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sandbox DECEMBER 09 2020 | for the digital era ISSUE 266

2020’s BEST MUSIC MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

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With Pandora Stories, artists and creators can add their voices to playlists and mixtapes. It’s the newest addition to AMP, Pandora’s suite of and powerful tools for creators. The ability to combine music and storytelling allows artists to give their music more context while forging an even deeper connection with their fans, new and old.

Artists can: • Share the stories behind the making of their music – influences, recording process, etc. • Supplement a with a companion playlist using their own voice tracks. • Create a virtual setlist, complete with between banter. • Program and promote career retrospectives, or deep dives into single . • Share their current favorite music with their fans. • Offer custom exclusive Stories as a premium or special offering for supporters on crowdfunding platforms. SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 2020’s BEST MUSIC MARKETING CAMPAIGNS elcome to Sandbox’s shortlist had a record number of entries, from labels of the best, most original, and of all sizes from around the world. W most impactful music marketing campaigns of 2020. It’s of We’re very grateful for everyone who submitted remarkably innovative and creative work across campaigns for consideration – and we hope that a vast array of genres, with many notable in these campaigns you find a wealth of brilliant achievements notched up along the way. As ideas, new , and daring creativity to ever, these successes are down to collaboration inspire your own work in the future. and teamwork, and we’re celebrating the people and companies that worked hard to make it all As always, campaigns are listed in alphabetical happen, too. order, but there are spot prizes throughout for the campaigns that we felt achieved something , of course, an exceptional and difficult special in an outstanding year. year for everyone as the global pandemic hit. Here’s the best of 2020. :) The vast majority of campaigns included here Eamonn Forde, mention how their plans were badly affected, Editor ideas were scrapped and new strategies had to be developed on the fly. EDIT methodology & notes

• Labels could submit multiple campaigns. It is a testament to the indomitable spirit of the • Campaigns were selected on the basis marketing community that campaigns were able of originality, creativity, and impact. to quickly and smoothly adapt to these new • The deadline for submissions was circumstances and creativity was able to take 6th November 2020. on new – and unforeseen – forms. • All campaign data, budget information, and demographic statistics are provided These 50 campaigns have been painstakingly by applicants. selected from a crop of notably high-quality • Budget tiers range from £0 - £25,001+ submissions. Competition was the fiercest ever:

1 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020

RUNNINGORDER 03 | Pablo Alborán 16 | Erasure 29 | 42 | RAC 04 | Anjunabeats 17 | 30 | Liza Anne 43 | RapCaviar 05 | 18 | 31 | M Huncho 44 | SL 06 | 19 | Future Islands 32 | Declan McKenna 45 | 07 | 20 | Georgia 33 | Bob 46 | Super M 08 | Moses Boyd 21 | 34 | Kara Marni 47 | 09 | Phoebe Bridgers 22 | Haim 35 | 48 | Tokimonsta 10 | Charli XCX 23 | Honne 36 | Millennium Parade 49 | 11 | 24 | 37 | 50 | Alan Walker 12 | 25 | Juanfran 38 | Novo Amor 51 | Why Don’t We 13 | 26 | Lauv 39 | Oasis 52 | Wojtek 14 | Trevor Daniel 27 | LA Priest 40 | 15 | Disclosure 28 | 41 | ➜➜➜➜➜

2 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Pablo Alborán Warner Music Spain

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN special sticker and template was launched by ◀ ▶ Pablo to enable his fans to add their own ending The campaign is a full range of actions to the phrase “ only you’d wanted to…”. By in support of the launch of ‘Si Hubieras tagging both Pablo and this new account, fans Querido’ – the first single from Pablo would their personal phrase being posted on Alborán’s new . Actions and the official account and driving their engagement. campaigns were aimed at increasing awareness and fan engagement pre- RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ launch and to drive consumption of the single post-launch. Web landing page: 16,243 new registered users It had been two years since his previous album, so we needed to filter create as much expectation as possible Impressions – 892,200 – and even intrigue – prior to the Times opened – 1,912,800 announcement and release of the first Screenshots – 457,500 single. A new was launched Saved – 25,800 for the die-hard fans to register and Shared – 14,100 discover leads and new content prior to New Instagram account ‘Si Hubieras Querido’ – the release of this track. 11,700 followers During a -day period leading up to the release date, Pablo Alborán We wanted to create as much expectation as would post a new photo every day possible with this first focus single and build a on his socials with a cryptic text huge digital strategy around the release that which revealed close to nothing. took into account the current situation caused Nevertheless, every text contained a by Covid-19. :) secret keyword. Fans would have to TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED figure out which word it was, log into the new ◀ ▶ website and, through a trial-and-error process, EDIT campaign breakdown Elena García – marketing coordinator type the keyword in one of the five displayed Upon the single release, an Instagram filter Alberto De Miguel – strategy and operations text boxes. based on the lyrics of the song was launched. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,001–£10,000 director A match would unlock a small piece of digital The title of the single ‘Si Hubieras Querido’ Sergio Mendez – head of creative and artist content on the web: an image, a short - means ‘If Only You’d Wanted To’ – making it the AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC services teaser or an audio excerpt of the song. perfect lead phrase for hundreds of different AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 Raquel Sanz, Mónica Pérez – creative account Once the keywords were unlocked, people endings. By hitting TAB, each user would get to AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 26% / 74% managers could access an immersive video from Pablo read a different phrase. LOCATION Spain, Chile, Argentina, Raquel Hernández – influencers and social presenting the single which would redirect to In addition, we set up a separate Instagram Mexico, Peru media strategy the YouTube premiere. account using the name of the single and a

3 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Anjunabeats 20 Years of Anjunabeats

award nominees Mat Zo and Fatum, a simple Thames, which was delivered to streaming brief: create a one-hour mix of your favourite DSPs and uploaded to YouTube. Anjunabeats records ever. The week before each 2. A merchandise collaboration with release, we announced a digital pre-order on our designer Mark Farrow. and iTunes as well as a pre-save on 3. A 20 Years Of Anjunabeats Spotify and . Artists were given a playlist generator. A custom algorithm custom-designed “Anjuna A” and tracklist suggests a playlist of music from our back to share on socials. Each artist shared a personal catalogue. statement about the mix and their history with . RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Each album has three sides: 1. The original ‘mixed’ album; Various Artists: 20 Years Of Anjunabeats 2. Unmixed ‘edits’; Total streams (including YouTube & SoundCloud) 3. Extended and unmixed. – 4,953,434 Total DSP streams – 4,507,489 This is the first that many tracks on these Total album sales – 2,086 compilations have existed on streaming DSPs in their ‘extended’ or ‘edit’ Above & Beyond: 20 Years Of format. The extended mixes Anjunabeats livestream appeal to our collectors, The product has so far achieved 3 million who are now able to listen streams on DSPs and 430k views on YouTube. TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED that would have brought the to music that they own on The livestream was watched by 74,446 unique ◀ ▶ stars of our label to the UK, vinyl on streaming services. viewers on and received front-page Gareth Jones – label manager Western and Central Europe, The edits have allowed us to coverage. :) Molly Leighton – product manager Mexico, Australia and the highlight a priority track from Duncan Byrne, Andrew Boon, Pete Wisher – US. Content capture and each record to streaming label marketing livestreams were planned to editors, resulting in playlist Ben Chadwick – art direction support these shows, alongside adds for older works in EDIT campaign breakdown Nombo (livestream) a constant drip of new remixes frontline Spotify playlists Twitch (livestream) of classic catalogue on DSPs. such as Power Hour. We Farrow (merch design) When coronavirus hit, we were forced to have seven releases to go in the series, plus a CAMPAIGN BUDGET £10,001–£15,000 completely reevaluate our plan. A year that “secret” mix by label owners Above & Beyond. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN should have been an epic celebration for our To date, the campaign has driven 5m streams. ◀ ▶ AGE 25-34, 35-44 company became a fight for survival. We dusted Other activations around #Anjunabeats20 AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 70% / 30% This year marks the 20th anniversary of ourselves off, redeployed staff and refocused include: LOCATION Global Anjunabeats. To celebrate, we were planning a our celebrations on back catalogue. 1. A three-hour interactive Twitch series of major festival events and club tours We gave 20 artists, including Grammy livestream by Above & Beyond on the

4 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Paul Anka Primary Wave

two months promoting the video daily and organically on all social platforms. We finally decided on a release date for the follow-up video – ‘Quarantine ’ – originally made famous by . The new quarantine version, which features fans as well as Anka, has a total of 200k+ views. We asked the fans to send in their quarantine versions of ‘My Way’ and then took the best submissions and created four verses into a full-length song titled ‘Our Way’. This campaign was unique because we took one idea, and were able to repurpose and rebirth new ideas and spiral campaigns for four months. The campaign grew Paul Anka’s socials exponentially and created new fans with accelerated engagement. We pioneered digital marketing in the age of Covid.

and Covid-inspired remake to two iconic RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ – ‘Put Your Head On My Shoulder’ and ‘My Way’ – both written by the legendary Paul Anka. • Nearly 2m views and engagements on social Leveraging the iconic song ‘Put Your Head On posts TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED My Shoulder’ – which was quite the opposite of • – featured interview ◀ ▶ what people were doing during the pandemic – • TikTok – accumulated over 120k new followers Shauna Carnegie – digital marketing coordinator, we came up with the concept to put the word and 2.4m+ likes. :) Primary Wave “DON’T” in front of the song title. Paul Anka Robert Dippold – digital marketing partner and rewrote and recorded the new verses at his president, Primary Wave studio and sent to us to strategise. We EDIT campaign breakdown decided on a waterfall release; publishing ‘Don’t OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN Put Your Head On My Shoulder’ first. ◀ ▶ The social distancing version of the song CAMPAIGN BUDGET £1,001–£2,000 At the height of Covid when touring has ceased immediately went viral, reaching near 1m views AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC and all-in person contact is relinquished, across platforms. Of this, birthed 78-year-old AGE 19-24, 45-59 companies across industry were left Paul’s TikTok page (which now boasts 120k AUDIENCE GENDER Not given to become innovative and far more creative than followers) and several other national media LOCATION US, we’ve ever been. With this task in hand, our outlets including Good Morning America. team brainstormed and implemented a two-part With the ball rolling, we spent the next

5 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Ashnikko TIKTOK

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED encouraged fans to create their own UGC versions ◀ ▶ of ‘Daisy’’s audio, distorting it and generally taking Anya Du Sauzay – head of audience and ownership of the track. As a result, three individual engagement user-created ‘Daisy’ sounds starting to make waves Jack Melhuish – director of marketing, partners on the platform – a slowed down audio, an audio and strategy with Ashnikko speaking over the top (aka the Thomas Jones – senior digital and #MadeItRedChallenge) and a distorted audio clip. marketing strategist these three sounds have amassed more 125m global streams to date and Ashnikko Rachel Forde – marketing assistant than 3.7m video creations – including from surpass 10m monthly listeners for Dave Rajan – director of national radio TikTok superstars, Adison Rae, , James ever. Grace O’Neill – national radio promotions manager Charles and One Direction’s to name The UK radio picture was also incredibly strong Jason Bailey – director of commercial radio but a few. The #MadeItRedChallenge hashtag, with A-List additions across BBC Radio 1, Kiss & promotions which had a Halloween make-up related creative, A-list. As a direct result, we peaked at #2 UK Nana Muyovwe – radio promotions assistant tied perfectly into the spooky season and has over Shazam charts and #19 in the global Shazam chart Victor Aroldoss – SVP, UK international marketing 265m views to date. – with over 1m Shazams to date. Sophie Scholz – marketing manager, UK There’s plenty more still to come from Ashnikko. Ashnikko was also named MTV Push’s Global international marketing been pigeonholed with. We wanted to welcome Building on the continued international success Artist for the month of October which also bagged Kannayo Okolie – director of brand partnerships new fans into the weird and wonderful world of of ‘Daisy’, Ashnikko will be back with new music her an MTV EMEA award nomination. Tommo Greer, George Shepherd – Various Artists Ashnikko. in 2021 and will be releasing her hotly anticipated Ashnikko’s social channels continue to grow at Management For her single ‘Daisy’ we partnered with Beats mixtape, DEMIDEVIL, in February which features a a rapid rate and across the course of the ‘Daisy’ Beats Headphones by Dr. Dre By Dre Headphones for a global campaign that plethora of similarly bold and brilliant female artists campaign, her YouTube subscriptions have grown Dylan Walsh & Olivia Hobbs – Blackstar aptly played out across TikTok, under the hashtag, including Grimes, Princess and . by over 450k and now surpass .1m mark. Nadia Moy & John Kuzara – The 7Stars #BeatsDaisyChallenge. The official for Similarly, across both Instagram and TikTok, she the single featured the brands new Powerbeats RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS has welcomed more than 550k combined new ◀ ▶ OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN Pro colour headphones (in pink, , followers since the release of ‘Daisy’. :) ◀ ▶ yellow and ) and we tasked fans with creating ‘Daisy’ scored Ashnikko her first ever UK top 40 Ashnikko is a blue-haired pop provocateur whose content on TikTok relating to each of those chart position, peaking at #24 and the track is still music ricochets around themes of empowerment, colours which could potentially win the chance continuing to grow in the charts internationally. EDIT campaign breakdown vengeance and sexual positivity, where nothing is to be featured in Ashnikko’s final music video. As a result of the masses of global noise out of bounds. She had one of the biggest music The #BeatsDaisyChallenge hashtag amassed a generated by the Beats Headphone and TikTok moments of 2019 on TikTok with her viral hit whopping 10.4bn views on TikTok over 3m fan campaigns, global streams for ‘Daisy’ skyrocketed, CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ ‘Stupid’ and has a hugely engaged global social video entries. peaking at an impressive 1.7m global dailies on AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC media audience of over 3m combined followers. Following a hugely successful video launch Spotify. We also shot up the Spotify charts with a AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 The challenge for us around her upcoming single on YouTube (which has over 34m views to date), peak position of #45 in the global chart and #37 in AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 30% / 70% ‘Daisy’ was to connect the dots with a mainstream ‘Daisy’ took on a new life of its own TikTok. the UK. Ashnikko also received additions in some LOCATION Global pop audience and make people rethink the Knowing that Ashnikko had a rabid and engaged of Spotify’s biggest flagship pop playlists – ’s ‘alternative artist’ label that she’d previously audience on the platform (over 1.5m followers) we Top Hits, Hits UK plus more. The track has over

6 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF INSTAGRAM Biffy Clyro UK STORIES

launch of the campaign. We The final track to preview and YouTube reached 7.5m people. sent out physical Pantone the album was ‘Weird • The ‘Instant History’ lens was used 20,000 postcards to fans with a Leisure’. We launched a times, achieving a reach of 170,000. hashtag, website link and Pantone Treasure Hunt, • ’s social media following grew by a cryptic message to build which encouraged fans 50,000 during the campaign. anticipation. We then archived to find codes hidden • Our series of Instagram stickers from the ‘Tiny the band’s Instagram posts and throughout Biffy’s Instagram Indoor Fireworks’ video accumulated over 3.4m uploaded the Pantone image page. Once fans had views. in their place. That same day collected all of the codes, • The album artwork was reposted 1,700 times, we placed the paint stroke they could enter them to a with a reach of 1.6m people. across all of the band’s Spotify custom built microsite to • The ‘Space’ video has been viewed 800,000 Canvases. It was also used as hear an advance snippet of times, including a thousand viewers during image for the band’s first the track. YouTube premiere. Instagram filter for lead track In the week leading • The vinyl sold out all 2,000 ‘Instant History’. up to the album release, copies within a few hours of the being The full album artwork we uploaded a mini-mix posted on socials. was revealed via a gamified of each track to Spotify • James and Ben Johnston hosted a game/trivia Instagram Stories video, under the pseudonym Cliffy night with fans, reaching 60,000 people. which was connected with a Byro. Each letter of the • A request for fans to send their videos for the competition to meet the band. Fans had to guess pseudonym was added to the Canvases of the band to use in the backdrop of their Radio 1 Big what they thought the finished artwork would first 10 songs in the complete Biffy Clyro playlist Weekend set resulted in 300 entries. TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED be by capturing a screenshot when the image’s on Spotify, creating a puzzle that fans worked • The campaign featured Biffy Clyro’s first two ◀ ▶ moving parts shifted into place. They then had to collectively to unlock. Finally, we boosted pre- YouTube premieres for ‘Space’ and ‘Tiny Indoor Jennifer Ivory – SVP repost the image for a chance to win. order by creating an animation to highlight the Fireworks’. Olivia Matthias – marketing manager Fans were then invited to submit their own album’s striking Zoetrope vinyl format. • The Twitch Stream Aid was watched by a Angelika Ali – digital marketing manager artwork to the band’s Spotify Canvas Of The The day after release, we hosted an global audience of millions and raised $2.8m. :) Alysha Wood – senior streaming manager Day campaign. The best submissions were innovative livestream show which saw Nostromo Management shared on Biffy’s Canvas. thousands of global fans watch the first full EDIT campaign breakdown Tom Brown – Sinewave Design Throughout lockdown, we maintained performance of the album. It provided the engagement across social media using springboard for ‘Space’ to become the biggest CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN livestreams (while encouraging fans to dress up track from the entire campaign. ◀ ▶ for the occasion, using #BiffyDressUp), tutorials AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC The cover for the A Celebration Of Endings and a series of games. Simon Neil from the band RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 ◀ ▶ album provided two memorable visual motifs: also performed in the Twitch Stream Aid event AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 51% / 48% the Pantone colour block; and the paint stroke to raise funds for ’s Covid-19 Solidarity • A Celebration Of Endings became Biffy Clyro’s LOCATION 48% UK, 6% Italy, 6% that covers the eyes of the figure on the front. Response Fund. His set included the first live third UK #1 album. , 6% US We repeatedly referenced these during the performance of ‘Instant History’. • The seven livestreams hosted on

