Lollapalooza starts today and if you can’t make it, YouTube has got your back–they’re streaming it live from Chicago. The YouTube streaming is sponsored by Dell, an odd choice for a music festival, but a good way for Dell to reach a younger, wider audience than most of its current users.
Looking at the YouTube page’s ads (which are entirely Dell by design, not random chance), you can see Dell hawking its Ultrabook and offering an Xbox to anyone who buys a PC (a classic Apple-competitor move).
This would be a good strategy if Dell was still fighting for the consumer market.
But wait–for the past six months, Dell has been telling us “we’re no longer a PC company” and that they are focusing on enterprise.
So, now this ad campaign makes a bit less sense. Like zero sense.
Luckily, you don’t have to understand Dell’s marketing strategy to enjoy the live stream, though.
I’ll be sitting in the back of our Crunchup all day with my headphones in watching indie bands who all look like Josh Constine.
Update: A Dell spokesperson tells me it “goes well beyond just a sponsorship – we are providing quite a bit of technology on the back-end to help make the livestream possible.” This is similar to what Dell employees have written in the comments below.