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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 ... 17 ... 30 ... MELANIE MARTINEZ were overwhelmed with entries (genuinely) and so present 04 ... 18 ... DAVID GRAY 31 ... I 05 ... MARC ALMOND 19 ... HAMILTON CAST 32 ... 40 of the best here. Each entry has been written and submitted 06 ... 20 ... HONNE 33 ... MØ by the teams responsible and all data and scoring also comes 07 ... AURORA 21 ... DANIEL HOPE 34 ... from them. The entries we have included come from labels 08 ... BASTILLE 22 ... KENT 35 ... 09 ... BEAR’S DEN 23 ... KLINGANDE 36 ... PASSENGER of all sizes, artists, services and more – sitting as a beguiling 10 ... 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 ... 26 ... 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 ... DONNIE PRESENTS 28 ... MADNESS 42 ... WARD THOMAS

2 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY THE 1975 POLYDOR/HIT

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED

Tom Hoare – Senior Digital Marketing CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Manager, Polydor CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ Olly Rice – Head of Marketing, AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Jack Melhuish - Marketing Director, Polydor AGE: 14-34 Records FEMALE: 73% Ed Blow - Marketing Manager, 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 by “going dark” on all social accounts, deleting their their services; , , 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 and New City The 1975’s enormous social media followings (1.8m on , 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 , 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 ’ 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 and video for ‘Love Me’, was launched in a skyscraper in downtown , seeding pieces of exclusive content related released this year, selling out The O2 in three hours, and playing late October. broadcast live on ’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.

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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 ‘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 . 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 ‘’. The partnership with LOCATION: UK, US & 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 . 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 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. The stream UMC between the announcement and release, has reached 90k people and received an Mark Wood - marketing manager, UMC we created a selection of Facebook lyric overwhelmingly positive feedback from Jonjo Lowe - creative content coordinator, cards and worked with Universal’s editorial the fans. UMC team, uDiscover, on a series of six written features covering various aspects of KEY LEARNINGS OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN Marc’s career, plus a filmed interview for their YouTube. Personally curated by Marc himself, Trials We also partnered with Front As this is a high-end product, our primary Of Eyeliner is the first and the definitive Row and Xperia, providing them with goal was to target Marc’s super fans and career box set, showcasing a musical exclusive video pieces, which reached over ensure we communicate the incredible journey through best-loved album tracks, 50m fans. On the week of release, rather quality of the box to them. Working all of his singles, rarities and one-off than posting a conventional unboxing with fan communities and experts to collaborations. From the beginning of video, we filmed Marc opening his box get under the of what the fans get the project, the primary objective was to set for the very first time. Marc’s genuine from their following of the artist and involve and engage Marc in every aspect delight and excitement resonated well how they respond best to marketing of the campaign and to reach not only his with the fans, delivering over 40k views in initiatives was essential in structuring devoted fanbase, but also more casual, 24 hours. To celebrate the album release, this campaign. The unboxing video is by cultured music fans. The announcement we held an exclusive event – Marc In far the best performing piece of content strategy included a dedicated landing page Conversation with Simon Price at The on Marc’s Facebook page, with reach over and an ad in the programme at Marc’s Magic Circle in London. The most engaged 1,000% higher than the page average. It gig that night. We also announced fans were given a personalised invitation has demonstrated that Marc not only the release with a video trailer. Marc has to enter the ticket ballot. The event endorses the release but that he is CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN always pushed boundaries in his (often included an hour-long conversation with personally excited about and sees it as a CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £5,000–£10,000 controversial) music videos – the box set the journalist, an audience Q&A and a live worthwhile purchase for his fans. Since trailer was a 60-second and highly visual acoustic performance. All guests received release, the reach of Marc’s Facebook AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC montage showcasing just that. page has increased by 453% and post AGE: 34-60 Upon announcement, we also engagement by 559%. On announcement, FEMALE: 35% incentivised fans with a free copy of ‘If Trials Of Eyeliner was #1 in Amazon MALE: 65% You Go Away’ EP, strictly limited to the Pre-Orders and Moves & Shakers charts. LOCATION: UK first 500 to order the box set from our The box set is also one of UMC’s D2C D2C store; this sold out within 36 hours. bestsellers this year. The D2C buy link on SUCCESS RATING: 10 The dedicated landing page was used the product landing page generated over throughout the campaign as a way to £30k in revenue.