7 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Moses Boyd Exodus Records /

and wrong with lots of ‘grey area’. The use of The album had big looks on DSPs as well, on consistent colouring and imagery helped create playlists such as ’s Out There, British a compelling aesthetic for the campaign leading Is Hot Hot Hot!, and Album Staff picks. Spotify it to be particularly bold and memorable. placements included New Music UK, State The Orchard teams tied in organic digital of Jazz, Butter, Mercury Music Prize: Best Of, marketing and paid advertising to amplify , Jazz UK, X-Over Japan; along with Apple record and nomination. The New Music Daily, New Latitudes; YouTube Jazz impact of prudent digital marketing became Hotlist; and New Jazz Generation. more clear than ever during lockdown, particularly as we looked to build upon the RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Mercury shortlist news. Moses saw the biggest percentage increase (37.8%) in album sales of • Official Independent Album Breakers No.1 any shortlisted artist. Album (UK’s biggest independently released The campaign involved creating a landing albums of the week by an artist who has not yet page for the Dark website, a Dark reached the Top 40). Matter “Stranger Than Fiction’ Instagram filter, • Mercury Prize 2020 shortlisted artist. Biggest out of home billboard advertising, special vinyl % increase in album sales of any shortlisted artist fiercely independent and powered by a vast editions, listening parties (Tim’s Listening • AIM Awards Independent Breakthrough Artist TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED array of influences and experiences. Party), album playbacks, and playlist takeovers. Of The Year 2020 winner ◀ ▶ Moses Boyd’s genre- and boundary-breaking A very successful social advertising campaign • Tying in organic digital marketing and paid Moses Boyd – artist debut album Dark Matter was released by his across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, advertising to amplify the record and Mercury Koyejo Oloko – manager and creative lead own label Exodus Records in February 2020. YouTube, and Search. During Covid-19, Nomination. The impact of digital marketing The Orchard A prolific collection of “dancefloor-friendly the UK’s Record Stores campaign made became more clear than ever during lockdown, Adam Saunders – senior artist services manager kaleidoscopic Jazz” (), Dark Matter special releases available to fans online in June, particularly as The Orchard looked to build upon Arielle Renwart – international artist services was produced by Moses with collaborators including a new Black & White Flag Edition of the Mercury Shortlist news. :) manager including Obongjayar and Klein, alongside some Dark Matter. Jack Blurton – digital marketing manager familiar faces from the London jazz scene, like Airene Resurreccion – associate art director mentor Gary Crosby OBE. The landmark record EDIT campaign breakdown Felix Donato – multimedia designer in the raw energy of and Kevin Macaraeg – multimedia designer and the rolling club rhythms of the London CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given James Surprenant – multimedia designer underground, combined with his distinct, AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Peter Lum – multimedia designer infectious collaborative jazz training. AGE 18-22 (8%), 23-27 (20%), 28-34 The use of monochrome throughout the (29%), 35-44 (24%), 45+ (19%) OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN campaign in everything from press shots, ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE GENDER 69% / 28% artwork, and video is relates back to the (non-binary 2%, unspecified 1%) Moses Boyd is a multi-award winning drummer, three contextual ideas in a visual way; a play LOCATION Global, UK producer, and BBC 1Xtra resident, on the meanings of darkness and light, right

8 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Phoebe Bridgers Dead Oceans

Jodie Banaszkiewicz – Stay Golden PR, UK press it and a great way of getting new and old fans to James Passmore – UK radio interact online. Bri Aab/Harlan Kelly – US radio Tiny Desk contest: this was on of many, many Chloe Walsh – US press sessions Phoebe did, but as a more high-profile one, we wanted to make sure that something set OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN it apart. One of the songs on the record features a ◀ ▶ loud towards the end of the song, so fans Monthly listeners at start of campaign – We began this campaign with a lot of luck on were invited to record themselves screaming along. 2,530,494 our side. We had an artist whose career had These were then collected and played at the session Monthly listeners as of 10th November 2020: – been consistently gathering steam, accolades along with the song, a fan-choir of screaming. This 3,869,808 (and industry fans) in the two and a half years again increased virality of the session (multiple since the debut album was released, breaking shares) and created a unique moment. Social: out of the DIY/indie scene it had begun in and Spotify filter: we worked with Spotify to Instagram followers at start of campaign – moving into wider appeal – helped by guest create an Instagram filter to go alongside 210,242 spots with , The National and Phoebe’s wildly successful video for ‘Kyoto’. This Instagram followers to date – 485,779 myriad others. We were also moving into a allowed fans to put themselves in the video – Twitter followers at start of campaign – 81,064 campaign with an artist who was super creative, surfing with the backdrop behind them. The Twitter followers to date – 231,377 hands-on and extremely hard working. filter took on a life of its own when fans began Our focus for Phoebe was to have a to their dogs, and soon all kinds of pets, Sales / chart positions: campaign that really showcased her personality with Phoebe reposting each of them. UK sales to date – 16,267 (highest chart #6) beyond the music, whilst letting the music ‘Naughty’ signed prints: this was a last- US sales to – 78,029 (highest chart #43) speak for itself. Phoebe’s songs capture a minute decision that reaped rewards. Phoebe Australia chart – 12 very certain ennui and, frankly, sadness which had signed a vast amount of stock and prints to Belgian chart – 20 / Netherlands chart – 43 she juxtaposes with an extremely dry wit and help stores market their physical product. She German chart – 39 / Irish chart – 18 TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED fairly base humour through her social media had a little fun with the final few towards the New Zealand chart – 10 :) ◀ ▶ and performance. This well rounded character end, scrawling some pretty NSFW messages for Mike Holdsworth – European project manager is what we were aiming to get across. We fun. We took these prints – each unique – and Evan Whikehart/Kraegan Graves – North avoided major (costly) stunts and – in offered them out to retailers as a competition EDIT campaign breakdown American project managers lockdown! – focused on a number of small and prize in the final week of release. It gathered an Robby Morris – creative director easily managed social contests and sessions. incredible amount of social coverage and hugely Hannah Carlen – North American marketing Garden song contest: we invited fans to increased pre-orders in the final few days. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Ali Murphy – Australia/Japan/LATAM marketing create their own version of Phoebe’s ‘Garden AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Tom Davies – European marketing Song’ video. This was already a fairly low-budget RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 Phil Waldorf – director of marketing/Dead video and a great of Phoebe’s dark AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 45% / 55% Oceans label /owner humour coming across. We were inundated with Spotify: LOCATION Global Katie Garcia – A&R responses which increased the virality of the Followers at start of campaign – 151,936 Emily Puterbaugh – head of digital original video, multiple opportunities to re-push Followers to date – 362,853

9 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Charli XCX Beautiful Digital / Atlantic LOCKDOWN

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN their own worlds for ‘claws’ ◀ ▶ to live in. Shortly after, the stems Following 2019’s album, Charli, and a for the album music were also released. Brit nomination for British Female Solo The album was released on the Artist, Charli’s 2020 album, the Mercury previously announced deadline of 15th Prize-Nominated ‘how ’m feeling now’ May 2020 and is already being held in was inspired by and released during the huge critical acclaim as an emotionally Covid-19 pandemic. raw, relentlessly progressive world, On 6th, Charli’s Instagram built from inside the comfort of Charli’s feed was archived and a Zoom was own home. ‘how i’m feeling now’ has announced with 1,000 of her fans given further spotlight to Charli’s status (and livestreamed to YouTube), where of the most adaptable, exciting the project, album name and deadline pop artists working today, and through were announced. The Zoom code was its uniquely collaborative approach, tweeted before the event provided a shared space for those who began. Each week during the campaign listen to feel safe enough to express there was a livestreamed Zoom call with themselves however they wish at a time guests (curated by Charli’s PR team, when they need it most. Huxley PR) including Maisie Williams, Hilton and a variety of fans and RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ press. It became the hottest ticket for fans as by sharing music demos which evoked a huge the weeks progressed. sense of involvement for fans. This continued • Mercury Prize 2020 nomination TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED The working title was announced as how into music video development. • 100k new Instagram followers ◀ ▶ i’m feeling now and the first single ‘forever’ For the ‘forever’ video, Charli encouraged • 200k new TikTok followers Jamie Ahye – senior marketing manager, Atlantic was released on April 9th. Charli then used her fans to submit their own videos to be included. • 8.3m YouTube streams Sean Ward – audience manager, Atlantic dedicated fans on Instagram and Twitter to A brief for fans was posted across all of Charli’s • 75m global streams :) Cameron Stanton – streaming and platform boost the album conversation. For the ‘forever’ socials and fans quickly sent their phone footage strategist, artwork, Charli released three images shot on an through in droves. Fans absolutely loved seeing EDIT campaign breakdown Tom Peacock – director, Beautiful Digital iPhone in her bedroom and asked fans to pick their videos make it to the final music video, and Ari Ahmisa – social media marketing manager, the best one for the artwork. Eventually three it brought the connection between Charli and Beautiful Digital different pieces of artwork were announced – her fans even closer. CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given Tracy Weston – content creator, Beautiful Digital the photo chosen by the fans and two artworks The video for ‘claws’ was shot on a green AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Mikey Eaton – content creator, Beautiful Digital produced by of hers. The same strategy screen in Charli’s . Much like the rest of AGE 0-13, 14-18, 19-24 Jemma Litchfield – creative strategist, Huxley was produced for the next two releases (pre- the content for the album release, it was shot by AUDIENCE GENDER Not given Meacham – founder and CEO, Huxley album), ‘claws’ and ‘i finally understand’. the people she was isolating with. Following the LOCATION Global Mitch Stevens – publicist, Huxley Charli continued to show the process in real music video release, the green screen footage Rohani Coombes – assistant, Huxley time via Instagram Live, Feed posts and tweets was also released to fans so they could create

10 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Clean Bandit YMU Group / Atlantic Records

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED soundbed. Fans flocked to comments to discuss showcased via Instagram Stories. ◀ ▶ who the vocalist could be. We then premiered To boost streaming consumption and provide YMU Group the official sound for the song on TikTok five content for fans to engage with, we also released Fiona McAuley – head of digital days prior to release with posts from the band an acoustic version – with an accompanying video Sarita Borge – management and Mabel, plus support from TikTok via chart featuring Mabel – as well as a series of remixes Iain Watt – managing director placement and banners in-app. This drove fans from Joel Corry, , , and Topic, Alistair White – streaming and data to the platform and encouraged UGC activity plus an extra special VIP mash-up by the band Atlantic Records very early into the campaign. themselves featuring and Konshens. Jamie Ahye – senior marketing manager We premiered the official video via Julien Vier – senior audience manager YouTube Premiere and worked closely with the RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Beautiful Digital platform to create a custom countdown, which Charlie Pollard, Tom Peacock incentivised fans to tune in for the launch. This • Peak UK chart position #8 & officially certified pre-recorded content featured Clean Bandit silver The Firepit Tech Team / ELS / F-That / Lightning and Mabel personally introducing the video and • 82m global streams across Spotify + Apple sharing anecdotes about key scenes. This also Music OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN encouraged comments, and the video achieved • Peak iTunes chart position #1 ◀ ▶ up-to-date retargeting audience. 2m views in the first weekend and to date is on • Spotify Hot Hits UK #5 peak position Prior to the launch of new music, a key focus for Alongside this, the livestreamed YouTube a very healthy 36m views. • Radio 1 A-list, Kiss & Capital S-list this campaign was to re-engage Clean Bandit’s series culminated in a collaboration with In order to ignite the spread of the song • Official video on YouTube on 36m views fanbase after a two-year gap in releasing music. Global Citizen to raise awareness of the global across TikTok and further drive UGC, we • 6.2m views on TikTok influencer activity We did this in several ways: hunger crises. House Party Against Hunger launched a global influencer campaign. We • 100k videos created with the official sound on • a series of fortnightly livestreamed DJ sets was a 12-hour virtual festival live on YouTube engaged creators across a variety of interests, TikTok on their YouTube channel: Club Bandit House on 8th August, with featured DJs and artists but the main brief was the routine from • Substantial growth in social following: Party; a visually engaging rooftop DJ set with from key territories around the world joining the official video. We have achieved 6.2m views — YouTube +300k subs (9.2m total), the full band, guest vocalists, a multi-cam set to perform a set on the hour every hour, across 20 TikTok creators to date, and the song Instagram +80k followers (1.3m total), up and a drone including: Ksuke (Japan); Hotel Garuda (); has been used in 100k videos. Facebook +30k likes (1.1m total). :) • the release of a series of VIP mash-ups of Imambek (Kazakhstan); DubDogz (Brazil); and We also worked with WMG’s The Firepit to previous singles produced by the band to (US). This included the first ever live create a gamified Instagram filter as a means of EDIT campaign breakdown reignite streaming consumption across DSPs performance of ‘Head & Heart’ by Joel Corry spreading the audio within Instagram Stories. • a catalogue marketing campaign to re- and MNEK. YouTube supported the event with The filter pulled creative from the official video engage casual fans, retargeting previous key playlist placement in-platform and activity and both Mabel and the band launched it, CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ audiences and driving them towards across their social channels. spreading awareness across both fanbases. The AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC discography playlists across DSPs We teased the release of ‘Tick Tock’ with filter has achieved 150k impressions and 60k AGE 19-24, 25-34 Mabel featuring 24kGoldn with a series of videos so far. AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 51% / 49% This activity helped to reignite the ticking clock unique to each digital To reward the fans and to highlight their LOCATION Global streaming audience, to build momentum platform. The short video creative revealed creativity, we reintroduced Fandit Fridays, into single release, and provided us with an a two-second snippet of the hook as the where the band selects fan-made content to be

11 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Leonard Cohen WMA / INSTAGRAM

living a life which impacted them deeper into the creative music and pop culture all process of Leonard’s work. around the world. Surrounding These visuals were featured the release of his posthumous alongside each track within the album, , Spotify app. we were given the unique task of Finally, our post-release launching his official Instagram strategy focused on creating a account. Our main goals were digital space for newcomers to to grow his audience, engage Leonard, to learn more about fans around the album during its his impact and continue to release and to create an ongoing feed them with content. To destination for the exploration of curate this account, we worked Leonard’s legacy. closely with Leonard Cohen’s To support the album release, son, his and his we launched the official account estate to share archival photos along with a stylised Instagram and videos. Through a focus on Storybook experience which quotes from Leonard’s writings, took the visual themes of the interviews, global artistic album (a leather-bound of representations like murals, TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED writings from Leonard Cohen’s journal) into the paintings, musical covers of his most well-known ◀ ▶ world of social media. Instagram Highlights were songs, and Instagram Reels/IGTV content, Adam Cohen – son of Leonard Cohen created for each track on the album, showcasing we fostered a highly engaged fanbase which Caryn Hanlon – director, international the lyrics in a way which mimicked the action continues to grow. As we continue to grow and experiment with marketing, Canada of paging through a book, but in the digital varying content types, we expect these results Jennifer Edgar – director, digital strategy and world, as each action was a swipe through an RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS only to improve. :) ◀ ▶ operations, Sony Music Entertainment Canada Instagram Story. This gave new fans a beautiful Emilie Gagne – artist marketing manager, Sony way to really engage with each track and digest Over the course of less than a year, we Music Entertainment Canada the lyrics from Leonard fully. successfully grew the Leonard Cohen account EDIT campaign breakdown Megan Ternes – senior digital channel manager, Upon the release of the full album, we from 0 to 52,000 followers, with an average WMA brought this visual aesthetic to the world of weekly engagement rate of almost 10%. At the Ryan Hall – head of social, WMA Spotify, being one of the first artists to utilise onset of the project, we consistently monitored CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given Chris Guttierez – social designer, WMA the new Spotify Storylines features. In a similar the weekly performance of competitor accounts AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC aesthetic to the Instagram Stories, we designed (, , Johnny Cash, Patti AGE 25-34, 35-44, 45-59, 60+ OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN the Spotify Storylines to create a companion Smith and others) to compare our performance. ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 48% / 52% experience for the listener, providing them Each week, our engagement rate is about triple LOCATION Global Leonard Cohen is a legendary Canadian poet with visual accompaniment to each track and the average of those accounts, showing that our and who passed away in 2016 after short commentary on the making-of, bringing content is resonating with our growing audience.

12 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Coldplay Warner Music Asia

Music Asia teamed up with Firepit Technlogy to develop an original campaign website for the band’s Asian fanbase across seven countries. This collaboration brought about a ‘Yellow’ virtual map of the continent set their contact details, helping garner a new database against a dark background, inspired by the of fan information which is sure to come in . in future campaigns. Fans were invited to login to the website to The drove an increase in streaming enjoy the campaign playlist on Spotify. consumption for the band’s catalogue and As Spotify streams increased in a particular helped reenergise their fanbase across Asia. country, this was reflected in a brightening of that section of the map. Each country RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ also had an additional progress bar to add a competitive element to fans’ listening • Over 16m impressions served on socials experience. • Shared across all Warner Asia channels, fan We further incentivised fans with the possibility and media partners’ socials to an audience of winning Coldplay merchandise upon providing of over 2.5m • Over 81k website page visits and 12k emails captured across the two-week campaign TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED • Over 143k streams generated solely from this ◀ ▶ campaign Sari Ng – content marketing manager, Warner • Spotify playlist saw a 25.6% increase of Music Asia streams in the first week Sarah Ismail – regional marketing director, • Average streams per user was extremely high – Warner Music Asia over 11 streams per user :) Brayden Crossley – SVP, marketing, Warner Music Asia Kennie Tang – regional digital director, Warner EDIT campaign breakdown Music Asia Josh Saunders – head of Firepit Tim Stickland – technical director, Include Digital CAMPAIGN BUDGET £10,001–£15,000 AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN ◀ ▶ AGE 19-24, 25-34 AUDIENCE GENDER Not given The turn of the century saw the release LOCATION Southeast Asia of Coldplay’s debut album, Parachutes. To commemorate its 20th anniversary, Warner

13 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Trevor Daniel Creed Media

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED experience of those scenes ◀ ▶ and by the end of the video, RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Creed (agency) show their genuine reaction to Timothy Collins – co-CEO those scenes. The key learnings for us was the possibilities that Hugo Leprince – co-CEO Both narratives had a low lie within activating multiple sounds in a way Sanu Hariharan – campaign manager barrier of entry, were open that shouldn’t cannibalise the momentum one Victor Leprince – campaign manager enough for users to be creative wants to create, but rather see the synergies you Work Of Art (management) around as well as being can have if you build engagement as well as the Brad Cohen – manager relatable enough to want to story in the right way. Interscope (label) get involved in. The awkward As the song only had a few million (in the Chris Mortimer – SVP head of digital stare challenge become a lower numbers – definitely below 10) by the marketing collaborative movement time we started to get involved and as the Ramon Smikle – senior director, digital between friends; and the sound barely had any traction on the platform & content marketing nostalgic movie narrative made as we began – seeing that Trevor Daniel today it simple for anyone to join (around 3,000 videos per day after the first week has become one of the biggest priority artists OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN in without having to involve of activation) through activating multiple meme at Interscope with more than a billion streams ◀ ▶ multiple people. communities on Instagram that we believed across his catalogue and 90m streams on ‘Falling’ The goal of the campaign was to raise awareness From having decided on the narratives, we would ignite further interest in the audience that alone (with over 5m videos on TikTok) the impact to Trevor Daniel on the platform TikTok. As we chose to quickly present it to an internal focus we already believed had consumed the content we saw that we were able to create together were starting to see some organic traction prior group we had gathered to see what the reaction on TikTok. with his team at Interscope and Work Of Art to our involvement (around 2,000 videos created would be between the demographics we were We wanted to go for a holistic approach management is something we are the most to one sound and approximately 4,000 videos looking to target. Seeing their positive feedback, making the movement feel like it was proud of, 1,200 campaigns later, at Creed. created to another original sound). Although we chose to move forward. From there on, we transcending the platform and transitioning into Hearing that Trevor’s life changed from this most of the content was very scattered without sourced creators that we saw to be most fit for multiple communities to validate the trend we specific song blowing up has earned this project a clear direction for a narrative, we believed we the campaign, both in terms of the demographic were trying to create. a special place in our hearts. :) could create a movement between both sounds of their audience, their brand alignment with the A few weeks later, the sound was building to drive traffic between each-other and help artist, similar trends and songs they had been with between 30,000 and 40,000 videos per day, spark momentum. involved with in the past and potentially helped making it grow into a viral and unstoppable force. EDIT campaign breakdown We came up with two original narratives to be originate movement around, as well as those got involved with the song, it had only activated upon: the “awkward stare challenge” most fond of the song. a few million streams on Spotify and fewer than and a “nostalgic movie” narrative. The awkward Once the initial creators had been involved 8,000 videos created on TikTok. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,001–£10,000 stare challenge plays with of in the campaign we started tracking movement Today, the song is close to 900m streams AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC cringe and challenges users’ comfortability within the platform to see where to potentially and has more than 5m videos on TikTok across AGE 14-18, 19-24 with interacting with one and another. For the pivot towards (both in regard to creative multiple sounds and has become one of the AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 50% / 50% nostalgic movie narrative we’d have users react narrative and distribution of budget). Mid-way biggest stories globally in regard to the power LOCATION US -breaking scenes from movies they love, into the campaign, we chose to increase the that TikTok has as an enabler for new emerging whilst using the song ‘Falling’ to enhance the attention for the trend that was starting to form artists.

