The Event

What could be better for a Joe Walsh fan and guitar player than to have Joe give them a guitar tutorial?

We approached Gibson Guitars with an idea for Joe Walsh to give a filmed guitar tutorial using with an electric Les Paul Gibson Guitar. The tutorial would be an opportunity for Joe to show fans some of his favorite guitar riffs, chords, songs, and even how to tune a guitar properly all in a very relaxed atmosphere in the Gibson studio in London.

Gibson had never done anything like this before, but were very keen to make the idea happen and Gibson USA agreed to fund the event.

We ran a competition across Joe Walsh & Gibson’s Social Channels asking fans to submit questions for the tutorial that were asked on the day. Four lucky fans were also selected as part of a Gibson Facebook competition to attend the guitar tutorial and Gibson arranged for some fantastic merchandise as prizes that were signed by Joe Walsh.

Joe filmed a teaser video to promote the tutorial and notify fans to look out the following day for the tutorial videos on Gibson’s YouTube Channel.

The filmed tutorial videos (13 in total) were featured in a playlist on Gibson’s YouTube Channel and cross promoted over Joe’s Social Networks to maximise exposure.

The Results

The Joe Walsh Gibson Guitar Tutorial could not have been more of a success.

The Man Himself –Joe Walsh is an incredibly captivating and engaging character. He was very relaxed and welcoming to the winners and went through the whole tutorial with enthusiasm and fantastic skill, telling stories as he went.

The Winners – The fans that attended had a wonderful day: meeting a hero of theirs, asking him questions, receiving signed Gibson Merchandise and learning and thing or two about how to play guitar.

The Filming – We filmed 13 amazing videos from ‘How to tune a Guitar’, to ‘How to Play Slide’. Joe also filmed an introduction to the tutorial to build some buzz, this video alone now has over 7,800 views. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to Dave Marks for turning the video edits around so quickly.

The Stats – After only 3 days we had 31,627 views on the videos in total.
Gibson Guitar Facebook – 892 likes, 42 comments.
Joe Walsh’s Facebook – 539 likes and 49 comments. – both after three days.
To date, the videos have had over 66,000 views.

Social Network Reaction

Gibson Guitar Facebook – 892 likes, 42 comments

A selection of comments:

“LOVE this!!! Thank you, Gibson, for bringing this to us. =)”
“Besides being a great guitarist he is some character…..He needs to be on a TV show. I think he wold be a popular TV personality. You go Joe!”

Joe Walsh’s Facebook – 539 likes and 49 comments

A selection of comments:

“The world’s best loved guitar teacher.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Been stuck with some of the things you covered. This was a huge help.”
“Joe…you have a gift from God…I just love how you play the guitar…and there is no other explanation…were you trained professionally or did you just “have it”?”
“I just finished watching the tutorial. Thank you. It’s beyond cool to get a lesson like that from you.”
“Analog Man Joe Walsh a LEGEND on my laptop,a very informative guitar seminar from a true great,if you like guitars you’ll love this.Well done Joe”

The Party

We organised an album launch party for Joe Walsh for his record ‘Analog Man’ at Century Members Club in London for the evening of the Gibson Guitar Tutorial. There was an album playback, a Q&A with Joe and drinks and nibbles – topped off by the attendance of some of Joe’s good friends… It was a great success.