5 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY RICK ASTLEY BMG

This was achieved by using a strong social media engagement strategy, run by Be Hooked, alongside a highly dynamic marketing and advertising strategy run in-house at BMG. Using micro-management of audiences and retargeting data, BMG, alongside consultants Motive Unknown, were able to carefully isolate specific platforms and audiences that were driving the most revenue and redirect budget accordingly, constantly morphing the campaign to provide the most efficient results. This proved most effective during week of release, in which Rick landed a coveted #1 , ahead of Tom Odell. Rick’s album is still in the top 20 now and this online strategy is still paying dividends.

TEAM MEMBERS KEY LEARNINGS INVOLVED • #1 album Sam Hill, senior digital manager, BMG • Sales in excess of 140,000 in three months George Gogohija, digital product manager, • Exponential increase in social engagement and followers BMG • Detailed demographic data about Rick’s audience and Darren Hemmings, founder, Motive overlapping interests Unknown Tom Packer, director, Motive Unknown Silas Armstrong, digital agent, Be Hookd George James, MD, Be Hookd CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,000 – £25,000 Rick’s first album in 12 years, 50, was an AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC - GENDER unprecedented success that went in at AGE: 34-60 #1 in the UK chart and has gone on to be FEMALE: 55% a gold-selling album in three months. MALE: 45% Currently it’s the eighth best-selling LOCATION: UK album of 2016. In addition to this, Rick has become a household name again, with a SUCCESS RATING: 10 strong online following based around his social media presence.

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TEAM MEMBERS without taking them away from their INVOLVED Facebook experience. There were challenges that came with this, but David Heath - senior digital marketing we were able to deliver incredible CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN manager, results here. It helped cap off the CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,000–£10,000 Chris Kershaw - senior marketing campaign nicely by allowing us to manager, Decca Records piece together the most significant AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Benedict Curran - streaming manager, moments from the previous year and AGE: 18-24 Decca Records a half. FEMALE: 59% Jon Fisher - founder and director, MALE: 41% Pretty Good Digital KEY LEARNINGS LOCATION: Global

OVERVIEW OF CAM- Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen SUCCESS RATING: 9 PAIGN incredible growth across Aurora’s socials channels – both in follower We set out on this streaming-focused brighten to reveal the artwork. Then numbers and overall consumption. We’ve campaign with the intention of building we created a world-first collaborative, had lots of big “moments” to talk about front and centre, we’ve created a platform for Aurora that we can a set of tools that enabled fans to share interactive homepage takeover for Spotify. (such as our fan-driven creatives) – but our be confident will deliver us fantastic results going forward. And, of their love for this unique artist. We used Users could choose a moth, then click a goal was always to prioritise streaming. course, everyone who meets her or sees her perform live falls in love the Warriors & Weirdos fan page (Aurora’s button to release it into the light. Spotify Creating a long-term connection between with her. So we’ve had massive support from partners and friends website fan club) to give them the two users will have seen the number of moths listener and artist across key streaming across the industry to help us get to where we have. things they wanted most: proximity to the growing throughout the day, while a platforms was integral artist; and access to exclusive content. counter underneath tracked the exact to success. This helped us forge a real relationship number. We started the with them. The Warriors use this This allowed us to capture the attention campaign at zero, so community to share stories with each of Spotify users, even if they had no idea it’s easy to see how other and enjoy photos, videos and written who Aurora was. For the release date, we far we’ve come. To letters from Aurora. Aurora was able to wanted to find a way to tie everything date, we’ve amassed leave her own comments and replies we’d done together into one neat package. 67m Vevo views and whenever she wished. We wanted to show people how Aurora over 350k subscribers. Aurora loves moths and collects dead had weaved this mysterious narrative Spotify numbers are ones. We wanted to bring her unique way into everything from her artwork to her equally impressive. of looking at the world to every part of the songwriting. So we built one of the first- Aurora now gets over campaign; even when it came to ad space. ever Facebook Canvases and promoted it 1.6m listeners per When we announced the album, we asked to fans and lookalike audiences. month and has almost people to tweet to help switch on a bunch The format makes it possible to tell a 200k followers. By of lights in a room that would gradually longer story that isn’t otherwise possible putting streaming

7 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY BASTILLE Spotify / Virgin EMI