14 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST LIVE- Disclosure STREAM

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED Croatia and regular contact with the fanbase – were immediately ◀ ▶ through production tutorials on the band’s picked up in the Island Records UK Twitch channel. There was also the first multi- trailer comments as Cercle had Angela Grech – senior marketing manager artist takeover of Spotify’s flagship alternative fans really engaged over 1m Max Creswell – marketing assistant brand ALTAR, heavily promoted with this unique views in Will Beardmore – head of audience on- and off-platform. experience, not only less than six Lewis Lister – audience manager At a time when was a low creating something for hours and Alastair Smith – director of streaming and production insight into an artist’s home gamers, but turning produced commerce (something Disclosure had been doing for years heads in social feeds Cercle’s Joe Pym – senior streaming & commerce mngr. via their Kitchen Mix format), we were keen to with the visually most UMG execute something more ambitious. Produced striking in-game engaged Phil Blacker – senior digital partnerships mngr. and broadcast by Cercle, in partnership with visuals generated. social media Orla Gorman – international marketing manager Music – our livestream from Croatia’s Via Twitch, Guy content Method Management Plitvice Lakes, a location scouted to reflect Lawrence opened up ever, Adam Royal, Jordan Gregory, Kara Tinson the album cover, brought fans into the world his songwriting and with their CYOA Media (Claire Higgins, Ted Lee) of Energy, not only providing us with a huge production process via Facebook Cercle (Pol Souchier, Dereck Barbbolla, Anaelle campaign moment that successfully engaged masterclasses hosted a week (often three post reaching over 7m people and the first photo Rouquette, Andy Cheremonde and the wider a captive electronic music audience, but also hours at a time, sometimes with special guest from the stream achieving Cercle Instagram’s team at Cercle) assets to fuel the campaign beyond. Howard Lawrence). most ever likes on a post (nearly 100k). Over UK (Ross Watson, Laia Lafuente, We knew we wanted to bring the landscape Continuing the dialogue with the heavily 25% of the bands’ growth that month happened Jack Lowe, Will Mcgillivray) to life and felt the world of gaming was wide engaged community in the band’s Discord within 12 hours of the stream. Blockworks (James Delany and wider team) open to allow fans to immerse themselves in channel – leading to competitions and Disclosure’s Twitch channel now stands at Spotify UK (Nikos Antoniou, Jamie Glydon, it – particularly knowing its crossover audience collaborative songwriting with them via the just shy of 25k followers, with content produced Annika Walsh, Christie Driver-Snell) with electronic music. This led us to commission #BeHoward hashtag. Guy continues to break circulated across YouTube also racking up the Energy Minecraft Experience, the largest down the band’s key repertoire and set new hundreds of thousands of views. :) OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN musical activation built in Minecraft, spanning challenges each week. ◀ ▶ over a square mile in-game and built using over For Disclosure’s third album, Energy, the title 100m blocks. RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS EDIT ◀ ▶ campaign breakdown informed everything. The stunning landscape Deep in the caves under the land’s surface artwork played on environmental themes were three underground clubs inspired by iconic Energy secured Disclosure’s third top 5 album explored on the album, establishing a visual global venues. As players explored the Energy in the UK, rapidly reaching over 130m global CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ language that we fed into all aspects of the realm, soundtracked by a bespoke Disclosure streams and over 130k global album sales. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC campaign. mix, gamers had the chance to do some digital The campaign successfully matched the AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 Amongst a wider campaign narrative, our crate-digging, finding hidden records including ambition of the act, who had written over 200 AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 50% / 50% marquee activations included an immersive 8-bit reworks of some of Disclosure’s classics. songs for the album and whittled it down to LOCATION Global meta-verse built in Minecraft, a cinematic live Other Easter eggs were included for core fans what we hear today. DJ set from the beautiful natural setting in – such as Guy’s Kitchen and Howard’s Chickens Our livestream with Amazon Music and

15 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Erasure Mute Photos: Phil Sharp

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶

Neil Blanket – head of marketing Daniel Miller, Joff Gladwell – A&R Paul A. Taylor – art director Zoe Miller – publicist, Zopf PR Teddy Lewis – digital marketing Caroline Poulton – national radio, Out Promotions to be in the video for ‘Nerves Of gained over 200k new followers across Spotify Steve Tandy, Jonathan Pool, Jackie Steel’ which stands out amongst and Apple Music. Spotify’s This Is playlist gained Jenkins – regional radio, Cop Media a number of similar home videos over 10k new followers. Thom Williams – regional press, recorded during lockdown. The album charted in the UK top 5 at #4, the Sonic PR Our in-house digital marketing band’s highest charting album in 26 years. The PIAS – label management/ team built a plan to run across album charted at #1 in the Official UK Vinyl, distribution all of the artist’s socials. Forming Cassette and Independent Charts. Remixes of Matt Pilcher – F-That (digital a coherent funnel process the first single hit #5 on Commercial Pop Club assets) to increase audience reach Chart. throughout the campaign. A key First month views on YouTube of ‘Nerves Of OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN print ad in Classic Pop plus a Steel’ exceeded our first single from both this ◀ ▶ needed the positivity of this Erasure album over couple of outdoor back-lit posters and the previous album. Current views are at The is Erasure’s 18th studio album and the summer. to highlight the artwork re-opened, 403k with a fantastic 50% retention. followed the UK top 10 album World Be Gone. Erasure’s audience has been growing over the alongside strong Radio 2 and DSP support were Pre-orders leading into release week matched Our campaign was designed to reach existing past three albums and we know that they are big all part of the campaign to build the strong pre- previous album which was released three years fans of Erasure whilst also increasing their fans of physical product. However, we wanted order numbers we were targeting. ago in a more buoyant market and not during a audience by re-engaging with casual/lapsed to be very careful with the state of the world global pandemic! :) fans, plus audiences gained during the Robbie being what it was. Out went our super-deluxe RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Williams stadium tour in 2017. bundles: we didn’t want our fans to have to be Our plan was: to create environments for spending too much during such a precarious The first single from the album was added to EDIT campaign breakdown this album’s reach to be amplified; contextualise time. We focused on strong packaging across the BBC Radio 2 A-list (peaking at #15 on the the album within Erasure’s career; and further key formats, with a simpler bundle approach. chart), second single on B-list. Performed CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ solidify their place in the contemporary music Engaging the digital agency F-That, we at BBC Radio 2’s Live At Home festival. scene. created a series of digital tools that explored the The project received great support from AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC The album had been recorded and scheduled Neon nature of the album so we could reach the Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer who we AGE 25-34, 35-44, 45-59, 60+ pre-pandemic. Due to lockdown, we moved audience whilst they were all at home. We also worked with closely so that the band’s key AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 55% / 45% the release by a couple of months to give us took the opportunity to work with a collection playlists were all updated, plus editorial support. LOCATION UK, US, Germany, more time to plan the campaign. If there was of drag queens who, whilst all at home and Playlists featured heavily in our campaign. Three Scandinavia, one thing we were sure of, it was that the world essentially out of work, jumped at the chance singles featured in New Music Friday. They

16 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Everything Everything AWAL VR

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED content of RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ ◀ ▶ 2020, such as Nathan Liddle-Hulme – senior marketing remotely filmed The restrictions placed on us during the spring UK director, AWAL live session lockdown, forced us to be more resourceful and Jen Ewbank – international marketing, performances creative – and this ultimately bred a more unique AWAL for each track and interesting online marketing campaign. The Ariel Cohen – audience development, released and band’s dedication to embracing new ways of AWAL livestream working and trying out new things meant that Anna Derbyshire-Woolgar – artist Q&As, we tried a host of forward- whilst not everything was as successful as we marketing consultant thinking new activations which all drew hope for, we were always pushing the boundaries Peter McGaughrin and Caroline Trout, Red influence from the overall campaign of what was expected from a traditional ‘rock Light Management visual aesthetic. band’ album marketing campaign. Seeing each Laura Taylor – creative, Red Light Management the surreal and unsettling nature of the world in Only Everything Everything could write a setback as an opportunity to do things differently Sanar (VR platform) April 2020. The fact that people in Wuhan were song about a sentient fatberg and we took this and to try new things, meant that, although there reporting hearing birdsong in their traffic-free warped concept further by animating one for the was a lot of extra work the band and team, OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN streets for the first time in years made us realise music video and creating an Instagram AR face the campaign felt fresh and enabled the band to ◀ ▶ it was the right way to start things off. filter which allowed users to turn themselves engage with their audiences in ways they would Plans were taking shape for the marketing Without any potential in-person shoots into the fatberg and also place a dancing fatberg not have usually. campaign around Everything Everything’s fifth happening, Jonathan Higgs (lead vocals, guitar) on any surface their camera landed on. Re-Animator entered the UK charts at #5, album, Re-Animator, when the global Covid-19 decided he would teach himself to use 3D For a band used to connecting with their Everything Everything’s joint top career placing. pandemic hit. Overnight photo shoots, video modelling software and create something audiences in a live setting, 2020 offered some The band had their shoots, face-to-face promo and live plans had to unexpected for the song’s accompanying video. real challenges; but by embracing virtual fan biggest ever day- be cancelled. The song and visual really struck a chord with engagement and interaction, we managed to one and week-one At that early stage in the pandemic, none of fans on its release and gave the band a renewed create a dialogue around Re-Animator online. streams as well as us knew when the band would be able to even profile within . The most ambitious example of this was their highest ever again. We doubled down and began With Jon’s new skills in 3D animation – the Everything Everything – Virtual RE-ANIMATOR. audience. :) to re- the more traditional aspects of our techniques he was using and the warped results Created within Sansar, a social marketing and promotion plans. he was achieving – suddenly gave us a visual platform, the was performed by the EDIT campaign breakdown Our timeline completely shifted, as did our palette for the whole campaign. A traditional band in a bespoke VR world which incorporated choice of launch song. Our original choice photoshoot was replaced with individual phone much of the 3D modelled creations that were in of first single suddenly didn’t feel right both photos of each band member, twisted and the official music videos and artwork from the CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ in terms of its lyrical content or its overall manipulated in a digital nightmare, strangely album. Fans could enter this Re-Animator world AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC sentiment when set against the backdrop of a poignant against the backdrop of 2020. via VR headset, interact with other fans, dance, AGE 19-24, 25-34 very scary and worrying time, so we decided These warped 3D images also gave the buy virtual merch for their avatar to wear and AUDIENCE GENDER All genders to choose the most surprising and unexpected album artwork and related online assets a visual even join the band in a virtual meet & greet at LOCATION Global song from the album to launch the campaign. ‘In identity and tied the whole campaign together. the end of the show. Birdsong’ was the perfect song to soundtrack Alongside the more lockdown

17 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST CHARITY Faithless BMG ELEMENT

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶

Jo Power – marketing, BMG Phil Brown (BMG) and Pauline Macocco (ATC Management) – digital marketing Simon Rugg – digital & streaming, BMG Adam Coates (Influence Digital) – social media charity through the sharing and giving resulting in a subscriber increase of 18%. ATC – artist management of music. Well-known DJs and musicians #AsTheSunSets was a global event, with fans Christian Codjoe & Tom Nield will be encouraged to donate signed across Europe, US, South America, Russia and – Landmrk vinyl that will be given away as one large, Australia unlocking content and sharing badges. money-can’t-buy collection. People The website included a sign-up option to boost OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN donate to buy a ‘ticket’ to give them a data capture. ◀ ▶ chance to win the collection, with all The digital activations helped secure Legendary UK dance act Faithless released their to of never-ending nightlife that proceeds going towards Choose Love, raising Faithless’s biggest day on streaming on album first studio album in 10 years, All Blessed, on 23rd Faithless have always created. money for the charity Help Refugees. release, 56% higher than their previous best. October. We started by asking the band for a To further tap into the spirit of bringing Streaming through release month increased 33% manifesto to work to and they said, “Be conscious, people together, we used a number of platforms RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS and monthly listeners were up 12%. The album ◀ ▶ be caring, so you can love others and to encourage fan interaction and engagement, received excellent playlist support including understand who you are and where you are. This including Facebook Live, Twitch, and a Tim’s All Blessed debuted in the UK album chart at multiple New Music Fridays, MINT, New Music is music with feeling and words with meaning.” Twitter Listening Party. #6. It was the #1 independent album and dance Daily, Beats of the Week & New Dance. Playlist This gave a strong basis for the campaign. One of the underlying themes of the album release that week. reach increased by 144% and the number of To warm the audience up, fans around album is immigration and empathy. This was To engage with existing and new audiences, playlists increased by 22%. :) the world were treated to a series of unique given added resonance as the events of 2020 we tailored creative. Nostalgic but forward- moments, unlocking exclusive content at sunset unfolded. To mobilise fans we created a ‘film thinking content worked well for existing #AsTheSunSets. This partnership with Landmrk trailer’ highlighting the key issues that happened and lapsed fans. The film trailer and socially EDIT campaign breakdown and the European Space Agency (ESA) used throughout the year, from the wildfires to aware content helped us cut through social space data to determine a user’s location and Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests, noise, tap into a new audience and be a part unlock content at nightfall. Fans were presented immigration, and political unrest. Faithless have of the conversation. Fans responded well to CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,001–£25,000 with new music, video and an exclusive live always been outspoken on social and political Sister Bliss’s personal content giving the social AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC stream. Fans could create their own badge, issues, so the digital campaign tackled these channels renewed energy. AGE 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 containing their location co-ordinates and the issues head on in the imagery and creative We increased Instagram fans by 32%, with AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 65% / 35% time the sun set in their area. Fans shared these direction used. spikes around #AsTheSunSets, the ‘film trailer’ LOCATION Global badges on social media, driving the reach and As part of the campaign, Faithless will be and release week. Content uploaded to YouTube awareness of the band while paying tribute launching #PlayItForward, to raise money for and Community was used to mobilise fans,

18 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST LISTENING Future Islands 4AD PARTY

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED had built from several ◀ ▶ months of anticipation Will Tompsett – head of marketing, 4AD and engage the band’s Krawczyk – social media and digital existing fanbase to make junior, 4AD the release feel like a big Naomi Scott – director of creative & deal and grow the kind development, of social media word- Lee Martin – designer and development of-mouth that would usually be generated Constant Artists – artist management via tour activity. We needed a fresh new RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ narrative to increase excitement and also OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN to bring people together to share their We saw fans visiting from across the globe, ◀ ▶ anticipation. with brilliant turnouts particularly in Southeast With Future Islands’ new album As Long We launched an international online Asia, South America and Europe. We drove As You Are on the horizon, and in the face listening party with a twist. It felt like a another 1,500 people to pre-save/pre-order of no touring for the foreseeable future, special treat for fans who wouldn’t be able the album and social traffic was great as fans the big challenge for the band in 2020 was to go to a show, whilst also firmly fitting introduced the band to people to help them going to be in how to convert their huge our plans to create a communal moment to unlock the page. live following into release-week excitement. the usual Instagram filters and stickers alongside bring fans together for a fun event in a very The album charted internationally, with Following four pre-release singles and an traditional promo, the week into release was difficult time. some of their highest placings ever. The band’s extensive digital marketing campaign including vital. We needed to keep the momentum that Using the title As Long As You Are Listening, exclusive livestream with Noon Chorus exceeded Together, the band shared a streaming website all expectations on ticket sales. that was geo-targeted to your location and could Visibility around the campaign was great only be unlocked once enough people in that and we learned a lot about how to create area had visited the page. Fans were encouraged exciting moments without our traditional to share online to encourage fans in their area to reliance on IRL events. :) visit and there was a progress bar showing how close the stream was to being unlocked. Once unlocked, the album played on repeat EDIT campaign breakdown for a 24-hour window, with fans in each area listening together in real time and using a CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,001–£10,000 custom Spotify-authenticated chatbox to share AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC first impressions. AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, Our unlocking thresholds were based 35-44, 45-59, 60+ on Spotify’s API to assess monthly listeners AUDIENCE GENDER Male, female, per area and weighted based on their global non-binary fanbase. LOCATION Global

19 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Georgia Domino Recording Co

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶

Georgie Jesson, Kelly Kiley, Jeannette Lee – Rough Trade Management Brooke Salisbury, Jonny Bradshaw – marketing Bart McDonagh – project manager Corey Zaloom, Anton Magnusson, Emily Huxley – digital marketing Edwards, Harrison Daubert, Laura Sykes Dancefloor’ and ‘Started Out’, gave – commercial livestreamed drum tutorials and Laura Vevers – international performed full-on gigs featuring special Björn Flóki Bjornsson, Glynn Bolter, Alice guests like The Blessed , a Backham – digital creative duet cover of a Prefab Sprout song Charlie Pollard / Tom Peacock / Charlie Pollard / with Alexis Taylor of Hot and an Tom Outram / James Quinn (all Beautiful Digital) Prospa and Jungle) DJ-ed and the experience increased presence on TikTok. / Dylan Walsh / Olivia Hobbs – social media was filmed so that fans who couldn’t make it didn’t miss out on seeking any thrills. RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN A big goal for the campaign was connecting ◀ ▶ the dots between the Radio 1 audience and • Top 25 UK chart position Building on 2019’s development campaign that converting these into followers and on- Support in 30 Spotify New Music Friday playlists saw incredible support from BBC Radio 1 (four demand streams. The album saw partnerships in release week consecutive playlists and a Live Lounge session), with key DSPs and great editorial support. • Spotify follower growth of 633% to over 40k, a BBC Sound Of 2020 longlist nomination, This included a global mobile home banner, between now and the start of the campaign a performance, a televised Photo: Joseph Connor marquee notification, original content pieces, • Significant growth across Georgia’s socials, Glastonbury set on the Park Stage and hyper- significantly to audience growth. singles session and Times Square billboard from notably a >1000% increase in Instagram targeted audience building on socials, Georgia Around album release, we also rolled out Spotify, a playlist takeover and content pieces followers to 25k. :) released her second album, Seeking Thrills, a series of further content pieces shot in from Apple Music, a DSCVR session, at the start of this year with an to further various locations that inspired the record: the Deezer indie album of the week and session in EDIT campaign breakdown develop her growing fanbase and encourage dancefloors of Ibiza; the club scene in ; Paris, Amazon’s Weekly One and playlist cover them to seek all the thrills 2020 had to offer. and producing the record at home in London. features, SoundCloud Fresh Pressed and Fast Georgia toured internationally in the lead up These really helped a multitude of new fans Track Twitch live streams. CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given to album release, giving us ample opportunity built over the last year enter Georgia’s world and Georgia’s intimacy with her fanbase AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC to capture local footage of her in key territories. helped explain the story behind the record. and willingness to invite them into her world and AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 We then used this content to run advertising Release week saw Georgia extend an invite creative environment made her a rewarding and AUDIENCE GENDER Not given in each country so prospective fans could for UK fans to attend a roller album launch natural artist to follow during lockdown. LOCATION Global recognise her from either a performance or party with her in London via socials and her She kept fans engaged with breakdowns of from a place familiar to them – contributing mailing list. Georgia and friends (Joe Goddard, her track production on ‘About Work The

