Dive Brief:

• Waffle House and TouchTunes have partnered to present the first-ever Tunie Awards recognizing the most popular songs and artists that are played on Waffle House TouchTunes digital jukeboxes over the past year, per a news release. 
• Winners will be announced during a Facebook Live broadcast event on Nov. 15. Atlanta radio personalities Madison James and Jason Pullman will host the show and present the awards, including "Song of the Year" and "Scattered, Smothered & Discovered Artist of the Year." Chris Stapleton, Imagine Dragons and Shinedown are scheduled to make appearances.
• The restaurant chain is also presenting the "Waffle House Jukebox Legend Award" to Whispering Bill Anderson, who was one of the first artists to be featured on a Waffle House jukebox. The Tunie Awards support National Jukebox Day on Nov. 21. The holiday was designated in 2016 as the day before Thanksgiving by the Registrar at National Day Calendar in partnership with TouchTunes.

Dive Insight:

Waffle House is leveraging digital to develop content around a popular offering — its jukeboxes — with the Facebook Live awards show. Jukeboxes have traditionally been fairly analog, but new technology capabilities have helped to convert them into wells for customer data that brands can apply to their marketing efforts. 

The Tunie Awards also signal that marketers are still interested in using Facebook Live as a means to engage audiences on social media in real time. Facebook Live experienced some early stumbles as the platform struggled to account for inappropriate content being live-streamed. However, other brands have recently run campaigns that, like the awards show, mimic the type of programming that's popular on linear TV. In June, fellow fast-food chain White Castle promoted a new Chicken Rings menu offering through a 42-minute Facebook Live segment parodying a QVC-esque home shopping show.

TouchTunes has been a leader in the digital jukebox space and has previously applied its capabilities in areas like location tracking for campaigns. For the launch of its album "Humanz" last year, the band Gorillaz tapped into TouchTunes' network of in-venue jukeboxes to target 15- and 30-second ad creative at bars more likely to attract alternative rock and hip-hop crowds. The ads were served programmatically via Rubicon Project's Orders platfrom.

While YouTube is the most popular platform marketers use for digital video, Facebook holds its own. It represents 46% of all video ads created, and that share jumps considerably when taking into account other Facebook-owned properties like Instagram, according to Clinch research. By broadcasting the award show on Facebook Live, Waffle House could tap into the feature's large viewer base. Facebook reported that more than 2 billion viewers have watched a Facebook Live broadcast as of April.