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED

*Spotify unless stated Jamie Herbert - consumer marketing Marian Dicus - head of consumer marketing Scott Marsden - head of global media marketing support generating 14m impressions and 505k Ed Suwanjindar - strategy advisor website interactions. The campaign was a great illustration Laura Kirkpatrick - director of UK label of the power of a truly collaborative partnership, harnessing relations Spotify’s global audience and listening data to create a Kevin Brown - head of artist & label unique album release experience, combined with the market services (international) knowhow of the local label team. The entire campaign was Matt Ott - label relations manager also conceived, developed and executed within a four-week Lucas Corley - artist insights analyst period, allowing us to capitalise on the level of anticipation Robert Waite - european social marketing and talk value in the lead up to the album launch. One manager unexpected outcome from the Eye Of The Stormers site was Carlyn Sylvester - social marketing the propensity for fans to ‘crowdsource’ one another to push manager their city to the top of the Wild World streaming list, driving Holly Brooker - marketing manager awareness of the album launch and streams accordingly. Alex Bodman - global creative director Davis Nadjecki - global brand producer Sara Kayden - global brand producer Candice Greenberg - senior brand manager combination of both on- and off-Spotify of an execution only Spotify CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Martin Berggren - art director (freelance) promotion, including an industry first in could deliver, harnessing the power of its CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £25,000+ Rasmus Wangelin - global ACD / design the form of a fan-powered interactive global audience and data to bring artists Will Oswin - designer experience, Eye Of The Stormers. The closer to their fans in new and unexpected AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC custom-built microsite visualised streams ways. The site was complemented with AGE: 14-34 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN of the album in the form of storms extensive out of home and social activity FEMALE: 50% (inspired by the self-proclaimed title of across key global markets. MALE: 50% The 9th September marked the highly Bastille’s fans – ‘Stormers’) and the city LOCATION: UK/US anticipated release of Bastille’s new with the most engaged Bastille fans KEY LEARNINGS album, Wild World, and with it came an (measured on a per-capita basis) were SUCCESS RATING: 10 innovative Spotify album launch campaign treated to a live intimate performance The album went on to become the 10th developed in partnership with the band’s by the band attended by their most biggest week-one UK album release UK-based label. The campaign featured a engaged streamers. The site was a great since streaming records began, with the

8 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY Communion Records/ BEAR’S DEN Caroline International CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ TEAM MEMBERS is the band created potato-stamped INVOLVED special-edition vinyl (something they AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC have done on every release), all of AGE: 18-34 : Communion Records which sold out before release. They FEMALE: 57% Management: Rowan Brand played an underplay gig at the ICA MALE: 42% Labels and radio/TV: Caroline International three months before album launch to LOCATION: UK Online PR: Stay Loose create a special sneak peek for their PR Press: Rachel Hendry super fans. The band also played four SUCCESS RATING: 8 Publisher: Communion Publishing in-stores across the UK on the week of release and several in-stores around OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN Europe. We were keen to experiment with a We created a splash page where fans could watch the video and then We focused on three key pillars with this Facebook Live stream, so we hosted an share on socials who their favourite character from the video was campaign: staying focused on the quality album listening party three days before with the hashstag #dewonthevine. The fan interactions were very and authenticity of the music, continuing to the album release. We live streamed successful. foster a very close relationship with fans and from their studio where they started by amplifying the power of live music. introducing the album and then playing MARKETING the album in full, introducing every We spent advertising across the board – online, print, outdoor and CAPTURING CONTENT UPFRONT song and then panning out to the radio. Using our unique position as a label and live , we One of the problems that we face with sound desk for every song while they were able to integrate the marketing for both the live and record Bear’s Den is that, despite strong album typed out answers to fan questions campaigns very tightly, enabling us to amplify the overall message and ticket sales, there was not a traditional build up a good run of pre-orders and got online. This was an incredibly well-received about the return of Bear’s Den. To do so we experimented with new online or print press base for the band. coverage on sites like The . and positive session. Fans were blown away online formats such as Facebook carousel and to create a strong joint So, in order for the band to tell the story of During this time, they also needed to and very complimentary on what an original marketing campaign. this album, we took it upon ourselves to announce the departure of their old member, way it was for them to have their first listen capture the making of the album to both Joey. This was handled very respectfully and to the album narrated by the band. The post KEY LEARNINGS allow us to tell that story via social media amicably on socials with support from the reached over 1m people (the band had fewer and give press some really special content fans which helped turn a potential negative than 100k likes at the time). • Second album, Red Earth & Pouring Rain achieved chart positions: so they could start telling the story. We into an intriguing point of interest about the For ‘Dew On The Vine’, the second single, UK #6, #5, #9, #26. (Their previous captured a large amount of content in studio new album. we created a very tongue-in-cheek video album didn’t chart in the top 50.) to use during the campaign. We filmed that featured the entire band, crew and • Sold-out UK tour, largest European and US tours to date in 2016. 20+ short video snippets in studio talking FOSTERING CLOSE CONNECTION TO FANS friends of the band having a ping pong • Other Stage slot at Glastonbury 2016. about every song, capturing the recording The band come from a very DIY ethos and tournament. We shot a vignette for every • Live stream was incredibly successful across the board especially process and explaining some of the album their fanbase was built over early years character to introduce the band and crew to the album live stream (Unique viewers: +18k, Post reach: +1.1m) influences. This video content was then very of gigging constantly and creating a real their fans. We then followed up by creating a • Over the period of the campaign online numbers increased as successfully trickled out across socials over a connection with fans. We wanted to stay competition to play ping pong with the band follows: Facebook (+23%); Twitter (+21%); Instagram (+73%); Mailer three-to-four-month build up to release and true to that. One of the ways we did this before their shows in London and Bristol. (+11%); Spotify monthly listeners (+18%); Spotify followers (+36%).