20 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Glass Animals

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN ◀ ▶

The campaign constantly reacted to the global situation – with the aim of creating something positive for fans in an incredibly uncertain time. All our focus switched to digital and how we could create meaningful connections with fans online. The band and this album refused to be affected by circumstance and actually thrived. Prior to album announcement, band’s livestream show. fans could download layered art, stems, photos and more to create RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ with (happening right at start of lockdown). This evolved into core the band’s channels the day before album Dreamland has had over 225m combined campaign hub – including teasers, announcement – including Instagram – which streams (200m on Spotify alone). It is their games, video launches and further freaked out a lot of fans. highest-charting album (in the UK and globally). TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED open source drops: Callout for fans to capture their head with • Instagram + 122k ◀ ▶ • 610k sessions since launch 3D scan app Trnio (offered to fans for free). • YouTube + 150k Fred Stuart – senior digital marketing manager • £300k in revenue Submissions (over 1,000) used to create 3D fan • TikTok + 11k Helen Fleming – marketing manager • 354k users averaging two sessions per user video by influential VFX artist Marco Mori. • Facebook + 35k Amy Morgan, Sophie Lane – management • All driven organically Three Instagram lenses launched throughout • CRM + 40k (September) the campaign with combined uses over 1.4m • + 3k :) Kia Augustine, Dan Sullivan – Hypelab (social Glass Animals’ own TV network, streaming and over 100k shares. agency) across Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Welcome To Dreamland AR experience Matthew Govaere – creative web developer Instagram & Twitch (each a different TV channel) was unlocked by scanning physical artwork (or EDIT campaign breakdown Shantelle David – international marketing included Dave Ja Vu (showing bloopers and anywhere you find Dave’s head). manager outtakes), GATV Unplugged (featuring exclusive Used open source to launch a fan remix Jess Acreman – D2C & strategy live sessions) and The Buy Network (QVC-style competition, with the band-selected favourite CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Alex Coslov – VP marketing (Republic, US label) videos with Dave). The band’s Instagram was featuring alongside on the deluxe album. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Bill Gerdts – digital marketing (Republic, US label) transformed into a remote (with each Instagram On the of album release, the band played AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 Annabel Crowhurst – UK PR (Toast) highlight a different channel). through the entire album to 500 first come, first AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 35% / 65% Taylor Vaughn – US PR (Republic in-house) Collab with 3D artist Rek0de – (safely) served fans. These 500 fans joined a Zoom and LOCATION Global – Format Atelier (creative studio) shooting footage in key empty global locations. took part in a synchronised dance routine for Mas Bruh – freelance lens creator These were pseudo-livestreamed across all Waves. This visual was then used in the

21 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Haim Polydor / Columbia ZOOM

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED for Banquet Records. They embraced participants and was a crucial activation ◀ ▶ social media even more, turning every to make sure the band could be interacting Stephen Hallowes – director of announcement into a fun and sharable directly with their fans, even throughout lockdown. marketing, Polydor viral moment. This all culminated in their Twitter listening party: the day following Betsy Whitney – senior director second UK #1 album upon release in the album release, Haim joined their fans in marketing, Columbia US June. the Twittersphere for an album listening party. Ed Juniper – digital marketing Socials: Haim’s cool-yet-comedic The band played through the full album in sync manager, Polydor tone on socials is a key part of their with their fans, tweeting exclusive behind-the- Alexa Shouneyia – digital marketing presentation, but this had to be upped scenes footage alongside each track to further manager, Columbia US tenfold once Covid-19 struck. Utilising contextualise the record. The listening party Camille Goldman – artist lo-fi performance clips and skits generated over 1.4m impressions. management, Full Stop Management alongside beautiful videos and stills Brandon Rieck – head of marketing, kept the campaign feeling cohesive yet RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Full Stop Management engaging for their fans. Paul Mauer – digital strategist, Facebook AR activation: we partnered The album debuted at #1 in the UK, bettering Skeleton Crew with FB creative shop on a unique AR the band’s previous album peak of #2. Digital Dan Moller – creative strategist, activation, by physical copies activation that drove engagement from their Facebook Creative Shop of the album. Pointing your Instagram fans, whilst retaining the band’s signature style Ricardo Caetano – head of UK, Facebook camera at the cover unlocks a sonic AR and artistic approach to visual presentation, Creative Shop experience. Digital overlays, revealed were crucial when marketing an album in the Vanessa Bakewell – global client partner, with the Spark AR filter, highlighted track climate of Covid. Facebook listings with playful doodles, adding More than 300,000 fans engaged with Haim’s 3D depth to the artwork image and AR album cover activation on Instagram, and OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN illuminated different elements on the they soon began to share their experiences – ◀ ▶ cover. Users were able to interact with spreading the word organically in the process. :) Haim returned this year with their critically and customise the visuals, where every acclaimed third album, interaction affects the soundscape. We Pt. III. With artwork shot by Paul Thomas used a collection of sounds sourced from EDIT campaign breakdown Anderson, the album was originally slated for the album to create an ethereal, dreamy an April release. Set to be supported by a global soundscape that captured the sonic CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ promotional campaign and world tour, all plans essence of the record that morphed and changed after the onset of Covid-19. director Jake Schreier and creating innovative TV changed depending on the users interaction. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Having initially delayed the album, they performances from their three individual homes Zoom dance class: Haim held a series of AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 then decided to pull it forward as a gift to their which aired all around the world. Zoom dance classes for their fans throughout AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 40% / 60% fans and tackle a full-scale global release from A cancelled Deli tour became a global live May which saw nearly 20,000 entrants sign LOCATION Global with key audiences in lockdown. They returned to their DIY roots: stream from Canter’s Deli. A planned UK up to join the band online to learn moves UK, EU, North America and Australia making videos in lockdown with award winning instore tour became a virtual live performance from iconic Haim videos. Each class had 1,000

22 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Honne Atlantic Records

band playing songs during loading screens. It was important for us to keep fans engaged throughout the weeks, so we worked with The Firepit to develop an Instagram lens including a lyric generator picking lyrics and playing audio snippets from the different tracks on the mixtape. Further on, we developed a mixtape generator letting fans make their own mixtape and send it to “the person they feel there’d be no song without”. We also extended the campaign with the release of an acoustic EP that was released TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED alongside two beautiful live videos, both shot at ◀ ▶ the Tate Britain, to keep their YouTube audience Atlantic Records engaged post-release. Tristan Parsons – marketing manager Julien Vier – senior audience manager RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Tia Johnson – marketing assistant Cat Thrower – international marketing manager, • Over 1m Instagram interactions since the Warner Music launch of the campaign. Joel Saunders – E1 Media Agency for the band so we developed a strategy to albums. The last stream happened on week of • The band added 125k new YouTube Toni Hollis – The Firepit Technology super-serve their fans on there. It started with release, with the band performing songs from subscribers during the campaign. Holly Warburton – illustrator and animator the official video – an animated video directed the mixtape. • The Instagram lens has received over half a by Holly Warburton – which premiered on With Honne’s audience being so international million impressions. OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN YouTube with the band chatting and watching we knew we had to make lyric videos for each • Over 1.5k playlists created through the ◀ ▶ with fans. Following the release of the video, track on the mixtape. We got the animator mixtape generator. :) British electronic duo Honne returned this fans connected with the characters in the video to create a series of lyric videos including the year with a brand new mixtape titled No Song straight away so we decided to run Twitter and characters in different environments, which EDIT campaign breakdown Without You. To kickstart the campaign we Instagram polls to let fans name them. We also were very appreciated by fans. decided to archive all their Instagram posts created Instagram stickers with the characters Seeing the success of the YouTube CAMPAIGN BUDGET £10,001–£15,000 and share cryptic teasers to introduce the and they became a part of the visual identity for livestreams, we also got the band to experiment new aesthetic for the mixtape. The band also social assets throughout the campaign. with different platforms to further connect AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC released the chords from the song ahead of We wanted to re-engage their YouTube with fans. The band did an intimate Zoom gig, AGE 19-24, 25-34 release and invited fans to make their own subscribers in the lead up to the release of the where they spoke to fans between songs and AUDIENCE GENDER versions of the song before they heard it, mixtape, so we launched a series of weekly live performed one of the songs with a fan, as well Female leaning resulting in a compilation with the best entries. streams. The first two happened pre-release, as a Twitch livestream playing Animal Crossing, LOCATION Global YouTube has always been a key platform with performances of tracks from their previous which ended up in a very cosy session with the

23 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Hurts The Orchard

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED management/digital social strategy throughout ◀ ▶ the campaign. , Adam Anderson – Hurts The band were one of the first to utilise The Orchard messenger platform Telegram, building a direct Tanya Palaci – digital marketing manager line to their global fanbase. Telegram launched the Hannah Celnikier – artist marketing manager album campaign. This involved a social blackout Anette Collins – director, international artist followed by a CTA to sign up to the platform with services hidden messages that was utilised for Spotify Peter Lum, Michell McCool, Felix Donato – canvas and across socials. This two-levelled multimedia designer channel enabled numerous features. Not only Airene Resurreccion – associate art director could the band personally interact via Q&As and Seven 7 Management listening parties, fans had access to exclusive Matt Vines, Joe Gaynor – management content and were able to communicate with each were as a fan. Top fans with scores of 100% (the delivers mailer-style ads directly to fans’ inboxes, Ben Frith – digital manager other and break down clues together in teaser most faithful) were displayed on a leaderboard. with over 250,000 impressions on one ad. Luke Amis – audience development manager hunts. Telegram statistics allowed management to Physical also played a key role. The Orchard • Facebook/Instagram shopping collection ads David Kitson – content producer (Kaleid) identify superfans. worked with the artists and management to were used across the campaign driving over 8,000 Andy Hayes – designer (Army Of Few) Spotify Canvas was used throughout the create an extensive range of formats; this included clicks for the UK. campaign to tease new content and drive the fanbase a premium boxset, 12” , 12” gatefold OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN to the platform through a treasure hunt format. A fan vinyl and two cassettes. The vinyl placed Faith at Telegram Key Learnings ◀ ▶ competition to submit artwork and video content #8 in the UK physical vinyl chart. ads Peak viewership to channel in one day – 132,260 The overall goal of the campaign was to heighten was also run post the first single ‘Voices’. This gave were created to drive engagement straight to the (channel is not set to private) the awareness around the release of the new fans the chance to appear on the ‘Voices’ Spotify D2C store to view exclusive bundles and signed Peak channel users – 13,047 album, Faith, build social presence and strengthen Canvas. Swapping out the Canvas each day for a products. The Collection Ad feature on Facebook Peak daily share to other Telegram channels – 676 existing social profiles. week, and directing fans from both Telegram and was used to promote the physical products Average messages shared per month – 267,000 Hurts produced and directed all Faith campaign Instagram stories directly to the platform. alongside the digital, to ensure all fans were Peak messages shared in a single day – 15,589 content, which was the driving force for all Spotify themed playlists were updated each being catered to through one ad. The band also Peak group users – 3,320. :) creative. Art direction, concepts, social media clips, week with a new theme. Fans were asked to post livestreamed the signing of the physical albums on official videos, outlet interviews, live performance their suggestions with their Instagram handles so the platform which had 28,000 people tune in. EDIT campaign breakdown and physical design elements were constructed they could be tagged on Instagram Stories if their by the band members. Even the Faith artwork songs are added to . RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ was self shot by Adam and Theo. Key campaign A pre-save giveaway campaign encouraged CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given assets incorporated creative use of hiding clues fans to pre-save for a chance to • Drove over 26m impressions and over 366k AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC and using different languages to activate multiple win a Golden Ticket to a show of their choice on clicks across digital marketing. AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 territory fanbases. The first full-length video the Faith Tour 2021 and a chance to meet the • We saw over 9% growth across each band AUDIENCE GENDER Majority female content was a IGTV video and the band worked band. We gathered a total of 5,313 pre-saves. member’s individual Instagram accounts and over LOCATION Global closely on it with director Rob Sinclair. Content The Faith Detection app connected to an 16% growth across Spotify. was pushed out organically and incorporated with individual’s Spotify to display how faithful you • First time using Gmail ads, a new feature which

24 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Juanfran DN7 Music / The Orchard

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED have seen a huge increase on Como Llora’s ◀ ▶ traffic in LATAM on YouTube. The video now Juanfran – artist has over 139m views. The track on Spotify also David Navarro – artist manager entered viral charts and placed on top regional The Orchard playlists. Marina Sans – senior manager, Juanfran and his followers took the track viral digital marketing on TikTok using the sound of the song + hashtag Marta Argüelles – manager, digital #comollorachallenge. On 14th February, he marketing published a video on TikTok dancing along with Anna Ibarzabal – senior manager, the narrative of the choreography, following the label relations song’s lyrics with with what Juanfran felt James Surprenant, Christian Perez, comfortable with. After publishing the video, Felix Donato – multimedia designers artist’s fanbase in Spain, Latin America, and the Juanfran encouraged his followers to participate Airene Resurreccion – associate art director US with a TikTok campaign. using the Duo tool on Tik Tok and the hashtag As part of the larger digital marketing #comollorachallenge. The video was used to OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN campaign, The Orchard launched a pre-save create an ad campaign on Instagram Stories. ◀ ▶ Instagram campaign on 3rd-6th February to At only 15 years old Spanish artist Juanfran, encourage fans to pre-save the song and follow RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS • Impressions across LATAM, US Latin and Spain ◀ ▶ short for Juan Francisco, is a . Juanfran on Spotify. A week later, feed and story – 5,970,853 He kicked off his music career in 2019 and is assets were used on Instagram, telling fans to • Top Urbano Europe Award from Premios Tu • Interactions/engagement across LATAM, US ready to take on the by storm. listen to the song on different digital platforms. Música Urbano 2020 Latin and Spain – 757,895 Hailing from Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary A teaser of the was used announcing • 139m views so far on ‘Como Llora’ YouTube • Total clicks across LATAM, US Latin and Spain Islands, Juanfran had plans to take his music to that a challenge is coming and encouraging fans video – 43,546 countries like Chile, Argentina, Canada and the to learn the song. • 3.4m followers on Spotify • Results from YouTube campaign – 3,451,384 US. Then Covid-19 happened and he had to That same week from 7th-13th February, The • 900k followers on TikTok impressions and 1,626,227 visualisations. :) gears. What did that involve? Becoming a viral Orchard launched a YouTube campaign to give • 1bn post creations on TikTok success on TikTok and landing on the Billboard visibility to the ‘Como Llora’ official video. The • The single peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot charts this year. It’s that Juanfran has a video itself was used as an announcement and Latin Songs chart dated 18th July EDIT campaign breakdown bright future ahead and will continue to take his included a call to action to listen to the song on • Pre-save re-marketing – 63,327 impressions music to an international audience. the different digital platforms. The campaign was and 19,498 interactions/engagements The Orchard started working with Juanfran divided up into two phases, the first to provide • Pre-save similar audience – 154,173 CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ about a year ago. In anticipation of Juanfran’s the maximum number of views in the first few impressions and 29,526 interactions/ AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC ‘Como Llora’ single and video, The Orchard days, and the second to extend the life of the engagements AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 wanted to give the single the maximum visibility launch until after Valentine’s Day. • Pre-save intereses musicales (interest in AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 45% / 55% through digital marketing and advertising Due to Covid-19 and social distancing, music) – 1,482,032 impressions and 328,642 LOCATION LATAM, US Latin and Spain tactics; expand Juanfran’s profile on Spotify Juanfran put a lot of effort on TikTok, growing interactions/engagements through a pre-save campaign, and build the his profile tremendously. The last few months • Total pre-save clicks – 8,759

25 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF TREASURE Lauv AWAL HUNTS

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED This meant that Within the first hour, 17k users ◀ ▶ fans from all over had visited the platform and 12k content unlocks Justin Macchio – US marketing, the world were able had been actioned. In the same hour, BTS and AWAL to unlock one of Lauv fans had successfully teamed up on Twitter Francesca Burton – international ten different five- to piece together the ‘Who’ clip. #lauvxbts also marketing, AWAL second snippets became a Twitter trend in the US and UK. Nathan Liddle-Hulme – UK of each song in Landmrk stats from 8th March (four days after marketing, AWAL their respective release of the activation): Kelsey Miller – audience locations. They • Total users who visited the platform: 57,773 development, AWAL had to team up • Total content unlocks: 38,198 Lisa In – audience with fans from development UK and international, other places in 9,066 users have accessed the campaign via AWAL the world to piece the social logins, which means we were able to Emma McDonald – Lauv label the full audio collect their email addresses. manager snippet together, Compared to all their Landmrk For Music Lauren Mckinney – digital marketing, with the full length of each song snippet being a massive global buzz around the Lauv debut campaigns, the company saw some of its biggest Foundations Management one minute. The snippets were from the songs album a few days before release, with the main active user figures and engagement rates ever. Steve Bursky, Max Gredinger – artist managers, that featured other artists, with the aim to get goals to collect user data for re-marketing As of now, the campaign has had a 67.8% user Foundations Management the fans of the collaborator artists involved in purposes, turn casual Lauv fans into superfans unlock rate – above 20% they deem as Landmrk this virtual treasure hunt. Another thing we did and ideally turn fans from collaborator artists successful. was to secure an exclusive preview for another into Lauv fans. Lauv’s own social posts had great engagement OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN snippet for the BTS feature track as an Easter Out of the 250 hotspots, 50 were in the US as well. His tweet received over 25k likes and ◀ ▶ egg on TikTok one day before album release and the rest of them were spread out across the over 6k retweets. The Facebook post received We launched the Where is Lauv? mobile and one day after we launched the Landmrk globe. We chose a massive radius for all hotspots, over 800 likes, 39 comments and 57 shares. He platform with 250 hotspots around the world on activation, so fans were urged to find this final as the activation kicked off when coronavirus was also did two Instagram Stories about it. :) 4th March, two days before the release of Lauv’s piece as well right before the album dropped. already spreading and we didn’t want people to debut album, ~how i’m feeling~. Six different After unlocking all the content in their the house to unlock the content. selfie filters based on the Lauv album characters, respective hotspots, fans could share their EDIT campaign breakdown as well as six different images and video links findings on their socials with the hashtag RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ (leading to Man Boyband video series #howimfeeling. People immediately started that had been published via Lauv’s YouTube sharing screen recordings of the audio Only 15 minutes after Lauv announced and after CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ channels in the weeks leading up to album snippets on Twitter, which led to the global our Asian teams had circulated the posts in their AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC release) were spread across these hotspots, with fan community (and especially the BTS fans) territories, the platform already had 12k visitors. AGE 0-13, 14-18, 19-24 each hotspot featuring one of the six versions. collaborating in order to piece the tracks The BTS Army were on the case! AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 50% / 50% As the icing on the cake, we also hid five- together. The activation started trending after After only 20 minutes, over 1,000 users from LOCATION Global second audio snippets of four previously only a few hours. over 50 territories were on the platform at the unreleased album songs across the hotspots. The idea behind the activation was to create same time.

