DECEMBER 14 2016 sandboxMUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA ISSUE 170 THE YEAR’S BEST MUSIC MARKETING CAMPAIGNS SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY thE year’s best music marketing campaigns t’s that time of year when sandbox presents the best music Contents 16 ... FESTIVAL ESTEREO PICNIC 29 ... VERONICA MAGGIO marketing campaigns of the past 12 months. This year, we 03 ... THE 1975 17 ... GIRLI 30 ... MELANIE MARTINEZ were overwhelmed with entries (genuinely) and so present 04 ... 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER 18 ... DAVID GRAY 31 ... SHAWN MENDES I 05 ... MARC ALMOND 19 ... HAMILTON CAST 32 ... METALLICA 40 of the best here. Each entry has been written and submitted 06 ... RICK ASTLEY 20 ... HONNE 33 ... MØ by the teams responsible and all data and scoring also comes 07 ... AURORA 21 ... DANIEL HOPE 34 ... OLLY MURS from them. The entries we have included come from labels 08 ... BASTILLE 22 ... KENT 35 ... TOM ODELL 09 ... BEAR’S DEN 23 ... KLINGANDE 36 ... PASSENGER of all sizes, artists, services and more – sitting as a beguiling 10 ... BIFFY CLYRO 24 ... LANco 37 ... THE RAVEONETTES snapshot of how exciting the sector is. Special thanks to Ed 11 ... BIRDY 25 ... LISSIE 38 ... RALEIGH RITCHIE Miller for another sterling design and layout job and we we look 12 ... JEFF BUCKLEY 26 ... LITTLE MIX 39 ... SECRETLY GROUP forward to doing it all again with the best campaigns of 2017. 13 ... CNCO 27 ... JAMES VINCENT 40 ... SHINEDOWN 14 ... DAUGHTER McMORROW 41 ... ALAN WALKER Start your engines. 15 ... DISCO DONNIE PRESENTS 28 ... MADNESS 42 ... WARD THOMAS 2 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY POLYDOR/HIT THE 1975 TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED Tom Hoare – Senior Digital Marketing CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Manager, Polydor CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ Olly Rice – Head of Marketing, Polydor Records AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Jack Melhuish - Marketing Director, Polydor AGE: 14-34 Records FEMALE: 73% Ed Blow - Marketing Manager, Dirty Hit MALE: 27% Jamie Oborne - Owner, Dirty Hit LOCATION: UK OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN SUCCESS RATING: 9 In June of last year, the band kicked off the campaign for their second album by “going dark” on all social accounts, deleting their their services; Vevo, Tumblr, Twitter and more were examples of social media channels entirely. Coupled with platforms we were able to leverage support from in this way. a hand-typed note from frontman Matthew The 1975 have constantly embraced social media, direct email Healy with cryptic language that alluded communication with fans, teasers, digital breadcrumbs and digital to farewells and changes, the move threw continued to innovate with hand-typed content with the band and Zane. The level innovation throughout their career to cultivate a fiercely loyal fans into a hysteria as they speculated as to notes from Matty that offered clues to songs’ of support which this engendered from fanbase and an eye-catchingly unique aesthetic. whether or not the band were breaking up. meanings and forthcoming announcements. Apple was a key reason behind the band’s Gradually, a brand new visual aesthetic for The band’s use of direct emails to fans in digital success. The band also partnered KEY LEARNINGS the band was revealed, first through social order to super-serve them with unique with Tumblr to run a series of Tumblr IRL profile imagery being changed to a block of content and let the band’s most engaged pop-up shops in London and New York City The 1975’s enormous social media followings (1.8m on Facebook, solid pink, before elusive mailers were sent users seed out content throughout the which brought the digital campaign to life 1.2m on Twitter, 1.4m on Instagram, 800k on Vevo) and the to the band’s database of over 200k with fanbase through evangelism was a key and allowed fans to experience a physical ferocity of their social fanbases are testament in themselves to new neon pink sign imagery, the only copy aspect of the campaign, as was the use of incarnation of the band’s Tumblr page – the success of the band’s strategy of combining the elements being a link to download an image file of the countdowns appearing on the band’s website essentially a curated storefront with original detailed above to build an intensely loyal digital fanbase at scale. new neon sign. Slowly it was built to a point to fuel speculation and anticipation online. artwork, exclusive merchandise and more. Looking beyond social metrics, however, it’s clear to see how the where speculation about the band’s new On top of the album release, the band Around the launch for the video for band’s success extends beyond the URL into ‘IRL’ – a #1 album on direction reached a digital fever pitch, before partnered with Apple and Beats 1 to ‘A Change Of Heart’ in April, the band both sides of the Atlantic, with one of the highest week-one sales the campaign’s first major asset, the track perform a live-streamed show from atop embraced an innovative strategy of figures in the OCC this year and one of the best-selling albums and video for ‘Love Me’, was launched in a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, seeding pieces of exclusive content related released this year, selling out The O2 in three hours, and playing late October. broadcast live on Zane Lowe’s show on to the video around various partners major festival slots at Coachella, Glastonbury and others across As the campaign progressed, The 1975 Beats 1 and featuring lengthy interview in order to leverage key profile across the world. 