9 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY BIFFY CLYRO WARNER BROS RECORDS

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Jennifer Ivory - VP marketing, Warner Bros CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000 + Records Sebastian Simone - marketing manager, AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Warner Bros Records AGE: 18-34 Will Beardmore - digital lead, Warner Bros FEMALE: 40% Records the three naked members of Biffy, with the MALE: 60% stream giving fans a perfect destination to LOCATION: Global OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN discuss their thoughts. This led nicely into working with SUCCESS RATING: 8 For Biffy Clyro’s seventh studio album, we Facebook to arrange a video premiere for knew we had a huge opportunity to come ‘’ quickly reaching over 4m back and make a lot of noise. fans and potential fans. Our campaign preparation started Reaching millions early in the campaign when the band were recording in an LA gave us a wealth of remarketing data moment, achieving a huge reach and huge engagement. studio, where we ensured there was a to target throughout. We profiled Heading into the album release, we kicked off #HuntForEllipsis, film crew capturing amazing content, our fans with a crossover into video a global scavenger hunt for signed copies of the album at physical utilised throughout our campaign and for a gaming and made Twitch an early locations across the world. documentary exclusively available on iTunes. target for a portion of our advertising During the week of release of Ellipsis, we went Live on Facebook We identified early into the campaign budget. Similarly, knowing that Biffy from The Firepit studios at Warner Music UK HQ in Kensington. that Facebook was going to be our focus are Scottish heroes, we utilised hosted an interactive Q&A with the band and platform and doubled down our efforts geo-targeting and postcode data to introduced an incredible acoustic session. We worked with Facebook to utilise the majority of their tools at our hyper-target our Scottish audiences. to amplify this content to over 5m users worldwide, which was also disposal. To reveal the track listing, we aided by Fearne’s huge social presence. Kicking off with a teaser campaign in created a sharable gif, rapidly The band are in the midst of their crossover moment, with ‘Re- March, we subtly alluded to the album cycling through all of the track titles. arrange’ being the first track since ‘’ seven years ago title, sending fans into a frenzy by simply Working closely with the band, we to be added to both the Radio 1 and Radio 2 playlist. Biffy will be releasing the new band logo followed by “…” created an album sampler video performing to 80,000 fans on their arena tour later this year. (an ellipsis) and the eerie opening notes and featuring footage directly from the maniacal laughter of ‘Wolves Of Winter’. All band having fun with the songs while KEY LEARNINGS was subsequently revealed with the launch on tour, creating an honest and fun of ‘Wolves Of Winter’ as an instant grat track on Facebook to reveal the Ellipsis album creative for the fans. Garnering engagement through Facebook live moments was very for the Ellipsis pre-order. artwork. The creative reached over 55,000 360 photographs shot during our main impactful and had a tangible commercial output. That also allowed We then carefully utilised our “Biffy live viewers over a -minute reveal of campaign photo shoot were seeded on band’s personality to shine through and acted as a tool to tell the Clyro is Live for the First Time” notification three “Ellipsis” dots slowly dispersing into band’s Facebook page at a key pre-order story of this campaign.

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beautiful Hong Kong skyline and Victoria Harbour in the background. This was the first Facebook livestream in Asia with an international Warner artist – and the reaction was amazing. Some stats from the Facebook live stream: we reached over 1.8m people, over 1.9k people shared the post and there were 30k reactions to the post as Birdy’s Facebook page likes soared.

