On Wednesday night Shakira put on a free live concert in Bryant Square Park in New York City, promoting a new corporate partnership with T-Mobile.
T-Mobile will be sponsoring future album releases from the Colombian pop star and working with Shakira’s ‘Pies Descalzos’ (‘Barefeet’) charity foundation on education projects in Latin America.
With artists such as Jay-Z and Alicia Keys attaching their brands to Samsung and Blackberry products respectively, wireless providers are scrambling to find celebrities to tie to new marketing campaigns.
With Wednesday’s announcement, T-Mobile is hoping that Shakira’s image as an international, cross-cultural figure will be the right fit for the new Simple Global service, which offers free internet and texting capabilities in over 100 countries for T-Mobile customers, as well as international calling at rates of $0.20 per minute.
It is possible that the wireless company, which said it would be involved in Shakira’s future creative and promotional endeavors, will be releasing exclusive musical content for its customers, along the lines of the Jay-Z Magna Carta, Holy Grail album, which Samsung users were able to download for free this past summer, days before it was available on the open market.
As part of the new sponsorship deal, T-Mobile announced that it will also be funding future projects with Shakira’s ‘Pies Descalzos’ Foundation, which focuses on building schools in rural Latin America, providing education to over 5,000 children in Colombia alone.
MORE: Shakira provides schooling for 4,000 children
A spokesman for the foundation told Colombia Reports that, while contact has already been established with T-Mobile representatives, the details of any future collaborations have yet to be worked out.
Wednesday’s concert represented Shakira’s first performance since January. After spending some time in New York, the Barranquilla-native will leave the Big Apple and jet across the United States to Los Angeles in order to reclaim her judges chair on season 6 of “The Voice.” Season 5 of the popular vocal reality show just premiered on September 23.
MORE: Whenever? Wherever? This Wednesday. NYC. Shakira returns
Sources
- Pies Descalzs website
- T-Mobile enlists Shakira as it introduces New Global Plan (Bloomberg News)
- Shakira canto ante miles de neoyorquinos en Bryant Park (El Espectador)