3 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY 5 SeCONDS OF SUMMER Capitol Records UK TEAM MEMBERS engaged with the campaign have been oriented content. In exchange, we secured: INVOLVED recorded for later use to help spread a Radar feature; reblogs on the ‘music’ future information to the most engaged vertical of Tumblr; posts on Tumblr’s social Maddy Smith - senior digital campaign fans about upcoming singles, tours and channels; push notifications to engaged CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN manager, Capitol Records UK campaign initiatives. 5SOS followers; and gratis advertising CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £5,000–£10,000 Jamie Leeming - digital marketing Upon release of the single, we then inventory. To round out the entire coordinator, Capitol Records UK launched a Spotify ‘share-to-unlock’ campaign we also partnered with AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC microsite, giving fans the ability to unlock Musical.ly, where the band set up their AGE: 14-18 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN the official music video. The aim was account for the first time and posted a FEMALE: 80% to encourage fans to login and share highly personal and engaging video using MALE: 20% The aim was to raise awareness and the song to their Facebook and Twitter ‘Girls Talk Boys’. The partnership with LOCATION: UK, US & Australia drive streams for the new single ‘Girls accounts. Using Spotify as the primary Musical.ly enabled the video to be featured Talk Boys’, which was featured on partner meant we could influence the in prominent real estate across the app, SUCCESS RATING: 7 the Ghostbusters film soundtrack. spread of the new single to a new with takeovers occurring on the trending The campaign started with the band audience and collect information on hashtags, main competition banner and announcing through their own social which fans are Spotify users – the latter popular songs segments of the platform. channels that they would be releasing a of which has since enabled us to more single from the Ghostbusters soundtrack. effectively segment email communication KEY LEARNINGS This was followed up over the subsequent by prioritising different retail partners week by a variety of content that included based on what we know fans use. The aim was to re-educate the younger a fake advert offering the band’s service Sharing the track through our microsite demographics about streaming; the as ghostbusters, videos of the band being also automatically saved the song to the best way to migrate them across is to slimed and behind-the-scenes pictures users’ collection. During the share-to- incentivise them. Dark social is a key new from the music video, where the band unlock campaign, we generated further trend for the coming year – as evidenced recreated a budget version of the new excitement towards the music video by by our use of Superphone. Ghostbusters film. partnering with MTV and providing them Following the initial announcement, with exclusive BTS content from the video we decided to play on the Ghostbusters shoot to premiere on their Snapchat tagline “Who you gonna call?” by channel, the results of which were partnering with US-based Superphone, staggering. who enabled fans in the UK and US to After the video release, we continued freely ring a phone number and hear a the theme of media partnering by offering pre-recorded message from the band. Tumblr an exclusive 36-hour premiere of The message tricked them into thinking the BTS footage from the video shoot. As the phone call was real and then played the band has achieved Most Reblogged an exclusive 30-second snippet of the Tumblr two years in a row, this was the unheard single. All phone numbers that perfect place to showcase more fan- 4 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY MARC ALMOND UNIVERSAL MUSIC CATALOGUE TEAM MEMBERS present all the contents and information a branded velvet eyeliner pouch as a nod INVOLVED about the product, giving fans an exclusive to the release title. As the tickets were preview of the booklet and collect very limited, we live streamed the event Maja Matacz - digital marketing manager, retargeting data. To sustain engagement to Marc’s Facebook page.