26 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 LA Priest Domino Recording Co

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ ◀ ▶

Will Grant – project manager The launch of the GENE Machine helped drive Emily Huxley and Corey Zaloom – digital 600x Spotify-pre saves alone, where users would marketing managers also follow the Truly LA Priest catalogue playlist Björn Flóki Bjornsson – in-house digital designer as well as the artist profile. Total followers now and development stand at nearly 38,000. Amy Elizabeth and Jen Hingley – design and Further to this, since its inception from the development beginning of the campaign, the LA Priest mailing Verdigris Management – artist management list stands at over 1,400 sign-ups, with 1,000x sign-ups being gained from the GENE Machine OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN mechanisms. :) ◀ ▶

With Sam Eastgate’s (aka LA Priest) hand turning to his handmade analogue drum machine for new album GENE (named after the machine Sam built and composed most of the album on) as much to the music itself, we worked with designers and developers Amy Elizabeth and Jen Hingley to bring GENE to digital life to album by using manipulated audio stems to tease new music and help build his social and unveil material before it was officially released. streaming audiences. By fans and new users entering via either Enter the GENE Machine. Spotify and Apple Music pre-save/pre-add mechanisms or email sign-up, we helped drive Through analysis over 1,000 sign-ups to use the GENE Machine of his audience built which both sent new music to user accounts on since debut album release as well as helped build a greater mailing Inji and collaborative list size, helping to drive physical album and EDIT campaign breakdown album with Connan ticket sales. Mockasin under Complimenting the GENE Machine’s fan the Soft Hair alias, usage, we presented the build to new tech- CAMPAIGN BUDGET £2,001–£5,000 and powered by leaning audiences through digital advertising, AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Sam’s own analogue which helped build both highly engaged re- AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 visions, we gave fans marketing audiences for album release as well AUDIENCE GENDER Not given the opportunity to as helped grow LA Priest’s fanbase with a new LOCATION Global preview new music wealth of (ahem) Gear Geeks who could enter in the lead up to the into his mad Wizard of Oz world.

27 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE Victor Leksell Sony Music Sweden OF AR

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶

Mikaela Lundberg – PR manager, Sony Music Joakim Önnerdal – project manager, Sony Music Calle Rydberg – A&R, Sony Music Matilda Kahl – creative manager, Sony Music Lisa Fritzell, Joel Ighe – management Lisa Medin – cartoonist Paul Brown – developer

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN ◀ ▶

23-year-old Victor Leksell released his debut single in late 2018 and has since become one RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ of Sweden’s biggest artists. Earlier this year he released his megahit ‘Svag’ which held the #1 • Victor became the first artist in the music on both the Spotify and radio charts for months world to develop an interactive AR concept for a and became the first song in Swedish ever to new album. reach 100m streams on Spotify. It also made it • The filters had over 205,000 impressions only to #1 in Norway. two months after release. For the launch of Victor's debut album, Catch • The filters have been shared 11,000+ times. Me When I Fall, we created a unique visual • The campaign became a hot topic in the profile, portraying Victor's life and career in revealing a film of Victor falling covered Sweden's three Swedish media and music industry. a classic cartoon manner. To honour Victor’s through the sky, the album title biggest cities in posters • Victor’s following on Instagram increased, with dedicated and growing fanbase, we wanted and the release date. When including the AR-trigger 20,000+ new followers added during the album to let them play a key role in the launch of the fans shared their video caption logo, giving the large mass launch. :) album. on social media, they became the opportunity to try all of The fan activation included two segments. the first to announce the album the filters and hear bits of EDIT campaign breakdown First, we analysed and handpicked 100 of his details, even before the media or every song, directly on the core fans. One week before album launch, we Victor himself. street. sent them a branded T-shirt, marked with an During the week of album The campaign was widely CAMPAIGN BUDGET £2,001–£5,000 AR-trigger logo and a QR code. The fans could release, we continued to drop appreciated by his fan AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC then scan the QR code on the sleeve which took more filters containing the community, reaching 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 them directly to a filter on Victor’s Instagram, a album tracklist, audio snippets audiences and positioning AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 50% / 50% filter made through Facebook's tool Spark AR. of the songs and exclusive visual Victor and his debut album LOCATION Sweden When fans held their phone up towards the material. When the wildfire was top of mind amongst the T-shirt logo, an animated filter was triggered all over the , we also young digital target group.

28 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Little Mix RCA Records UK ALEXA

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶

Louise Healey – head of digital, Modest Management Edd Blower – head of marketing, RCA Records UK Simon Forbes – head of marketing, RCA Records UK Millie Greenwood – marketing assistant, RCA Records UK Claire Higgins & Matt Hooper – CYOA Media

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN ◀ ▶

Our goal for this campaign was to engage RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ the core fanbase using accessible activations that drove conversation and reach, alongside Between March and up to the eve of the album continuing to drive awareness to the more release: casual listeners to keep Little Mix top of mind, • Instagram Effects reached over 4m users. all while working within the ever-changing Covid • Spotify monthly listeners +5m restrictions. • Spotify followers +1m We began setting up the new album by • YouTube subscribers +1.2m placing teasers of LM5 album videos • YouTube views +490m – .g. Wasabi and LM5 tour video. We followed • Instagram followers +800k this with an Instagram effect (“Which Little Mix • TikTok followers +800k Song Are You?”) which was coded with a low The single campaigns were interspersed voice notes from the girls as Easter eggs on • International activation drove 190k users. :) probability that the new track title and audio with Instagram Lives and Twitter fan Q&As as the service. snippet would appear. The surprise element well as a 45-minute livestreamed quiz show in Following this we wanted to and EDIT campaign breakdown drove excited fans to share their videos/ partnership with YouTube to support the single empower the International fanbase which was reactions delivering a reach of over 1m people in ‘Holiday’. In the moments between singles we with different Covid rules always changing CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ two days and the UGC reached even further. ran marketing to remind fans of the previous in many countries; so in the week leading to Leaning into the TikTok boom during hit singles and to ensure Little Mix remained top release, we drove them to a Landmrk site where AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC lockdown, we put the audio of the track on of mind. they could unlock and share exclusive images, AGE 0-13, 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, TikTok before release day for two singles to On album announcement we ran a successful audio clips and audio notes from the girls based 45-59 kickstart our activations and we were early to UK tour and album pre-order bundling initiative. on a user’s international location, resulting in AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 35% / 65% use the branded content ad format to extend As we got closer to the album, we worked with fans sharing and chatting about the new album LOCATION Global the reach of the content. the Alexa team to reveal the album tracklist and on socials.

29 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Liza Anne Arts & Crafts

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED artist and as a woman in 2020. for the song ‘Bad Vacation’, which ◀ ▶ We started by releasing new track included a multicoloured leotard- RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Arts & Crafts ‘Devotion’ (produced by Justin clad Liza carry-out a “jazzercise” Cameron Reed – marketing director Meldel-Johnsen) with a new look themed dance right on the beach. Throughout this campaign, we saw Liza Anne’s Peter Carruthers – marketing coordinator and new aesthetic for Liza. In The movements are fun and audience grow. Liza saw huge socials growth, Ian Porter – web design/development particular, this included the release showcase Liza’s humour but also adding hundreds of followers weekly on Joshua Cwintal – production/physical ops of a new logo and a new look for represent freedom of artistry and Instagram. Additionally, we saw Liza’s audience AMFM the artist. self-confidence. have huge growth on Spotify, at one point Aaron Frank – artist manager This was followed several months later by the We then released a full three-part tutorial for seeing her add over 100 followers a day for Margaret Jacobi-Lee – director of marketing launch of the full campaign for Bad Vacation. We the dance which was teased out over several days several weeks, leading up to and after release. Skye Overstree – artist day-to-day began by launching with a new microsite themed across platforms, creating interest for the video and Upon album release, we received playlisting on to appear as a classic motor-inn. This the song. We encouraged fans to submit videos major playlists across DSPs in several countries included lots of cute lingo such as “meet the of themselves doing the dance as well. We are including: New Music Friday (US/Canada), New team” for band bios et cetera, as well as access continuing the efforts for the dance videos and Music Daily (US/Canada/UK), It’s Alt Good and to a huge suite of themed merch items. We also are now looking at a TikTok campaign for phase many more. launched a Room-Service hotline (1-833-BD- two to keep engagement moving. In addition Liza Throughout the campaign, we also saw VCTN) that would be a hub for information also launched an Instagram-based interview series Liza receive some of her most prestigious and previews of the songs on the album. All called #EmotionalHealth2020 which included press coverage to date including features assets would match this motor-inn vacation feel conversations with other artists including Shamir, in: Consequence Of Sound; an IGTV takeover; and vibe. This would all culminate in the video Taylor Janzen, Jillain Jacqueline and more. Variety; NPR – All Songs Considered; ; American Songwriter (print); Vinyl Me Please; BITCH Magazine; Thank Folk For That; Eat ; She Makes Music. This album increased awareness and the presence of Liza Anne as an artist to watch. :)

EDIT campaign breakdown

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN £25,001+ ◀ ▶ CAMPAIGN BUDGET AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC With the release of Liza Anne’s fourth album, AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 Bad Vacation, we aimed to show the full AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 40% / 60% transition of the artist from a coffee-house LOCATION Global staple to a fully-fledged indie rocker with swagger and confidence in herself both as an

30 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 M Huncho Island Records

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED faux petition across socials and the reaction was ◀ ▶ incredible. Within 24 hours, articles and blogs Alice Razack – audience and influencer manager started to post about Huncho running for mayor Huncho’s Noha Hussein – marketing manager and it was clear that this stunt had gained . Tara Kefayati – junior marketing manager reaction we were hoping for with many believing For Johnny Brocklehurst – director of marketing it to be the truth. example, Will Beardmore – head of audience In total, we gained nearly 25k sign-ups and ‘Indulge’ – audience intern the stunt became a great awareness tool, really saw a 55% David Sonubi – A&R boosting Huncho’s presence within the scene. growth in White – senior A&R manager Later on, we released the music video to his streams Niall K & Kwabz – Mybmgmt Management single ‘Huncho For Mayor’, which also kept in on week Joe Pym – senior streaming and commerce line with our election theme. It currently sits on one of the manager 2.9m views on YouTube. Since then M Huncho Huncholini James Lee – commercial manager has featured in a Burberry campaign, been a The 1st Al Smith – director of streaming and commerce guest on The Big Narstie Show, performed on release. Harrison Cosstick – streaming and commercial the Rated Awards 2020, featured on Lad Bible’s M lead Talking To Myself series and most importantly, Huncho was nominated for the Rated Awards has gained another top 20 album and is now a this year and shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN mainstream act. He’s had huge mailer growth success and has ◀ ▶ to film his first ever Rap Genius piece grown 43K followers in the last three months Our Huncholini The 1st mixtape campaign was where he discussed his track ‘Bando Ballads’. RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS on 213k followers in the last 12 months on ◀ ▶ a hugely successful one across all departments Rap Genius has 9m subs on YouTube alone and it Instagram alone. and saw M Huncho with a top 5 in the album was a proud moment for the UK grime and trap Debut album Huncholini The 1st was a UK top He also was nominated one of UniLad’s Next charts and a top 20 in the singles with ‘Pee Pee’. scene to have M Huncho be featured. 5 album. It's now certified silver, along with the Up 2020 and has also gained over 3.3m views on Throughout both single and album One of the key moments in our campaign, mixtape. He also landed a top 5 album his Chicken Shop Date with Amelia. :) campaigns, we aligned M Huncho with some of however, would have to be our data drive with Nafe Smallz with their joint project, DNA. the UK’s favourite influencers and personalities. mechanic which saw us creating a stunt that M Huncho has 500m total career UK streams The likes of Grime Gran, Gasworks, Chicken led fans to believe that Hunho was running across DSPs and over 107m total UK streams on EDIT campaign breakdown Shop Dates, Denz & Renz, I’m Just Bait and for mayor. With an aim of boosting Huncho’s Huncholini The 1st. beyond all came out to support M Huncho’s database, we created a sign-up form in the style Globally, over 150m total streams on CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,001–£25,000 rise. In particular, Amelia’s Chicken Shop Date of .gov petition. Huncholini The 1st and to date he’s currently with Huncho was trending on YouTube for two This also ran at the same time as the real had one UK top 20 single and a further four UK AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC days after its release, had many memes floating 2020 mayoral elections to boost authenticity top 40 singles. AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 around well-known platforms such as Young even more. Along with our “Huncho For Mayor”- M Huncho has had a top 20 single for ‘Pee AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 60% / 40% Kings TV & AbdiTV and currently sits on 3.3m branded Instagram stickers, gift boxes that were Pee’ and ‘Huncho For Mayor’ had over 1m LOCATION UK-wide and some key views on YouTube alone. sent to influencers and our propaganda-style streams in week one of release and 13k sales. European territories Aside from this we also took Huncho to artwork, we posted our “Huncho For Mayor” His mixtape release also saw a huge spike in

31 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Declan McKenna UK

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN merch bundles, many of which were ◀ ▶ ◀ ▶ available in limited quantities only. All of Henry Whittingdale – marketing manager This year Declan McKenna the album formats were manufactured Corrina Kavanagh – senior audience returned with his new album Zeros. using recycled or sustainable materials, development manager Our ambition was to create an a decision that aligned with both Declan Tara Richardson – Q Prime innovative and socially conscious and his young fanbase’s environmentally Jess Browner-Hamlin – Q Prime campaign. We aimed to engage and conscious ethos. entertain his young and social-savvy The result was a hugely successful fanbase by opening up access to first week that saw ‘Zeros’ debut at Declan through interactive online #2 in the album chart. We also saw content. a massive uplift in channel growth, The campaign launched in January 2020 with videos featuring multiple Declans. To drive interactions and streaming across the board. the release of ‘Beautiful Faces’. In the music database sign ups, Declan rolled out an eco- video Declan performs in a dystopian TV studio, friendly, digital-only ‘Zeros Zine’ available for Instagram which quickly descends into glitchy chaos, with free who subscribed to the mailing Follower uplift of 36% now at 438k followers Declan himself slowly transforming into what list. The ‘zine incorporated exclusive interviews, 6.33m interactions became known as CGI Declan. album ads and behind-the-scenes content. On YouTube CGI Declan became a familiar part of the release, Declan performed Zeros for the first Subscriber uplift of 24% to 371k subscribers Zeros narrative, as fans followed his journey time in full on a global livestream. Over 56.6m channel views across the internet. CGI Declan launched his Declan fans are creative and love meme Spotify TikTok channel, getting involved in trending culture, so we shared the background files for Follower uplift of 46% to 611.3k followers challenges such as flip the and the toilet the ‘Daniel, You’re Still A Child’ music video Monthly listeners up by 50% to 3.3m paper challenge. The CGI clips, created by digital via WeTransfer and asked fans to send in their TikTok performance artist Alfie Dwyer, were a first for creations. Throughout the campaign we have Organic growth to 72.4k followers a music artist on the platform. To connect to seen the deep and lasting engagement between 401k likes :) the real world, we used the CGI character to Declan and his fans. drive pre-orders on Declan’s official store and to model official merch. On album release, we RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS EDIT ◀ ▶ campaign breakdown launched a series of Instagram filters in which you become CGI Declan or placed him into the The key challenge for us was driving strong week- world around you. one physical sales and chart position. The streaming CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ It was important for us to keep Declan front numbers that Declan’s first record had accumulated AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC of mind – particularly as live music opportunities over time showed how much his audience had AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 were not possible. To entertain his fans through grown, but it was important we were able to convert AUDIENCE GENDER Not given lockdown, he livestreamed an Indie Pub Quiz these new fans into album purchasers. LOCATION UK / Europe / US on YouTube, co-hosted by Joe from Blossoms, We viewed D2C as an area of huge untapped and created a series of #stayhome performance potential, creating multiple album formats and

32 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 / Island Records / UME

merch campaign. We worked on the Summer Of Marley from June through August with a partnership with Vice. We partnered with the WSL (World Surf League) with a special themed Legacy episode on the importance of surf and skate culture in the Marley world with a takeover of their longboard TV event and taking over their podcast The Lineup to talk about his TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED Zach Weinberg – Tuff Gong father’s legacy. ◀ ▶ EA Games – FIFA 2020 We partnered with CEEK for an AR filmed Jane Gowen – EVP A&R and marketing Vice / World Surf League / CEEK video event of Ziggy Marley performing his Andie Daw – EVP international and content own Bob Marley 75 tribute show in June that Jason Feinberg – SVP marketing OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN brought the Marley 75 into fans’ homes despite ◀ ▶ Tom Smith – VP marketing no touring due to Covid. Lindsay Williams – VP audience growth In celebration of Bob Marley’s 75th Birthday on We partnered with on a Michael Johansen – VP content 6th February 2020, we put together a 14-month ‘’ global kids performance Dezi Catarino, Kelly Mahan – director content campaign from January 2020 and going through with and we partnered with UNICEF We saw large double-digit increases through Harold Guiterrez – senior director marketing February 2021 with our largest artist franchise on a global charity moment featuring a video for 2020 on Bob Marley’s streaming numbers, with Kristina Waters – associate director marketing campaign ever. ‘One Love’. close partnerships with every major streaming Dylan Shapiro – digital media planning The entire Marley family and estate were All of this and much more kicked off in partner. :) Jamie Hartley – director radio marketing onboard to promote this with us all year, with January 2020 with the One Love hotel at the Harry Weinger – VP A&R a specific theme every month. We made our SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills for Grammy week EDIT campaign breakdown Benjamin Reed – director international largest content creation commitment ever with in LA and this will culminate with a big event marketing 24 videos, comprised of 14 official music videos, planned for the week of 6th February 2021. Ava Breman – international marketing manager to complete the Legend as CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Chris Dashwood – international senior a video album and a 10-part original content RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC marketing manager series entitled Legacy. AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 Sue Armstrong – UK senior marketing manager We had partnerships with EA Games and With our content strategy, we introduced Bob’s AUDIENCE GENDER Not given Sujata Murthy – SVP artist relations and publicity their FIFA Soccer game, with the ability for music to a younger generation and expanded LOCATION Global Megan McLean-Corso – senior director publicity FIFA game fans to download a Marley 75 team his YouTube channel subscribers, more than Matt Solodky – Tuff Gong uniform and turned that into a soccer doubling it from 700k in Jan 2020 to 1.6m now.