KEY LEARNINGS

To be more ambitious in markets like Asia. Although these types of initiatives can take a lot more planning, the fan reaction makes it all totally worth it.

TEAM MEMBERS make some noise and make sure that her fans are well aware that she was going to INVOLVED be in their market. Olivia Spring - junior marketing manager, After teasing the #BirdyHunt all CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Warner Music week with various designed gifs and an Luke Smith - digital creative manager, announcement from Birdy herself, the CAMPAIGN BUDGET £0–£500 Warner Music first location was revealed to be Tower Records in Toyko, where we left a signed specific to the Asian market. These were AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF origami bird with two tickets to her available to download through the IMOJI AGE: 14-24 CAMPAIGN Tokyo show for fans to find. We then app and were free for all fans to use. The FEMALE: 65% replicated this across each country that designs, some of which are animated gifs, MALE: 35% Birdy toured Asia for the first time earlier she was due to visit on the tour and the have been collectively downloaded over LOCATION: Asia this year, starting in Tokyo, then moving fan reaction was incredible, with one fan 33m times. through Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, finding the origami birdy and tickets in The morning before Birdy flew SUCCESS RATING: 9 finishing in Singapore. To celebrate, we less than 10 minutes. to Shanghai we set up a surprise worked on some fan initiatives to really We also created a set of Birdy emojis performance at Tsim Sha Tsui, with the

11 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY JEFF BUCKLEY /

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED

Walter Gross - senior director of digital marketing, Sony Entertainment Tom Mullen - senior director of creative & marketing partnerships, Sony Entertainment Adam Rappaport - digital marketing account manager, Fame House Dan Conway - creative services director, Fame fan is now able to Marissa Rivas-Velazquez - senior seamlessly scroll through designer, Fame House Buckley’s unique collection. Carrie Paul - art director, Fame Additionally, this project This site deserves recognition for seamlessly bridging the House contains a social share gap from physical to digital and clearly representing a physical element that allows the user to collection online. This project also introduced the music of Jeff OVERVIEW OF stream and share albums from Buckley and his many influences to the current generation of Buckley’s personal collection music listeners – and will continue to for generations to come. CAMPAIGN to their followers across social record collection. Additionally, Sony and media. Jeff Buckley once said, “I don’t really You & I, Jeff Buckley’s first official the estate were looking to introduce the need to be remembered. I hope the music posthumous album, was released on Sony sound and influences of Jeff Buckley to a is remembered.” This project ensures that this past spring. This album contains very new generation of listeners who are used Jeff Buckley’s music and record collection CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN early demo recordings of Buckley playing to consuming music on streaming services will forever live on and, as he wished, be CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £10,000–£15,000 cover songs, featuring a range of music like Spotify and are far more comfortable remembered. that influenced him. Timeless songs like with ‘the single’ than the vinyl record AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC ’s ‘’ and Sly experience. This project marked the first KEY LEARNINGS AGE: N/A & The Family Stone’s ‘’ time an artist’s personal vinyl collection FEMALE: 35% are given the unmistakable Buckley was transferred from the physical crates The response from esteemed publications MALE: 65% treatment. to the digital shelves. Spotify was chosen such as The Huffington Post, Vice and LOCATION: Global Sony and the Buckley estate brought in as the digital partner due to its userbase has been overwhelmingly Fame House to help create a unique, sleek and the option to listen to full albums on positive. Buckley fans took to social SUCCESS RATING: 10 way of showcasing the influences found the service for free. media, thanking the creators for bringing both on You & I, and within his extensive Organised in alphabetical order, any Buckley’s record collection to life.

12 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY CNCO (& We Make Awesome Sh)

