NEWS: Referanza in partnership with Ticketmaster

One year's work was rounded off with a signature at O'learys at Gothenburg Central Station. Referanza founder Joakim Turesson did not hesitate for a second. He bought a last minute ticket, took the train to Gothenburg and stayed for less than half an hour just to sign the partnership agreement between Referanza and Ticketmaster. 

"This is huge for us as a company to partner up with the world’s largest ticket supplier. The potential is amazing since Ticketmaster International, covers many markets from Scandinavia to New Zealand. We have been working for one year to get this partnership, two years to develop our technical platform and to build a team. Now we are ready for growth and despite the fact that we will start focusing on the Nordic and Northern Europe, we have already had an opportunity to start up in Australia and New Zealand”, said Joakim Turesson, CEO and co-founder of Referanza.

Referanza is effectively making use of Ticketmaster’s open ticketing platform, leveraging Ticketmaster’s robust set of APIs to provide value added services to venues, sports clubs, promoters and fans. The Referanza product is based on helping venues, clubs and promoters to market themselves with the help of fans and satisfied customers. When a fan just bought a ticket or experienced an event like a theater performance, a football match or a concert and feel excited, she can share the experience directly with friends or social network directly on the mobile phone and invite friends. For every fan that recommends their experience, on average, 150 friends are reached in the fan’s personal network. Organizers’ most satisfied fans are thus becoming micro-influencers that can be used further in marketing. The method works efficiently and only in the last twelve months, Referanza has expanded extensively with customers like 2 Entertain, Mosebacke, Oscarsteatern and Berwaldhallen, which have now opened up their eyes to this way of marketing and evaluation of their events with the audience in the arena. 

“There is hardly a single musical or theater in Sweden we have not worked with. We know that this works and that venues, arenas and promoters want to use it. Based on data about visitors’ experiences of an event they participated in or bought a ticket to, we can even directly, in a first analysis, predict if the event will become a success or become a flop. As an organizer, you can then choose to intensify the paid marketing, make changes to the event to satisfy customers or perhaps simply shut down to avoid doing bad business. People talk about both good and bad things with eachother, and from a larger perspective, this way of working with micro-influencers will theoretically eliminate bad events , “said Joakim Turesson, CEO and co-founder of Referanza.

About Referanza

Referanza’s tools help companies take care of satisfied customers and give them opportunity to easily recommend positive experiences to their friends in social media. The reviews are genuine and credible and can be used in the company’s further marketing. Because customers tend to rely more on their friends than traditional advertising, it also drives sales. The new cooperation with Ticketmaster will initially be established in the Nordic countries and in Australia and subsequently rolled out internationally. The main investors in Referanza is Kichi invest, Almi invest and Bo Mattsson.