33 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Kara Marni First Access Ent./Access Records

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN week one. was • Reversion video – 500k+ ◀ ▶ ◀ ▶ designed so when you log in views Lee Kershaw – marketing manager The London R&B singer released her first it would automatically follow • Acoustic video – 300k+ Racheal Edwards – head of marketing single of 2020, ‘Young Heart’, in the lead up her Kara on Spotify/Apple Music views (YouTube & IGTV) Laura Lukanz – manager brand new EP later this year. ‘Young Heart’ is a and would sign you up to her Jenna Knight – PR collaborative track featuring US multi-platinum mailing list; whilst playing Social stats Donnovan PR – US PR record selling artist Russ. This follows her the game ‘Young Heart’ Since the release of ‘Young Your Army – radio second EP release in late 2019 which saw her on would play in the background Heart’, Kara’s socials have Andrea Edmonson – TV plugger the 1Xtra A-list for five weeks, complete a sold- which would also then count jumped to 150k+ followers Jo Hart – regional radio out debut UK and European headline tour and towards streaming sales. across socials (40k+ new headline the Pussy Parlure stage at Glastonbury We went on to create followers) on Saturday night an Instagram filter ‘Heart- • YouTube – 28.2k Socials grew 30k+ new followers over one ometer’, which was used by followers (15k+ new single release (to over 50k in total). The Young 5,000+ fans in its first week followers) Heart game had 15,000+ people play in week live. The track has continued • Twitter – 364k one. She trended twice on TikTok at #1 with to grow as well as Kara’s followers (2k+ new followers) #TikTokFashionMonth out of 2bn videos, following, with an additional • IG – 56.4k followers (13k+ #onewish #1 trending 2m videos 30k+ new followers from the new followers) The track has had to date 5m+ combined single campaign. • TikTok – 9.5k followers streams and video views, with a huge +100k Though this year has been (9.5k new followers track saves. difficult for artists, Kara has • #1 trending on The official music video premiered on global been committed to being in touch with her fans #TikTokFashionMonth out of 2bn videos publication HypeBae. The video played a key by creating a format for people to tune into • #1 trending on #onewish out of 115m part in the campaign. An animated video was each week called Shed Sessionz. This features videos created by renowned animator Ivan Dixon (who Kara hosting another guest over Instagram • Facebook - 20k followers :) did Childish Gambino’s ‘Feels Like Summer’). It Live – from new emerging talent to the likes of was imperative that the animation was highly- Leigh-Anne Pinnock from Little Mix. Through detailed, as he has a and knew his doing this she was able to expose herself to new EDIT campaign breakdown fans would appreciate these finer details. fans and showcase her music as a way to grow The track received 18 New Music Fridays and her fanbase organically. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ was the cover on R&B UK, with further playlist additions on R&B Fresh, , The RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC ◀ ▶ Pop List, and Chill Hits. Apple Music supported AGE 14-18, 19-24 the track, adding it to 32 New Music Dailys, ‘Young Heart’ stats AUDIENCE GENDER 35% / 61% / Future Hits, R&B Now, New in R&B, and Mood. • 5m+ combined streams and video views, with 4% non-binary A game was developed that mirrored the a huge 100k+ track saves. LOCATION Global official video with 15,000+ people using it in • Official video – 1.4m views

34 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Ava Max Artist Partner Group / Warner Music

hours before the event. also supported the event with in-app notifications and we arranged social posts from Roblox and Ava Max. We feel this activation was a perfect alignment of audiences, with Roblox userbase fitting Ava’s young target audience perfectly and the market distribution of Roblox matching Ava’s popularity around the world.

RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶

The banners generated 2m clicks with a high average CTR of 3%. Within two days, the event had drawn in 1.2m unique players, 166k peak concurrent viewers, 2.4m total game plays and 17.5m minutes played (that’s an incredible 14.5 minutes per player!). 18.7k virtual merch items were purchased within the event, generating revenue Jon Vlassopulos – global head of The event was set in a for both Roblox and team Ava. music, Roblox custom virtual world (built As a result of the campaign we saw Ava Max’s Devon Thome - Melon by Roblox specialists Melon trend shoot up to 33% higher Development Development), designed than it had ever been before. We also saw a TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED around the Heaven & Hell significant uptick in YouTube channel views and ◀ ▶ OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN album visuals, where users could new Instagram followers on Ava’s profiles. :) ◀ ▶ James Booth – coordinator, global marketing, complete quests, collect items and Warner Music On 25th September, we held a virtual album purchase virtual merch while listening to music Nadine Fresko – senior marketing manager, release party for our global priority developing from the album. At the end of a countdown EDIT campaign breakdown global marketing, Warner Music artist Ava Max, in a first-of-its-kind partnership timer, players could watch Ava perform two Tiago Correia – director, new business and with gaming platform Roblox. It was initiated tracks from her album and answer fan questions ventures, Warner Music by the WMG global marketing team and pulled on a big virtual screen. Ava’s Roblox avatar CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,001–£10,000 Jillian Rothman & Jonathan Groffman – legal together in an awesome team effort between came into the crowd at the end to socialise AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC affairs, Atlantic Records US global marketing, APG, business development, with the fans. AGE 0-13, 14-18 Courtney Worrell & Elyse Rogers – Artist Partner legal, Atlantic Records and Ava’s management Press pick-up before the event included AUDIENCE GENDER Not given Group team. The event was rebroadcasted on Variety, , and VentureBeat. We LOCATION Global Tom Skoglund & Tommy Bruce – Full Stop 26th September for fans in European and APAC promoted the event with banners within Roblox, Management time zones. visible to every user on the platform for 24

35 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Millennium Parade WMA / Sony Ent. Japan

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ ◀ ▶

Eri Komazaki – VP international Within the first 48 hours of launching the social marketing, Sony Music Japan channels, we successfully: Tadashi Beddie – marketing • grew to 54,000 followers on Instagram coordinator, Sony Music Japan • caused #millenniumparade to trend in Japan Yumi Nishida – artist manager, Sony on Twitter Music Japan • drove 95,000 Instagram engagements and Hitoshi Ishihara – Sony Music Japan 300,000+ video views from 789,000+ impressions. Josh Viner – digital channel manager, WMA do this, we utilised Giphy to launch a All of these engagements and video views Hannah Dudley – global director of custom Giphy Arcade game. By doing then helped us with our advertising efforts as marketing strategy, WMA this, fans were able to interact with the we were able to retarget those who engaged Ryan Hall – head of social, WMA characters, rather than letting them with the account and/or clicked on a link. This Chris Guttierez – social designer, WMA Spotify, we created Canvas videos for each track, remain a passive concept. We then continued resulted in a large retargeting audience and an strategically uploading clips from their previous to used the characters in assets to celebrate incredibly low cost per acquisition across socials OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN music videos and sharing across socials, to milestones and encourage streaming, Shazams and Spotify. ◀ ▶ drive uplifts in streams of each song from their and video views. We strategically targeted Overall our key learning is that a focus on Millennium Parade (MP) are a Japan-based catalogue on the platform. these assets to different groups of fans by genre incredible creative that tells a story in itself has creative collective organised by Daiki Tsuneta, Once the accounts were launched, we turned and by country to learn more about the global the capacity to break language barriers and cross a producer and songwriter based in Tokyo, who our focus to introducing of the potential fanbase. borders. By focusing on the collective’s artistry, also leads one of the region’s biggest bands, collective, which was tough as the group didn't Finally, we wanted to bring the audience into rather than native speaking language (Japanese), King Gnu. Chaos and mystery underlines the want to be the face of their social accounts. MP’s story. Being a visually oriented collective, we were able to reach a more global audience. group’s collective vision to present Tokyo’s First, we produced art-based character we knew their audience had a keen interest Their US listeners on Spotify increased +380% new values to the rest of the world. We were cards for each member of the collective to in art. To achieve this, we launched a fan art after the launch of their social profiles. :) tasked with launching and managing MP’s social introduce their role. Second, we created a campaign and social unlock campaign, which channels in a way that brings this vision to a Spotify playlist curated by the members to help helped flood social media with thousands of global audience. show the music that inspires them and ran a pieces of user-generated content and drove an EDIT campaign breakdown Visual identity is a central component of what Spotify competition for merch which drove close additional 2,000 new Spotify followers. makes MP unique so we launched their Instagram to 2,000 new Spotify followers on their profile. Throughout our organic social efforts, we with a custom nine-image grid which introduced Third, we re-wrote the band's bio and reflected were also running social ads to help increase CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given the band to new visitors. Within each post was across all digital platforms to ensure it conveyed followers across social platforms and Spotify. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC either a snippet of an older music video, a piece their vision in a way a global audience could By working both organic and paid socials, we AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 of merch or a teaser for an upcoming video. In connect with. were able to develop a more strategic campaign, AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 35% / 64% this way, we were able to creatively reveal their After introducing the members, we utilising our organic strategy to build retargeting LOCATION US, UK, Japan discography and tease their upcoming music, emphasised bringing the characters of their audiences from video views and social while staying true to their visual identity. On latest music video to life in unique ways. To engagements to promote new music later on.

36 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Kylie Minogue BMG

success of Kylie at BMG. Both the studio album performance from Kylie, showcasing the new Golden and the great hits tracks as well as classics. It provided a sense of were UK #1 gold-selling albums. We’d actually occasion, with the streams being broadcast the not planned an album until 2022, but Kylie had weekend of album release. other plans. She had been busy creating a home- Following on from that we wanted to play on studio setup to work on songs for DISCO since the nostalgia and catalogue of Kylie and worked the very beginning of the initial UK lockdown. with DMS (who’d worked on Bad Seeds TeeVee The resulting album felt like the antidote to the with Nick Cave) to run a week-long celebration difficulties of 2020. of Kylie on her YouTube channel. Called DISCO Our goals at BMG were very clear – continue TV, this was a seven-day livestream video to keep Kylie relevant and move to a digital showcasing the best from Kylie’s music videos. campaign focus. Teaming up again with CYOA When Facebook mentioned the idea of for social media, and with amazing creative working creatively together on something for direction for the album from Studio Moross, our Kylie it was an instant no-brainer. What came campaign went over a week, dropping different together was an innovative AR experience inside information and content on different days, Instagram; a single transient AR performance building into a YouTube Premiere of the video within the app, followed up with a companion for ‘ Something’, with Kylie joining fans in the filter that fans could use. Being only available for live chat. 30 minutes, it created an experiential moment We engineered some key digital landmarks for fans and recollections travelled by user- into the campaign, beyond the music . We generated content. wanted to cross-pollinate audiences between TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED platforms. Unveiling the tracklist was a lot of RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ ◀ ▶ fun. Different track names were rolled out Phil Brown – digital marketing, BMG online. Some were obvious in Kylie’s socials and • #1 UK album (54,905 week-one sales) Simon Rugg – digital retail & streaming, BMG some were hidden within fan niches, like Kylie • First female artist to have a #1 album in five Anna Derbyshire – product manager, BMG posting within the forum or SayHey decades in the UK. Matt Hooper (CYOA) and Tully – social fanclub. Fans worked together to build the •#1 in Australia, with the week-one sales EDIT campaign breakdown media tracklist for DISCO and it was great to see the making it their biggest opening week for any Studio Moross – creative fans collaborate. album released in 2020 A&P Management – artist management Even without the traditional live experience • Top 10 album in 10 territories CAMPAIGN BUDGET Not given Driift being available to us, it still seemed important • In the US, DISCO is Kylie’s highest-charting AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC CYOA to convey some sort of spectacle for DISCO. album (#26) and best week-one sales in over a AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 Driift seemed natural partners considering the decade AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 52% / 48% OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN success they’d had in the space the • 45m streams in the first two weeks ◀ ▶ LOCATION Global Covid period. Working with them we were able • 11m interactions on Facebook and Instagram With DISCO we were keen to continue the to create INFINITE DISCO a ticketed livestream over the campaign. :)

37 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF Novo Amor Believe Digital UGC

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED to use. We chose cross-stitch as ◀ ▶ it connects to the cover art and Andy Inglis – artist manager, promo photos for the campaign 5000mgmt (which were both embroidered). Dave Grinnell – marketing Fans who made content manager, Believe specifically to pin to the map Jack Lawrenson – trade marketing uploaded it to their social manager, Believe channels, broadening organic reach across Mitch Wade Cole – digital platforms. On YouTube, we can monetise these A playlist of top uploads to YouTube was marketing manager, Believe uploads via audio fingerprint. Those who have made on the Novo Amor YouTube channel, which Joe Austin – digital marketing already made videos or fan art now had an has had 3,000 views. The videos included in manager, Believe official home for it. this playlist have benefited from up to 1000% Megan Freimann – paid media, It has also had a very unifying effect. Fans increase in views. Believe can now see where other likeminded fans are, The Amors Facebook group (started and Dominic Squire – international creating a visual representation of his worldwide managed by fans) now has over 1,000 subs. marketing, Believe audience. Since the map has been made live, Since starting the campaign, Novo Amor’s Arthur Fuchs – video channel we’ve seen substantial fan communities pop up streaming numbers have gone up by 40% across manager, Believe on Facebook, Discord and WhatsApp groups. the board. This statistic was pulled ahead of Annabel Crowhurst – print and It’s incredible to see new members of these the album’s release on 6th November, so only online, Toast groups realise that they are part of a worldwide factors in the pre-release part of the campaign. fanbase. New fans that land on his website We expect much larger growth once the full OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN them to upload an image directly. As he can’t can also now immediately see that there’s a body of work is released. ◀ ▶ tour this year, fans were encouraged to upload worldwide community to become part of. His YouTube channel has grown by Novo Amor has a worldwide audience, so travel footage or footage of their hometown Finally, we’ve also found it a fantastic 40% in 2020 and 20% since the beginning of when planning this campaign we wanted to to show where they have been or where they resource for finding talented individuals the campaign. :) find new and unique ways to reach his fans. On are from. They were also encouraged to use his from within the community. We have since the last album campaign we saw a lot of fan music as the audio. commissioned a video fan in South art and video clips uploaded to socials, almost We added a wealth of his own content to Korea and are looking to further tap into this EDIT campaign breakdown exclusively showcasing an emotional connection the map, showing locations where his videos into 2021 when Novo Amor still won’t be able to his music. To engage on a much deeper level were shot (Indonesia, Spain, Czech Republic, to tour but will be able to stay connected to his CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ with these fans and expand the fanbase, we Mongolia, Wales, Australia), photos from tour growing fanbase. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC developed a way to harness this. and other meaningful markers in his career. Fans AGE 19-24, 25-34 Following the announcement of the album, are able to toggle between Novo Amor content RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 40% / 60% we added a map of the world to his website, or community-uploaded content. We have also LOCATION US, UK, Brazil, Germany, allowing fans to pin Novo Amor-related content been making tools available for fans to generate To date we’ve had 250 pins added to the map, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, to the map via a form which accepts links from content; there are currently two cross-stitch amounting to over 30,000 views on fan YouTube Indonesia YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. We also allowed patterns available for free download for fans uploads and 5,000 views of fan Instagram uploads.

38 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Oasis Records

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED to celebrate this landmark with activity ◀ ▶ befitting the album’s outstanding success and Ignition Records (unless stated) demonstrate its universal and cross-genre This campaign presented the perfect Clare Byrne – head of marketing appeal. opportunity to launch the official Oasis TikTok Sarah Mansfield – creative & production mngr. This was a digital-led campaign with a channel. We worked with TikTok to launch an Gabi Nicot-Berenger & Lucy Fortescue – digital cohesive strategy across all platforms. Key official hashtag challenge, #ThrowItBack, inviting manager & social media manager objectives included developing the band’s creators to share throwback looks from the ’90s McCarville – international marketing & global streaming profile across the catalogue, using ‘Wonderwall'. promotions manager including YouTube, as well as building on their All On the Board, who write original content Marcus Russell, Alec McKinlay, Kat Killingley, existing social following while continuing for the London Underground whiteboards, Daisy Blackford – management to attract a new and younger fanbase. created two bespoke boards with Morning David Winterburn – national radio, DWPR Oasis’s fans are highly engaged and it was Glory-related poems for select Tube stations and Julie Barnes – regional radio, Radioactive PR important to us to involve them and keep them their socials. streams in six weeks, and the fan video Lorraine Long – online PR, Longevity PR at the centre of our plans. We also wanted to We partnered with YouTube to reveal new was released to coincide. ‘Wonderwall' is also Chris Latham – national press, Swell Publicity encourage the media to embrace the celebration audio visual content – including HD videos the first ’90s song to achieve this milestone, Simon Blackmore – regional press, Black Arts PR to maximise the campaign’s visibility. of the singles with remastered audio, plus a which was considerable given Oasis did not join Claire Close – TV promotions, CCTV We started the activity by replicating the YouTube premiere of an official album playback the streaming services until 2014. Tom Roberts – sports promotions, Shoot Music original promotional postcard mailer for the and singalong online event. Apple Music passed 600m all time plays Sales & Distribution – The Orchard (Ben album from 1995, posting these as a surprise We also released a brand new documentary across the catalogue and Amazon Music had an Poliszczuk, Ian Dutt, Joe Andrews, Dan Griffiths, to a random selection of fans on the official – Return To Rockfield – where Noel Gallagher 8% increase in listeners. Simon Aston) store mailing list, including #MorningGlory25. revisited the fabled studios, and a track-by-track Facebook saw an increase of 121.5% in D2C – Townsend (Bruce McKenzie, Simon Walsh) Activity ran over a four-week period was also recorded at Rockfield, made available average post reach over campaign period, and Digital consultancy – Blackstar (Emma Terry, leading up to the anniversary on the week following the anniversary. 401% increase in average post engagement/ Olivia Hobbs) 2nd October. We weren’t releasing new music reactions. Instagram saw an additional 80k Advertising Agency – 7 Stars (Simon Friend, but made commemorative limited-edition RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS followers. :) ◀ ▶ John Kuzara, Catie Dear) 25th anniversary vinyl formats available – a double heavyweight silver-coloured LP as a retail The album charted at #3 in the Official Album OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN exclusive, and a picture disc with a replica of the Chart – the highest chart position since August EDIT ◀ ▶ campaign breakdown original handwritten lyric sheet for ‘Wonderwall’, 1996, with a 640% sales increase week-on- 2nd October 2020 marked the 25th anniversary and new merch range for D2C. week. of Oasis’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? As ‘Wonderwall', a key single from the album, The anniversary was the biggest day ever for CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ – their breakthrough album in all key markets has evolved into a universally loved anthem, Oasis listeners on Spotify, with 1.37m streams AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC which established the band as an international we ran a #WonderwallLipSyncChallenge asking and also the second biggest day’s streams for AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 phenomenon. It is the UK’s third-biggest-selling fans to send in their videos. We anticipated we’d Oasis. We saw 11m streams of the album on the AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 56% / 44% studio album of all time with 22m sales globally. approach the 1bn stream milestone on Spotify anniversary week. LOCATION Global Following the success of last year's Definitely in the forthcoming weeks so planned to make a Oasis surpassed 1bn streams of ‘Wonderwall' Maybe 25th anniversary campaign, we wanted montage video with this content. on Spotify earlier than anticipated with 30m