TEAM MEMBERS the fans were mobile and were interested the relevant social channels. INVOLVED in collecting keepsakes and shouting about Data collected from around the world was what they were doing and where they used to populate a dynamic leaderboard that CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Tom Nield, account director, Landmrk were doing it. We also knew that adding a showed which fans were the most devoted CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,000–£25,000 Rob Hampson, lead designer, We Make competitive element would build exposure CNCOwners. Once the target amount of Awesome Sh even further. unlocks was reached each day, additional AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Paul King, lead developer, We Make The Landmrk platform was used to content was available online for everybody. AGE: 14-18 + 24-34 Awesome Sh create localised listening premieres in key FEMALE: 49% Ricardo Chamberlain, digital marketing locations across our target territories. KEY LEARNINGS MALE: 51% manager, Sony Music Latin For a limited time each day, a new song LOCATION: US, Spain, South America, Central America from their upcoming album was dropped into a geographical location for fans to OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN SUCCESS RATING: 10 unlock using a CNCO-branded map on their mobile phone’s web browser (no app download required). At each of the hotspots, fans used Facebook Connect to #CNCOGO thrilled fans and had them interacting with the band create a personalised medal featuring their on an exponential curve upwards over the course of - photo, their name, the listening location day campaign. From the first day, when the chosen track was and the song, which was shareable across discovered by 93 fans, to the last, when the track was discovered by 343 people. Some 111 personalised medals were collected over the course of the campaign. Success on social was a key metric of this campaign, with fans generating some brilliant content and #CNCOGO trending on Twitter in the Dominican Republic. Elsewhere on the web, the story was covered by major media outlets such as Billboard, Music Ally and Univision. Over the course of the four-day campaign, there was a total of The aim of this campaign was to engage 132,368 page views, with 18,947 unique users – with an average with fans of CNCO in the buildup to the session time of 2m 42s. release of their debut album, Primera Cita, Primera Cita debuted Top 10 in 15 countries, including #1 in locally across the key territories. We wanted Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala. a campaign that would drive pre-sales of Primera Cita is the #1 Latin album in the US – dominating the album and generate a social buzz with a Billboard’s Top Latin Albums Chart in the US. Also, their album story that was PR-friendly. accumulated over 1m streams on Spotify just hours after its release. We chose to reach our target audience by Social media impressions saw an 87.3% lift during the campaign. resonating with one of the biggest trends of Social media interactions with the band saw a 79% lift. Audio streams the time, Pokémon Go. We knew that all of of the album increased by 56.3%.

13 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY DAUGHTER 4AD CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC TEAM MEMBERS AGE: 14-34 INVOLVED FEMALE: 65% MALE: 35% Matt Brown – manager LOCATION: UK Will Tompsett – digital marketing (4AD) Jason White – head of marketing (4AD) SUCCESS RATING: 9 Jo Morris – marketing (Beggars) Gerald Youna – streaming (Beggars) Alison Fielding – artwork (Beggars) Adam Berman – Web Dev (Beggars) retargeting etc.), we also developed the 3 Films feature, tied to the three lead videos from the album which were directed by the OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN BAFTA award-winning Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. It featured exclusive behind the scenes images, plus interviews with all parties The group already had a big social media and copies of the short stories that inspired each short film. following, especially on Facebook; we soft We partnered with Spotify for the campaign, leading to huge launched by sharing a new website, which streaming numbers in week 1 and beyond, plus Songkick has been quietly featured a photo of the new album valuable in growing an already strong live following, culminating in cover (a painting by -based artist a sold-out show this autumn. Around the show Sarah Shaw). We then targeted ambiguous stage of online promo, with the launch of keep socials busy and ensure that there we invested in Snapchat geofilters, and also used Twitter’s new display ads at the pool of users who Timeline. Something we all agreed on early were constant mentions of the band as Camera app to capture live gifs and videos from the show, giving visited this new site after being referred was that the band are relatively quiet on anticipation for the new album grew. unprecedented access for their international fanbase. from the Daughter socials, as we moved socials, but their fanbase Central to the campaign early to associate the artwork with the are very busy there; has always been word KEY LEARNINGS band and record. We then fully launched so we decided a focal of mouth for a band who the album a week later (after also teasing point of the campaign have a real emotional Not To Disappear was released 15th January, peaking in the Top 20 gifs from the ‘Doing The Right Thing’ video) should be fan-sourced connection with their and improving on the impressive first-week sales of their debut with an album pre-order, new single and a content, which led to the fans, and this mechanism album. In terms of numbers on socials, Daughter have added over Songkick partnership for a limited number creation of Timeline on allowed us to share 200k Facebook and Spotify followers respectively, and trebled their of underplays. The first video also went the band’s site, which the creative works of Instagram following. They continue to have around 2m monthly through the band’s YouTube channel pulls photos, videos, text people and allow them listeners on Spotify and also perform strongly on . rather than Vevo, in order to reach the from Twitter, Instagram to feel a genuine part of BBC 6Music were firm supporters, with three A-List singles, which earliest fans, and was timed for 8am UK to and Tumblr posts that use #ohdaughter, the campaign. Almost 12 months after informed an ambitious outdoor marketing campaign on release, hit the majority of their younger fanbase which is the group’s social handle. We release, we still have daily updates. reflecting the strong reviews and general press coverage. The – rewarded with it trending on Twitter were overwhelmed by the response, with As part of this focus on the band’s site album has continued to sell and stream well, with the band playing across Europe. hundreds of submissions – from live as a genuine, evolving hub for exclusive prominent festival sets at Latitude, Primavera and Glastonbury With big support from radio and photos to tattoos of lyrics to embroidered access to Daughter (in order to develop Festivals amongst others. They also won the AIM Award for Best streaming services, we moved to our next album covers – and this allowed us to the aesthetic of the campaign and for Second Album.

