• by Larissa Faw , October 23, 2015

Last year, Ticketmaster processed more than 450 million ticket transactions and currently has an email database of over 100 million unique fans. This immense fan rolodex and knowledge of consumer behavior has sparked the Live Nation Entertainment division to launch Blue, a boutique digital marketing agency. 

Blue will provide live event clients, such as the PGA Tour, and Madison Square Garden Company services, which include programmatic ad buying, managed search, premium email marketing, paid social, Web design, as well as reporting and analytics. Clients already benefiting from this unit include professional sports and college athletics, venues and theater tours.  

The agency will be led by vice president and general manager Leo Dalakos, an executive with extensive digital marketing experience, who recently joined Ticketmaster from Publicis’ Performics. He will oversee a team of 20 based in Los Angeles and Chicago.  

"Blue is singularly focused on working to help our clients build awareness of their events and sell tickets," says Dalakos. "The client business objectives we solve range from increasing single-game ticket sales to attracting a new generation of fans to using data-driven insights to target ticket purchasers and subscribers more effectively.” 

Dalakos cited the agency’s work for the Hollywood Pantages Theater as an example. “We were able to target consumers who had a high propensity to buy by overlaying an analytics prospect model on multiple databases to optimize direct mail, email, and digital ad campaigns."  

Blue isn't designed to replace AOR relationships, but instead will collaborate with client's current digital agencies. "We view our services as highly complementary," says Dalakos, as our focus is on "bringing our fan knowledge and extensive fan data to the table, enabling our clients and their agencies to leverage that data with highly targeted and efficient campaigns."  

That said, there are smaller clients that may not have an agency, in which case, Blue will help them with strategy and planning in addition to leveraging its targeted media solutions. "This presents us with a challenge of supporting a wide range of clients with respect to sophistication, needs, and budgets," says Dalakos.  

This concept evolved out of the company’s LiveAnalytics division, an internal startup, offering clients data enrichment, fan profiles, and custom models and analytics. Company executives understand the importance of digital marketing to drive the buyers most likely to purchase tickets to live events.

As a result, Ticketmaster is making the investment to help its clients be more successful in marketing their events, says Dalakos.  

As for the name? Executives were inspired by Ticketmaster's recent rebranding, which features the color blue.