39 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 One Direction

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED trending on YouTube and ◀ ▶ appearing in Vevo charts Alice Frost – marketing director, • Highest ever Syco Music Instagram engagement Tom Hoare – head of digital, • Four albums re- Syco Music entered top 50 UK Charlie Martin – digital marketing charts manager, Syco Music Sam Palm – streaming manager, Spotify: Syco Music • 47.4m+ streams on 23rd July (biggest ever day Gina Messeri – marketing manager, for streams) Syco Music • 4.5m+ listeners on July 23 (biggest ever day for Rio Thompson – social media manager, Syco director interviews, behind-the-scenes photos fans who Shazammed a One Direction track listeners) Jonathan Chabala – content and strategy and anecdotes from . unlocked a new piece of content. The effect • 360m+ monthly streams (+66%) manager, Syco Music The site, powered by Spotify and Apple, of this and many more was an • 22.2m+ monthly listeners (+16%) Emily Stewart-Smith – Phantom London (web allowed fans to connect via their DSP and build undeniable and unmissable surge of affection • 17.3m+ followers (+11%) design/development) a bespoke playlist customised according to the and nostalgia from fans and media alike – and, • 1.9m This Is One Direction followers (+74%) David Agrawal – creative content era and band members interacted with. We of course, the boys, who took to socials to share • 20 Songs in Spotify's Global Top 200 (including Jonny Costello – Adult Art Club (creative content) executed a celebration campaign across the gratitude to the fans in celebration of a decade ‘’ at #29) and climbed band’s socials, posting about activity, including of the world’s biggest boyband. 35 places in global artist rank to #110 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN a YouTube Premiere of a new celebration ◀ ▶ video charting the band’s story, their first RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS Apple: ◀ ▶ To celebrate the 10th anniversary of One ever Instagram story, interactive quizzes, Track increase on Anniversary Day 2019 2020: Direction’s formation, Syco led a global refreshed playlists, upgraded HD music videos, a From end of one week’s activity: • ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ +294% campaign with the objective of driving catalogue livestream concert and so much more. • 75m+ page views of anniversary website, • ‘Story Of My Life’ +336% streams by re-engaging their fanbase as well as Partnerships included outdoor, online and comparable to entire year’s traffic on 1D site • ‘’ +467% :) bringing in new audiences. We did this through press advertising with Spotify and YouTube, a when they were active new content, digital and social activations, Twitter emoji, a custom skill, an • 1.3bn website server requests EDIT campaign breakdown partner campaigns, paid advertising and huge Apple Music comp and radio ad spend as well as • Sony’s most successful eCRM campaign ever, media presence, resulting in unprecedented editorial takeovers with Global radio. beating boyband BTS engagement and numbers. For Spotify we created 86 unique Canvasses, • 50m+ views on TikTok campaign CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ The centrepiece was a ground-breaking a vertical video for ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ • 17m Linkfire clicks AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC interactive and chronological scrapbook website, and storylines with songwriters revealing the • 433% increase in UK streams YoY AGE 14-18, 19-24 timelining their unequivocally successful process behind the hits. • 146m total streams 23rd-27th July 2020 AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 50% / 50% career, unearthing never-before-seen content On TikTok we encouraged a frenzy of • 4m new social media followers LOCATION US and rarities, including raw band footage, influencer activity, resulting in fans using ‘Story • 33m views of new content, including 1.1m performances, annotated video treatments and Of My Life’ to showcase their glow-ups, whilst concurrent views on a YouTube Premiere, videos

40 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 SANDBOX BEST USE OF Pop Smoke Victor Victor / MOBILE

vision for the album while also celebrating his RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ life, his fans and the things he loved. Tracklist reveal: playing off the album title Each digital Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The , we built campaign we out an incredible tracklist reveal experience. We ran brought designed and built a web app which mimicked new awareness a fake sky. By holding your mobile phone up to Pop Smoke towards the sky, 19 of Pop’s custom chrome and the album, stars appear. To reveal each track title, you can growing his hover your phone over the stars. We also linked audience into a the album pre-save and data collection to the broader fanbase. experience. Whether it was Interactive virtual tour: we brought to life encouraging fans some of Pop Smoke’s most-loved locations to take part in that meant the most to him in New York and the virtual tour London. The experience is a fully interactive tour to visit Pop’s of both cities. most-loved places Fans are able to drive around the cities and landing at in a Rolls-Royce and explore some of the places his memorial that meant the most to Pop Smoke. By clicking in Brooklyn. into each location, fans will unlock exclusive TikTok is where footage. we’ve seen the The tour ends at the new mural of Pop in most significant results. Each time we hit a new Canarsie Brooklyn, his home. There, fans can benchmark on platform we simultaneously see TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED leave a message and scroll through a gallery of streaming spikes across all DSPs. :) ◀ ▶ photos taken at the mural over the past year. Allegra Chautin – director digital marketing Currently, Pop Smoke has multiple tracks Xiarra Nimrod – marketing manager from Shoot For The Stars, EDIT campaign breakdown trending and viral on TikTok. one of the OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN only artists ever to have more than four tracks A huge contributor to each track’s virility ◀ ▶ from the same album continue to grow on is the type of content being made to them. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ After Pop Smoke’s untimely passing in February platform at the current speed they are growing. Pop’s music has touched so many variations of AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC 2020, it was incredibly important to us to make ‘What You Know About Love’, ‘Mood Swings’, creators on platform that it’s crossed over from AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 sure that all digital campaigns around his debut ‘’ and ‘Dior’ each have over 1bn music into lifestyle, dance, makeup, tutorials, AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 73% / 27% (and posthumous) album Shoot For The Stars, views, with ‘What You Know About Love’ just cooking, skits and art (to name a few) segments LOCATION Global Aim For The Moon were executed the right crossing over 11m video creates. This all has of the platform; which means videos using Pop’s way. It was important to us to bring to life Pop’s happened within the year. music are hitting virtually all For You pages.

41 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 RAC Counter Records / Ninja Tunes

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶ An official music video for next single ‘Carefree’ Christine Hogg – senior project feat. Leyet followed, as well as a successful in- manager (US) store promotional campaign, leading to album Elliot Seeds – digital creative release focus track ‘Passion’ feat. Louis the manager Child featuring on Starbuck's US Spotify playlist, Ian Quay – senior project manager played in-store across the US for an entire (US) month. • 3pm – a Billboard Dance Instagram Joel Mark – artist management As album release approached, a number of takeover, streaming live talking about the Maddie Gavin – marketing marketing activations kicked off around focus album and answering fan Qs Maja Matacz – digital marketing track ‘Passion’, including: • 4pm – a D99 Radio interview and exclusive manager • TikTok influencer campaign – working with mix premiere Marie Clausen – head of Lightning Agency to pair appropriate TikTok • 5pm – a Magnetic Mag Q&A and exclusive North America + global streaming influencers with RAC around the lead album mix premiere Nicky Wain – head of international single ‘Passion’ • 6pm – an expansive "Happy Hour" Tom Macdonald – head of digital • Instagram Stories AR filter – working with livestreamed chat with all featured artists on strategy Illust Agency to create a groundbreaking the album and more on RAC's Instagram Live Will Slattery – senior manager, experience, placing the user's face into the • 7.30pm – a livestreamed "Release Party global streaming and sales and under the hood of the hoodies. giant "ball" from the album cover, as it rolls, Festival", with featured artists and other Zael Ellenhorn – artist management RAC carried on his practice of selling his winds, drops and spins through a maze-like connects performing songs from the album Lightning Agency (Abs Sawati, Ellie Tuvey) albums via the blockchain platform Ujo Music, path expanding the "rooms" from the album on RAC's YouTube Illust Agency (Rob McCarty, Tim Prochak) as well as releasing a personal token on the artwork. Kicked off on release day by RAC, -based marketplace Zora, with the featured artists on the record, and other Post-album release, RAC has gone on to OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN $TAPE token representing a artist peers create his own cryptocurrency, $RAC, built on ◀ ▶ featuring , sold on a bonding with a Ethereum, again via the Zora platform. :) Grammy-winning producer RAC kicked off the starting price of $28 per token. RAC then embarked on a truly multi-faceted campaign for his third artist album, BOY, with a As Covid hit and lockdowns started and release-day online promo tour, appearing across pre-campaign collaborative single with Hillary tours were cancelled, RAC truly embraced the multiple platforms and via multiple mediums EDIT campaign breakdown Duff and her partner, Matthew Koma – a cover "new normal" and multiple new platforms and through the day, including: of the Third Eye classic ‘Never Go’, practices to create new audience connections, • 9am – premiering the music video for CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ which was covered widely (Billboard, E! Online, continue interacting with existing fans directly, ‘Stuck On You’ feat. Phil Good People.com and more) and generate new revenue streams, including: • 12pm – full album livestream, album AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC The album BOY was announced on 8th May • a multi-tier Patreon breakdown and Q&A on RAC's YouTube AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 with the first album single, ‘Stuck On You’ feat. Phil • regular livestreaming via Twitch (hitting the • - premiering an exclusive mix for AUDIENCE GENDER 49% / 47% Good, and a strong D2C merch setup via a brand #1 spot on the Amazon Music homepage in Culture Collide (2% non-binary, 2% unspecified) new RAC.fm store, including the Spotify waveform the process) • 2.30pm – premiering an exclusive mix for LOCATION Global link for the album printed inside the neck of T-shirts • livestreaming and podcasting via YouTube Revista Marvin

42 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 RapCaviar Spotify

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN ◀ ▶

The RapCaviar Club is a digital experience in which listeners can use their Spotify data conversation with culturally significant artists to discover – and then prove to the world – and influencers. how big a fan they really are of their favourite This was a 360 campaign with digital, social, hip-hop and rap artists. In order to increase OOH, influencers, OLV, OTT, a microsite, print, listenership within hip-hop, we doubled down and press. We redefined what it means to be a on our most differentiated content franchise of fan of an artist from listening to them the MOST, RapCaviar to leverage our existing fanbase to to listening to them FIRST. bring in new audiences. Cue the RapCaviar Day 1 Club: a digital RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ experience that used the zeitgeist of discovery and bragging rights of hip-hop fans by tapping • 9m microsite sessions and counting into their competitive nature and giving them • 484k social shares via social share cards and personalised data to prove their . This counting Maxwell Adepoju – senior hip-hop editor became the most successful microsite launch • 36m estimated earned impressions from artists TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED Tamika Young – head of PR and comms, music at Spotify outside of Wrapped and further on Twitter ◀ ▶ Active Theory established Spotify as a cultural authority in • Shares from , Future, , Lil Zainab Hasnain – music marketing manager, hip- Happy Monday hip-hop through a groundswell of positive Baby, Lori Harvey, , DK Metcalf and hop (campaign lead) more Amanda Butler – head of music marketing • 120k+ Twitter followers of RapCaviar Ryan Chappell – music marketing lead, hip-hop • 188k+ Instagram followers of RapCaviar and Latin • 185m impressions PR and influencers Kimberly Summers – brand manager • 430k+ playlist followers. :) Payman Kassaie – brand lead Shannon Ross, Kenia Perez, Daniel Brill – creative directors EDIT campaign breakdown Erik Herrstrom, April Pascua, William Oswin – design CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Gabija Blake – producer Kaitlin Longworth – artist media manager AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Richelle Cyrus – associate planner AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 Jon King – senior manager content promotion AUDIENCE GENDER Male, female, Max Weinstein – social manager non-gender conforming Lopes – head of hip-hop and R&B LOCATION US and Canada Carl Chery – head of hip-hip (editorial)

43 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST GAMING SL EMI Records PARTNERSHIPS

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED ◀ ▶

Michaela Browne – digital campaign manager Anique Cox – marketing manager Mauro Borges – content manager Najib Kajumba, Ose Egbejale, Kieran Samms- Mclean – management concept as well of this activation amounted to the thousands OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN as video footage, and we saw SL’s Spotify Followers over ◀ ▶ edited and 10k during this period. We also launched both SL, the 19-year-old boy originating from produced as SL’s Snapchat and Instagram AR filters that put fans Croydon in a balaclava, has always been a POV with a clear into S’s balaclava. mysterious and elusive character where less outline of his This year’s digital highlights have been driven by is more. We came out of the blocks with ‘Bad balaclava. The idea the fans and S’s authenticity. Minimal but impactful Luck’ from his EP Selhurst SE25, co-produced was to tease the activations continue to grow his audience and add by Kenny Beats earlier this year. ‘Tropical’ by SL video featuring SL, to his story, backed up with high-quality creative was the unofficial Fortnite soundtrack, racking a Tesla and sheep with footage from ’s and the hard work from him and the team – but up over 3m+ views on Fortnite UGC on YouTube Tesla keynote and of Croydon with always staying true to who he is. alongside professional Fortnite player Kyle the aim to confuse and create anticipation. This Jackson, also known as Mongraal (3.5m YouTube content was a trailer for what was to come, RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ subscribers) being such a huge fan. announced with a cinematic clip on Instagram, S’s pre-existing presence within this and streamed fully on SL’s website on loop for In the last six months: community and the data we were reading hours. That content has been engaged with over • 65k+ Spotify Followers on his audience proved there was a strong 87k times and overall 100k impressions. • 500k+ Spotify monthly listeners affiliation with gaming. This inspired the idea On the lead into the release of the Different • 100k+ Instagram followers of SL exploring Twitch and therefore led to us Dude mixtape, SL travelled to a local school • 70k+ YouTube subscribers :) premiering the single ‘Bad Luck’ on Kenny Beats’ in Croydon to hand out #SLBackToSchool Twitch channel, and for Twitch to be the place backpacks with SL-branded stationary and to EDIT campaign breakdown where S spoke on camera for the first time to his speak with the school kids, give them advice and fans. Twitch gave this moment global homepage connect with the . On the release of the promotion and a #2 placement on the music mixtape, we launched a QR outdoor activation CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,001–£25,000 streaming page. We saw the viewers jump over whereby we posted up S’s iconic silhouette with AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC 10k when S joined the stream. a QR code in four key locations in London for AGE 14-18, 19-24 Leading into the release of the following fans to scan. Once discovered and scanned, they AUDIENCE GENDER Not given single, ‘Little Bird’, we launched the official were presented with a personal message from LOCATION UK artist website with a cryptic looping livestream SL and a chance to win a personalised rucksack featuring various footage relating to the EP if they followed him on Spotify. The footfall

44 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST USE OF SPOTIFY Sam Smith CANVAS

day since release week. • Increase in chart position in the UK, highest peak in chart at that point in time. • Increase in pre-saves for the album which was released the following week. • Great fan interaction. • Digital first in terms of use of AR on Spotify; the Canvas feature from Spotify is a format that offers a huge amount of creativity and innovation. :)

In addition, the ‘Diamonds’ experience is the on their screen, replacing a first to use 8th Wall’s image target augmented TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED traditional music video set with the viewer’s reality technology to trigger and track multiple ◀ ▶ immediate location, whether it be a work desk, volumetric video captures, creating a truly George Harb – digital marketing and innovation, kitchen table or living room. holographic experience. UMG Once the mobile phone camera scans the Powster employed advanced technology Leo Bridle, Abi Smith, Yvonne Nguyen, Stephen Spotify image marker, AR technology initiates and creative design to develop this activation, Speller, Jordan Treat – Powster an interactive ‘Diamonds’ experience with a utilising cutting-edge volumetric capture tech to Maddy Smith & Tom Paul – Capitol Records UK miniature dancing Sam Smith hologram. Fans film Sam in 3D, creating the first-ever three- Nikos Antoniou – Spotify UK can also interact with the experience by pressing dimensional AR artwork to be featured on Powster on the screen to release a shower of on-screen Spotify. This breakthrough activation reflects diamonds timed to the chorus of the song. the evolution of album artwork that previously EDIT campaign breakdown OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN The activation was created in partnership only featured static images and looping videos, ◀ ▶ with Powster and Dimension Studios, a encouraging Sam Smith fans to play the song CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ We created the first ever AR video triggered revolutionary volumetric based on Spotify and scan the Canvas visual to unlock by Spotify Canvas for Sam Smith for their new in London, and 8th Wall, an award-winning their own personal concert. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC single ‘Diamonds’. Triggered by a QR code computer vision software company that makes AGE 14-18, 19-24, 35-44 placed on the Spotify Canvas for the track, it possible to build interactive augmented RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS AUDIENCE GENDER 36% / 59% ◀ ▶ fans can be fully immersed in the world of Sam reality that is based in a web browser. Powster (1% non-binary, 4% unspecified) Smith, viewing and interacting with a miniature used innovative volumetric capture and • Uplift in streams immediately following the LOCATION Global augmented reality version of the star dancing WebAR technology to bring the vision to life. launch of the activation – the highest streaming

45 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Super M Beautiful Digital, Capitol Records, SM Entertainment USA

launched on Instagram and Snapchat for ‘100’ and all subsequent singles proved to be a big hit with fans. The ‘100’ online racing game was also launched. A smart Spotify integration enabled fans to compete for the highest score on the game while streaming the complete Super M catalogue. The band are also known as incredible dancers and the music video for ‘100’ has a specific dance move that translated perfectly into a TikTok challenge. Influencers from across the got involved and the campaign reached millions on TikTok. Following the success of ‘ Inside’, the album was released in conjunction with their TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED impact digital campaign for the release of Super third single, ‘One (Monster & )’. For ◀ ▶ One – The 1st Album. the album release and music video premiere, Leslie Cooper – VP of marketing, Capitol Records The album campaign was launched with an SuperM hosted a livestream where they Daniel Hairston – product manager, Capitol Rec. international digital scavenger hunt. Fans were unboxed their albums, answered fans questions, Jeremy Lopez – business & artist development / invited to join a worldwide race by unlocking and discussed the process of making the album. SM Entertainment USA exclusive content each day at various hotspots The album was launched with an exclusive EDIT campaign breakdown Rodriguez Dominique – SM Entertainment USA around the world, right from their homes. Fans merch collaboration with Marvel, the perfect Arianne Ahimsa, Hanna Shrapnell – social media from all over the globe were encouraged to partner for the Avengers of K-Pop. managers, Beautiful Digital connect and work to piece together clues about CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Tracy Weston – creative, Beautiful Digital the upcoming new album. The hunt sent social RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC media into a frenzy as fans joined a huge global AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN conversation to reveal the entire picture. • #2 on Albums chart ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 25% / 75% Next up the first single ‘100’ kicked off with • #1 Billboard World Albums chart LOCATION Global Following the unprecedented success of last a full suite of cutting-edge tools to compliment • In Japan, SuperM claimed the #1 spot in five year’s US #1 mini album, we needed a high the band’s futuristic sound. Advanced AR filters major charts :)

46 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 Tinie Tempah Parlophone / Disturbing London

