Rolling Stone and Sprint have teamed up to highlight street musicians via a campaign that profiles their talent on a mobile-optimized site and lets users vote for their favorite artist.

The musician who gets the most votes wins a performance at the Rolling Stone Rock Room during SXSW in 2012. Sprint and Rolling Stone are driving traffic to the mobile site by placing banner ads and visitors are able to place votes via SMS.

?Mobile was a key component as it was involved in all of the different aspects of the campaign,? said Harry Kargman, founder/CEO of Kargo.

?The mobile site allowed users to view photos and videos of the participating artists and allowed for the users to vote for their favorites and share them with their friends/followers on Facebook and Twitter,? he said.

Music to our ears
Rolling Stone and Sprint have scoured the country to find eight standout street musicians, which are profiled on the company?s Web site.

Both companies are leveraging Kargo's technology platform and letting users participate while they are actually viewing the artist in a live setting. 

Additionally, Rolling Stone and Sprint are using Kargo?s SMS platform so users can vote for their favorite musician via text message as well.

The mobile site lets users read personal biographical information on each artist, view photos, watch videos and vote.

Mobile incentives
Sprint and Rolling Stone are giving away ?random acts of awesomeness? every week until Sept. 20.

Users can win a Rolling Stone T-shirt, magazine and online subscription combo package, or a Kyocera Echo phone.

Additionally, QR codes are printed in book, which when scanned, brings the user to the mobile site.
Each artist also promoted the QR codes at the performances. 

?In addition to Rolling Stone?s marketing efforts ? both print and Web, Kargo ran banners on the Rolling Stone mobile site,? Mr. Kargman said.

Final Take
Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York