14 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY DISCO DONNIE PRESENTS Famehouse

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED

Evan Bailey - VP, Disco Donnie Presents Donnie Estopinal - Disco Donnie, Disco Donnie Presents Michele Servais - president, Disco Donnie Presents Ryan Hall - account manager, Fame House Diane Tamulavage - digital marketer, Fame House Eric Sopp - services director Usability Dynamics, Inc. Charles Rivers - owner / lead designer Salvador Charlie Design LLC.

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN proved to increase engagement on and around the brand. The goal of any brand is to continually strive to super-serve, understand and Disco Donnie Presents is a connect with its users and this campaign did just that, in a simple promoter that produces over 1,000 events MakeAmericaRaveAgain.com – featured using #MyRaverVoice. yet effective way. a year across all of North America. Our themed hats, T-shirts, pennants and The campaign culminated with a video goal was to better establish a connection bumper stickers for sale. This was shot at the Something Wicked festival between the brand and a fanbase that promoted through online ads and organic where campaign merch was given out to was spread wide and far, often unaware posts. thousands of fans, coupled with themed of Disco Donnie’s presence in the events We promoted the campaign through dancers on stage, creating one final fan CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN they were attending. In an attempt to do physical installations at all of the brand’s moment. This video was used as a final this and connect them with their base festivals, where fans could take and post push for Disco Donnie’s fanbase to vote in CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £10,000 of young, passionate, their own photos using the hashtags and the presidential election. fans, we launched a mock presidential share them to socials. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE: 18–34 campaign for Disco Donnie featuring the During July 4th , we ran KEY LEARNINGS slogan “Make America Rave Again”. Snapchat Filters promoting the campaign FEMALE: 39% The online blog – www. at dozens of events around the country to By focusing on an angle strictly relating MALE: 61% DiscoDonnieLand.com – featured gifs, raise brand awareness. to a certain subculture of millennials LOCATION: US photos, and campaign slogans supporting Near the election, we created (i.e. “ravers”), we were able to excite and the presidential campaign, serving as a graphics depicting Millennial Voting engage them in a national conversation SUCCESS RATING: 10 destination for all campaign content. facts, encouraging fans to register to vote, in a satirical way. Capitalising on current The online merch store – www. as well as share why they vote events and relevant happenings has

15 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY Festival Estéreo Picnic Páramo