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED Ahead of Tinie’s first We aimed to target both reach, 5.6m impressions, 185k video views and ◀ ▶ release of 2020, ‘’ audiences to create bespoke 230k interactions across all of his social channels Casey Amber – marketing manager feat. Not3s, we delivered a content using the track as • Organic activity on Facebook during the re- Jack Melhuish – director of marketing, partners and comprehensive and engaging the soundbed: from dance engagement phase reached over 570k individuals in strategy digital, social and experiential- choreography and meme a week. Engagement generated over 20k clicks to Thomas Jones – digital marketing manager based re-engagement strategy content on key black music the ‘Pass Out’ video (Facebook was a channel which Anya Du Sauzay – head of audience and to celebrate the 10-year channels around poignant had not been updated since April 2018) engagement anniversary of the release of current affairs within the • 45% increase in monthly Spotify listeners to 4.8m Naomi Harding – freelance influencer and content his debut single. social landscape to fashion and a 25% increase in Spotify followers to 734k in assistant The main component of influencers ‘organically’ nine months Bethany Cherry – streaming lead this strategy consisted of listening to the track in • 40.8m streams across all partners and 10.2m Imran Malik – director of creative the creation of 50 bespoke their day-to-day activities video views on YouTube across all three releases Francesca Costa – creative commissioner packages that were seeded out and a #DiddyBopChallenge (‘Top Winners’, ‘Moncler' and ‘Whoppa’) Sam Saeger – head of video to the key artists and industry TikTok campaign launched • 120m Spotify streams across his catalogue in nine Olivia West – video coordinator tastemakers that contributed by commissioned influencers months Dave Rajan – head of radio to the success of Tinie’s career within the space. • 21.6m streams across all partners on ‘Pass Out’ in Grace O’Neill – national radio over the years a week prior to the release. This led into the release of Tinie’s main 2020 (18% increase from 2019) Nana Muyovwe – community radio All items were packaged into a safe with the international focus track of the year – ‘Whoppa' • 136% increase in TikTok followers to 298k in nine Jason Bailey – commercial radio combination code being the month and year feat. Sofia Reyes and Farina which on launch months We Generate Media – digital media agency when Pass Out was first released and was sprayed garnered 42 New Music Friday adds internationally • Massive uplift in engagement on Snapchat – Dumi Oburota, Sandy Cheema – Disturbing profusely with the nostalgic aroma of Versace Blue (the most New Music Fridays Tinie has ever 1900% increase in monthly Snapchat views (48k to London (management/label) Jeans. This experiential-based activity took social received for a release), over 3m video views and 4m 960k) in nine months We Generate Media – digital media agency media by storm and became a hot topic across combined streams in a week. • 73% increase in Snapchat followers to 78k, and BBH Global – advertising agency () socials. Posts were shared by the likes of , We wanted to focus marketing efforts on 137% increase in reach on Instagram to 592.5k in Dawbell – press agency Dave, Mo Gilligan, Maya Jama, Austin Daboh generating mass global appeal and created a global nine months :) Hypebrid – social agency (formerly Spotify), Dotty (formerly BBC 1XTRA), partnership with Burger King. This consisted of Rob Bruce (Capital XTRA), Charlie Sloth, GRM an in-store AR activation where, for a limited OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN Daily, Link Up TV, I’m Just Bait, Mixtape Madness time, consumers could see a small Tinie perform EDIT ◀ ▶ campaign breakdown as well as across the social media pages of all ‘Whoppa on a Whopper’. This campaign rolled out To warm up Tinie’s algorithms ahead of a string streaming platforms. in stores globally and generated over 150 pieces of of new releases in 2020 after being out of the This then led us nicely into the first phase of the coverage across trade and consumer press with a CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ game for three solid years (the release prior to Tinie campaign with the release of street record reach of 250m, and saw 7k uses of the AR coming AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC this was his Youth project in 2017), re-generate ‘Top Winners’ feat. Not3s. from 54 different countries. AGE 19-24, 25-34 receptiveness amongst media and the key We wanted to connect mainly with Tinie’s AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 52% / 42% gatekeepers within the industry, we reignited the core fanbase, whilst still maintaining visibility RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ LOCATION UK momentum built around his Brit Award-winning within the mainstream space, and mapped out single ‘Pass Out’ in 2010, to kick off his campaign. a two-tier influencer engagement strategy. • The initial re-engagement phase generated 820k

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TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED cohesive ◀ ▶ campaign that Not provided. was extremely effective at OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN socials and ◀ ▶ accounts. All of Over the last decade, Grammy-nominated these efforts producer and DJ TOKiMONSTA has made her resulted in high mark not only on electronic music but also visibility, increases in new fans and listeners, and pop culture at large. The Los-Angeles based some of TOKiMONSTA’s highest engagement artist released her eighth studio album, Oasis rates and streaming numbers to date. Nocturno, through Ingrooves Music Group on 20th March 2020. Coinciding with her first into listeners on various platforms. All said and territories while expanding her presence and RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ release through Ingrooves, the goal of the done, the campaign brought with it a 10.5% visibility in new markets. associated release campaign was to re-engage increase in Instagram followers. In order to elevate support at Apple • Over 1,095 editorial playlists additions secured TOKiMONSTA’s fanbase while increasing her We had originally created a live VR art gallery Music, a service that had previously shown worldwide throughout the campaign global impact and overall visibility. in downtown where fans could TOKiMONSTA little support, the Ingrooves team • 29 New Music Friday placements in 16 The project was as immersive and interactive come in and experience TOKiMONSTA's oasis. was able to lock in the New Music Daily Global countries as the LP itself. Ingrooves worked to integrate The event would take fans through different Cover Feature for the second single, ‘Fried For • Spotify Worldwide Hero Banner for Oasis her visual aesthetics into various platforms to rooms that would display various scenes from the Night’, which included a Zane Lowe Beats 1 Nocturno on release day create a memorable and successful campaign. her upcoming tour. For each song on the album, interview. The interview was used as a platform • Two Spotify mobile banners during the release This campaign increased exposure and followers fans would walk through a different room. At the to announce the album release on air worldwide campaign on various social media and digital streaming end of the gallery, TOKiMONSTA would have a to millions of listeners. • 36% increase in Spotify monthly listeners accounts, all of which contributed to the success DJ set as well as exclusive merch. Unfortunately The Ingrooves team collaborated with • New Music Daily cover feature on Apple Music of TOKiMONSTA’s album. due to Covid we had to cancel this event on the management to develop strong marketing • Beats 1 worldwide premiere and interview For Instagram, Ingrooves collaborated week of release. To replace the event, TOKi and initiatives to engage fans, strengthening the with Zane Lowe with the artist’s team to create a filter using a our teams set up Resort which was an online connection between artist and audience. • iTunes Electronic Charts #2 album visual from a TOKiMONSTA video where her experience in which fans were able to premiere Ingrooves created geo-targeted data stories • 144 New Music Daily placements in 109 eyes were glowing like sparklers. Through a the album with TOKi as she discussed the tracks and custom ads to reach a large number of new countries collaborative effort with Spark AR, the custom and spoke with fans live. TOKiMONSTA has fans who quickly translated into listeners in • Five editorial playlist covers throughout the filter was up on TOKiMONSTA’s Instagram now kept this going every Thursday through territories primed for expansion including UK, release campaign account so that fans could use it directly after quarantine for fans and artists. Mexico and Australia. • Social support from Spotify, Apple Music, the release of the correlating music video. At The Ingrooves team helped to develop a Rich data was collected from the single Amazon, YouTube, and Deezer one point, there was an increase of over 1,500 release strategy in which three singles were releases confirming TOKiMONSTA’s global • Two Today In Music features at Amazon Music daily followers. Ultimately, Ingrooves was able to staggered five weeks apart leading into the audience and used to leverage album coverage • 30% increase in total views, coupled with a work with TOKiMONSTA’s team to reach a large album release. Commercial pitches were as well as collate re-marketing efforts. 28% increase in subscribers on YouTube number of new followers who quickly translated made worldwide to maximise exposure in key The Ingrooves team was able to build a • Over 20,000 new Instagram followers. :)

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TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED bespoke emoji for fans live tweeting ◀ ▶ about the event. UMC Sian Blewitt – audience development executive RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Lisa Power – A&R consultant Jenkins – senior A&R manager This campaign proved to be a huge success, Dennis Wolfe – video content resulting in a significant increase in U2’s Sue Armstrong – marketing manager catalogue consumption, especially on YouTube. Sam Lunn – head of international & campaign The Elevation: Live From Boston stream strategy, Island Records saw over 57,000 devices tune in, of which 11% Will Beardmore – head of audience, Island Recs. engaged in a save-to-Spotify overlay, Holly Williams – creative director, Island Records adding 500k streams of the album after Nadine King – Management the event finished as well as a 53% Kelly McNamara – Maverick Management increase in streams per listener. This, Jennifer Pitcher – Maverick Management Behind. Instead, we pushed ourselves to deliver appearance of alongside the scrapbook, Giphy and Django Bayless – Live Nation something extra which would break new ground the channel. further campaign initiatives landed the All for U2 and pull in audiences to U2’s music long On the That You Can’t Leave Behind: Anniversary after the campaign glow had faded. campaign side, we delivered a scrapbook Edition at #27 in the UK charts. We realised that You Can’t Leave website where fans could upload personal Reviewing our efforts to deliver lasting value, Behind offered us the chance to bring more of memories of the Elevation tour, discuss with we’ve generated 13.2m views on YouTube above U2’s famed videos from that album to platforms fellow attendees and get their hands on an forecast, with an additional 160k subscribers for the very first time. Our ambitious approach official U2 tour pass complete with their own in the five months from June to October. Most was to deliver weekly video releases with deeper picture. notably we saw that after our deep optimisation, storytelling and exploration delivered across All That You Can’t Leave Behind is famous algorithmic views increased by 250%, helping to socials, whilst also engineering their YouTube amongst fans for its bespoke emojis that expand and grow our audience on the channel channel to be industry-leading through an represent each song on the album, so we gave long after the campaign comes to a close. :) unprecedented YouTube partnership. them each an animated home via bespoke We led with the video for the iconic ‘Stuck Spotify Canvases and delivered the first ever EDIT campaign breakdown You Can’t Get Out Of’, carefully official U2 GIFs hosted on Giphy, Tenor and from original 35mm rushes scanned at Gifmagazine profiles to provide access for their 4K, with newly remastered audio. Overall, we huge global fanbase. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN sourced, created or painstakingly restored new The crescendo to our campaign was ◀ ▶ AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC videos for the channel to full HD and 4k where a livestream for the newly upgraded Elevation: AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59 Having delivered successful for Achtung possible. Live From Boston concert video. It featured AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 50% / 50% Baby and , it would have Alongside this, we embarked on deep exclusive content and fans’ questions were LOCATION Global been easy to follow the playbook for the 20th optimisation by delivering bespoke thumbnails, answered by the band via a video call hosted by anniversary reissue of All That You Can’t Leave designing smart metadata and honing the overall . Working with Twitter, we created a

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time strengthen the Alan Walker fan community.

RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶

• Over 139,000 people have played The Walker Excavations game with an average playtime of 13:47 minutes. • The game trailer on YouTube has more than 449k views. • We gained 6.8m new followers across Alan Walker’s social media platforms (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) within the campaign period. • Over 5m+ interactions on Alan Walker artist, DJ, producer and one of the most social media posts associated with The Walker influential artists of his genre. He is the 15th Excavations game. most-subscribed-to artist on YouTube, reaching • Most people (115,000 people) visited the game over 18bn audio and video streams worldwide. site directly and did not go through ads or similar. Since his artist debut, we have been building • We had users and visitors from all over the the Walker Universe, a storyline that unfolds in world, the gender split was 61.9% male and chronological order through his music videos. We expanded the campaign onto various 38.1% female. The age target was primarily 18- His fans, also referred to as Walkers, have social media platforms and let the fans engage 34, which 77.2% of the visitors were. grown to become an expanding movement, with with the characters from the Walker Universe. • Fans all over the world made their own in- members all around the world and are highly Fans were pointed to an elaborate treasure hunt game videos on YouTube to help each other to TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED active in the ongoing storyline. all over the internet where they looked for clues solve the puzzles within the game. :) ◀ ▶ To push the upcoming song trilogy we in fake corporate , Alan's music videos Nellie Sörman – PR manager, Sony Music wanted to strengthen fan culture and tie the and the protagonists’ LinkedIn profiles to figure Sweden Walker Universe story back to the music in out the plot and subplots. Finally, when fans had EDIT campaign breakdown Matilda Kahl – creative manager, Sony Music unexpected ways. Therefore we built The Walker found the clues and made the connections, they Sweden Excavations, an unprecedented 3D experience went back into the Walker Excavations to get to Christopher Mjelde – project manager, SAIL designed as a real museum, playable on any the next level. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Sonja Hjelle Torset – campaign manager, MER device, straight in the browser. Here, the fans The Walker community created a wave of AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Christian Berg – creative director, MER advanced through different levels that were engagement across platforms as they helped AGE 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 released to the ongoing single and video each other to unravel the mysteries of this AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F) 62% / 38% OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN trilogy. Fans solved intricate puzzles, unlocked ongoing legend. By releasing the The Walker ◀ ▶ LOCATION Global snippets from upcoming video and song titles Excavations, we were able to create a worldwide Alan Walker is a multi-platinum Norwegian and hunted for free and exclusive merchandise. buzz about the song trilogy and at the same

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where fans had to screenshot the app when a RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS ◀ ▶ Why Don’t We song was playing, which resulted in 3,308 submissions in three days. This was a three-month campaign, with resulting The final mission was for fans to submit a posts having a 600k+ reach, 1.6m impressions and photo of themselves being the best fan. These 22k clicks on the microsite. Our primary objective 302 submissions were compiled to be made was data collection, 4,856 entries and 1,456 into a plaque to commemorate the achievement unique emails captured. There were 153k streams of the band’s gold album, . The top 20 from stream to win in the first week, and the fans TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED from Why Don’t We stuck around to surprise for entrants went on to compete for the fastest certainly had a money-can’t buy-experience. :) ◀ ▶ their hardcore fans in a cinema hall – where in completing a treasure hunt course at Yee Lisan – international marketing head fans thought they were being treated to a live indoor activity park, Superpark. Vinoda Ganase, Adeline Ng & Keigan Lee – video call from the band. The top 50 winners were invited to EDIT campaign breakdown international marketing executives Fans had to complete three online missions come to the cinema for what they thought for a chance to win a spot at the treasure hunt. was a video call with the band, only to be CAMPAIGN BUDGET £2,001–£5,000 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN It was a one-day event, with a chance to win treated to a surprise appearance of the band ◀ ▶ sold-out concert tickets and meet & greets. To themselves! AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC The main objective of this event was to give fans enter, fans had to first stream the band’s music. They spent 45 minutes with the fans – with AGE 0-13, 14-18 a money-can’t-buy experience with one of the There were 5,443 page visits, 2,076 clicks and some games and live interaction – before AUDIENCE GENDER biggest American boybands – Why Don’t We. 1,189 emails captured from this activity. catching their flight. A post-event video was Mainly female We were able to some of their time We teamed up with local English radio released as a mini after-movie with 10k organic LOCATION Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia after their sold-out Malaysia show. The five boys station, HITZ, to push their new app (Syok), views in the first 24 hours.

51 | sandbox ISSUE 266 09.12.2020 SANDBOX CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 2020 BEST ENVIRONMENTAL Wojtek The Orchard Artists Services CAMPAIGN

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED generates 30% less emissions than a desktop Overall growth of social media ◀ ▶ app. As an additional part of the campaign, following: Wojtek – website concept, content and execution Wojtek has also been sharing #planeteer approx. 30% (active, engaged fans across his Szczepanik – artist #protips on TikTok to inspire others. Instagram and Facebook profiles). The Orchard DSPs results: Ania Kasperek – senior retail and sales manager, RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS • Over 100k in first week of streaming ◀ ▶ Nordics • Playlist support: Classical X, Kopf kino, Loops, Nikoo Sadr – director, artist and label services, The artist and his team’s aimed at raising awareness Ambiente (plus cover) which is impressive for a neo- Nordics about the climate crisis, to inspire and engage classical debut artist. Airene Resurreccion – associate art director fellow artists to opt for sustainable solutions in (design & video) their business models and prove that even a debut Ad results Jonathan Ellis – multimedia designer (design & artist can make a difference. ‘Golden’ (single): video) • Over 30+ media publications including Music Facebook and Instagram performance: Peter Lum – multimedia designer (design & coding) Ally, Clash, Electronic Beats, When The Horn 21,053 impressions / 310 website clicks Giulia Colli – advertising Blows, Yuck mag, NOIZZ, Newonce, Sveriges 2,157 video views (10.25% video view rate) Radio, and more. Magdalena Jensen – Chimes, creative direction • Wojtek and his manager held a seminar about Atmosphere (album): materials. A music video, was also created from recording and producing a carbon neutral album at Facebook & Instagram performance: OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN exclusively repurposed video footage donated by Reeperbahn 2020. 118,399 impressions / 3,135 engagements ◀ ▶ fellow artists and creators. This also enabled an • Collaboration with Keychange 2.0. programme 1,616 website clicks Wojtek is a neoclassical artist and composer increased reach months before the release. The – sharing tips and available solutions for recording 25,615 video views (21.63% video view rate) who is -born but based in Berlin. The team turned to The Orchard’s family of artists and producing music carbon neutrally. goal for his debut album Atmosphere (released and labels, as well as fellow artists and creators Over 139k impressions for advertising via The Orchard Artists Services) was to keep who engage in planet positive activations. Reach of the campaign: sourcing materials for the Engagement over 2.5% it carbon neutral and to inspire others through In conjunction with the new album, Wojtek video ensured outreach to over 40+ labels and Over 27k video views. :) the campaign to reduce their own emissions and launched a CO2 tracker that shows the CO2 management agencies globally. raise awareness around the climate crisis. emissions produced behind each aspect of the Live plays an role: with advertising In the production phase the album was recording and production process. Wojtek’s and social media campaigns, we focused on EDIT campaign breakdown recorded at Baltic Studios in East London – a website is an interactive infographic that both activating his IRL audience and gaining new active studio that uses renewable energy to power the draws back the curtain on the whole process listeners. The results were 140k impressions which, CAMPAIGN BUDGET £2,001–£5,000 studio. Any remaining emissions from composing, of producing Atmosphere and provides a few given the genre and size of the artist, is a result mixing and were compensated planeteer pro-tips to inspire musicians and worth mentioning. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC through the purchase of Renewable Energy listeners to consider their carbon footprint and AGE 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 Certificates. how they can neutralise it. TikTok: Wojtek’s TikTok profile is focused on AUDIENCE GENDER 51% / 45% Additionally the album was distributed solely For example when exploring parts of the sharing pro-tips for “planeteers”: we grew his (non-binary 2%, undeclared 2%) digitally to eliminate waste, and promotion assets website – e.g. “distribution” section – one engagement from 0 to 4k+ likes on stories, top LOCATION Germany, Poland, UK were done largely by using already existing can learn that streaming on a mobile device video reached over 42k views.

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