Imagine a hunt that features Justin Bieber song titles, related graffiti art and a location-based messaging app.
Such a hunt paid off last week for Chicago resident Michaela Quan — and it still could pay off for others.
Quan last week won a Drop Messages contest in which she became the first person to locate and post a photo of a Bieber-related graffiti mural in Chicago. The mural was one of 18 that the singer had commissioned in 18 global cities, including London, Paris, Berlin, New York and Washington D.C.
Each mural reveals a track from Bieber’s “Purpose” album, scheduled for a release Nov. 13. Bieber shared photos but not locations of all 18 murals last week on Instagram, prompting his fans — his true “Beliebers” — to go out and find them.
Drop Messages followed Bieber’s promotion with an international promotion of its own: It would award $100 Apple Music prizes to the first person in each city to post on the Drop app a photo of themselves at the site of that city’s Bieber mural. That’s part of a grand-prize contest that continues: two tickets to a Justin Bieber concert.
Quan, a student at Chicago-based Moody Bible Institute, said she posted her photo of the Chicago mural on Thursday night. The mural, by Chicago artist Amuse 126, represents “Been You,” the 14th track on the deluxe edition of Bieber’s new album.
After Bieber’s Instagram announcement on Wednesday, Quan said, she searched Twitter and Instagram for clues about the mural’s location, asking for details from other fans who said they had found the mural. At that point, she said, she was unaware of the Drop Messages contest.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is extremely underground,'” Quan said of the mural’s location.
She said she found the location on the Instagram account of Amuse 126, the mural’s creator. During her online search, she said, she also discovered the Drop Messages contest. So when she found the mural, she decided to enter.
“I took a shot and downloaded the app,” she said.
Drop Messages also has established $100 prize winners in San Francisco, Boston, London and Sydney, Australia, said Drop co-founder Zach DeWitt. The contest will continue for at least another week so that users in all cities can claim $100 prizes, DeWitt said.
Those people and anyone who else who posts from the murals qualify for the grand prize of two Bieber concert tickets, the company said. The singer, who scolded fans and walked off the stage last week in the middle of a Norwegian TV performance, reportedly is planning a worldwide tour that will include several U.S. cities.
Drop Messages said it would work with the winner to find a suitable date and location. To enter, users must leave a Drop post from one of the Bieber murals and then share it on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #purposealbum.
DeWitt said the Drop app is a location-based platform designed to help users discover new places, such as Bieber’s murals.
Users post a message from a specific location. Only when their friends are near that location will they receive a push notification that a Drop post is available.
Drop Messages, based in San Francisco, in August 2014 announced it had received $1.25 million in seed funding.
About the Bieber promotion, DeWitt said: “We’re all big fans and we saw the mural coming out and thought it was awesome.”
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