year. There’s a lot of hard rock and classic rock, but also pop, country, and hip-hop. In addition to gigs in Skåne and Gothenburg, we also organize events and tours in Jönköping, Halmstad, and all the way up to Norrland.

Selects channels based on concert type, target group, and profiling

Grant has worked at KB since 2013. In the marketing department, two employees are responsible for developing overall plans for various concerts, creating digital ads, boosting ticket sales, and executing various marketing activities. TikTok, Google, newspaper ads, and newsletters are used to reach their audience.

– I’ve been doing releases for so many years now that much of it is in my muscle memory. I have a standard plan with 8-12 steps that I usually follow, but I always have to think through which channels to use, which target group to engage, and what feeling we want to convey, says Grant.

Today, marketing can take place in an incredible number of ways. Vertical ads in newspapers such as Sweden Rock and Gaffa attract the attention of one type of audience, while advertising in the local press captures another. On social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, certain methods work best, while Google ads require a different approach.

– The channels we choose to use depend on the genre and the gig we are marketing. If we want to reach an older audience, one type of channel works best, but for a younger audience, we have to think differently. Right now, for example, TikTok is big, and we recently tested the platform. The advertising there yielded excellent results! That’s the crazy thing about TikTok – if you hit it right, it has a huge impact, says Grant.

But how much does KB really know about its audience? How do they practically choose channels based on target groups? And how can KB's marketing be so right on target? The answer is spelled customer data. The customer data is obtained through a customer data platform uniquely developed for the event and experience industry.

KB collects all customer data in a single system – flexible and foolproof

At KB, three different ticket systems are used: Tickster, Ticketmaster, and Eventim. When a customer buys a ticket for one of the concerts KB arranges, the purchase is made through one of the three ticket systems. What happens to the customer information – such as name, email address, and phone number? It ends up in the ticket systems.

The issue is that in the ticket systems, it’s not possible to learn much about the ticket buyers and guests. Additionally, as the customer lists grow every day, exporting and importing the lists from the three ticket systems to different tools to understand your audience or send mailings becomes cumbersome. It’s also time-consuming, inefficient, and outdated.

– We had a meeting with Erik at MarketHype just before the pandemic started to wreak havoc. We were told that we would be able to collect customer data from all ticketing systems, analyze our audience, and send various email mailings – all within the same tool. It sounded neat! During the pandemic itself, there wasn’t much to do for obvious reasons, but now we use MarketHype extensively, explains Grant.

MarketHype is a customer data platform and marketing tool – both in the same system – where data from Tickster, Ticketmaster, and Eventim is automatically retrieved. The data is cleaned, verified, and supplemented with contact information and geo-coordinates, and the records are continuously updated. No exports and imports between different tools are needed. Of course, everything is also presented in a visual, simple way – so that KB can understand its audience and create relevant marketing.

– Before MarketHype, we had an outdated email system. The templates were limited and hardcoded, and we couldn't even use emojis. Now we can be more playful and test different things. Additionally, it’s faster to create newsletters and mailings. Having all the customer data and the email tool in one place, avoiding the hassle of dealing with different systems, is very convenient, says Grant.

Directs its communication using the Meta connection

How can MarketHype help KB adapt its marketing to the target group? Well, different concerts come with different event tags. And with each visitor comes a wealth of information, including age, gender, home address, events attended, purchasing behaviors, and other characteristics. Additionally, various marketing efforts – such as sending out newsletters – generate their own statistics and insights.

All this information is gathered in MarketHype. When KB wants to market a gig and target communication to, for example, a younger crowd, Grant filters out relevant characteristics. In the filtering, he can include a particular age range and a specific event tag, while excluding those who haven't bought a ticket in a while. The possibilities are many when all customer data is collected in one place.

Grant's favorite feature, the Meta integration, ties in perfectly with the filtering. He explains:

– The Facebook integration is used extensively! We filter out target groups when advertising on Facebook and Instagram, and we can export the target groups directly from MarketHype to Meta. We also create look-alikes. The feature is incredibly smooth – it’s almost like a new service!

With a close eye on the customers, Grant can spend his time on the right things

KB has been a user of MarketHype ever since the company was founded in 2018. Grant thinks it’s been an exciting journey. He enjoys having been involved from the beginning and is excited by the many features that have been added since they started. When we ask Grant about the effects he has noticed, he replies:

– Our understanding of our customers is much better now. We can see where they live, how old they are, and which gigs they attend... All this information is very important to us because it helps confirm our strategies and provides new perspectives for our marketing.

Grant believes that working with newsletters has also become easier. He mentions that the statistics from the mailings are very helpful in determining whether he's on the right track with his communication.

– I always check the opening rate of the mailings I send. Then I also check which links the recipients have clicked on. The most important thing is to focus on the right tasks and invest in what works. With the statistics, I can see what is actually working, concludes Grant.

More information about Kulturbolaget

Wanna check out KB's homepage? You find it here.