TEAM MEMBERS it would eventually become the most INVOLVED shocking activity ever done in a Colombian radio station. A day before the launch of Sueño Estéreo S.A.S. the line up, we began announcing that Sergio Pabón - festival director a spokesperson for the festival would proportional growth spike up until this year’s line up launch. In 2014, Gabriel García - marketing director announce the line up through the country’s we gained 1.259 net followers during that day. In 2015 that number Juan David Figueroa - art director alternative genre radio station with the was 4,488 representing an increase of 256%. The community grew a Lina Barrios - art director largest reach, La X. However, just before total of 2.21 points, being the largest proportional growth spike up the interview was about to begin, the until this year’s line up launch. The strategy with La X had a global Agencia Milagros S.A.S. station shut down its programming and a repercussion. We were a global trend on Twitter on the night we shut Pablo Salazar - account executive computerised voice, akin to Anonymous, down the station and once again on the morning in which we turned Max Ledher - creative director communicated that music had died. In the it back on. Specialised music journals around the world talked about Francisco Quinche - art director best War Of The Worlds style, a large part us, as was the case with Billboard. Regarding the graphic design, Lukas Vergel - copy writer of the station’s audience thought that it we were awarded with Colombia’s most important design award: El Juan Daniel Velásquez - illustrator - campaign. Knowing that our buyers are had really been shut down. Soon, the news lapiz de Acero. We also received an overwhelmingly positive reaction Outsource commonly on social media and are avid radio began trending globally on social media, from our fans regarding the comic of A Different World. Finally, the listeners – and with the added challenge of generating conversations and speculation most significant statistic is the increase in Festival Estéreo Picnic’s OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN drawing away attention and expectations regarding what was really happening. Ten attendance in its 2016 edition. Even though we reduced our talent that our audience might have regarding the hours later, on Tuesday morning, the station budget by $ (US) 900,000 versus 2015, we managed to drive up total Festival Estéreo Picnic was born in 2010 artists – we decided to bet on giving the went back up under the excuse that music attendance by 25.63% vs the previous year. We established a new to change the landscape in brand a well-defined visual identity. This had prevailed to announce the line up. record for any privately organised music festival in Colombia. Colombia, under the creed of “an experience identity would involve the fans and, at the Once again, the news trended globally and beyond music”. Attendees were faced with same time, it would provide content that we the audience, having the much-asked-for a universe of activities and sensations: the could promote through social media since line up at hand, preferred to talk about the city’s finest restaurants, a design fair, brand the warm-up phase. events they had just witnessed. CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN activities and the shows themselves. Out of this necessity, the idea to create During its first editions, the festival a narrative universe was born: “Stories of a KEY LEARNINGS CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £15,000–£25,000 attracted a very small niche and, even Different World and how music got its way”. though word was spreading, it wasn’t until Each day, the festival’s posts on social media In comparison to previous campaigns, 2016’s AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC 2014 that the festival took a huge step constructed the narration around a comic was without a doubt the most successful. AGE: 18-34 forward with a line up the likes of which book-type aesthetic, which portrayed Bogota The moment with the highest reach in our FEMALE: 53% Colombia had never seen. As a result of as a dark and grey city. In it, a dictator had online communities is the day that the line MALE: 47% this, expectations skyrocketed, leading to ascended to power and worked to abolish up is launched. In 2015, the organic reach LOCATION: Colombia an underwhelming reception of the 2015 music, fighting against colorful characters was of 649,589 during that day. In 2016, line up, proving that the festival still relied that represented the festival’s attendees. that number was 869,442 representing an SUCCESS RATING: 10 heavily on the artists. Bearing this in mind, The fans responded and so we decided increase of 33.84%. The community grew in 2016 we decided to add a twist to our to carry out a plan so disruptive that a total of 2.21 points, being the largest

16 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY GIRLI VIRGIN EMI

TEAM MEMBERS For her next single, ‘Too Much Fun’, we full ‘flight booking INVOLVED ran another daily teaser campaign which experience’. put GIRLI in various scenes that she writes Advertising the David Kitson - Creative, Virgin EMI Records about during the song and we then used flight via socials Lottie Llewellyn - Label Assistant, the database to send mailers which were and encouraging PMR Records iMessage conversations taken from the fans to sign up Will Dop - Mgmt., First and Last Music song. to her mailing David Laub - Mgmt., First and Last Music Following the release of ‘Too Much Fun’, list to book, they Sukhraj Johal - Head of Marketing, we launched GIRLI.TV, which went on to then received PMR Records get press attraction from Dork and i-D a boarding Cat Cook - Marketing, Virgin EMI Records magazine. ‘It Was My Party’ was GIRLI’s third pass which single, we wanted to make the fans feel subtly hinted OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN part of the party that it was written about. at the details We rolled out a teaser campaign which was of the release. Our campaign centred around high impact, GIRLI picking up the phone to her friend ‘Checking in experimental digital content to amplify inviting them to the party and on release day online’ takes them GIRLI’s unique brand and build an intensely we launched assets around GIRLI, asking her to a password loyal core fanbase as a foundation for her fans where they were and why they weren’t On the launch of the video, we hosted protected website. By artistic debut. We decided to release a single at the party using the song as the ringtone. a Periscope Q&A allowing fans to ask entering the reference number G1RL1, the fan could hear an exclusive every three-to-four weeks as opposed to an Following the single, we launched the questions relating to the video and 30-second preview of the song. EP; we approached each single with a fresh lyric video which was designed around published it via a Twitter moment. Weekly social and creative campaign surrounding Snapchat stories to build further onto the sequential BTS content and introduction the nature of the track. With the first single, GIRLI party experience. ‘Girl I Met On The to the characters were then rolled out ‘Girls Get Angry Too’, we launched her Internet’ was the fourth single; the song is after. GIRLI.FM 2 is the follow up to GIRLI’s website which was designed to look like a about GIRLI finding a girl she met on the infamous SoundCloud Mixtape she curated retro Motorola Razor pink flip phone, with internet and falling for her. We launched a for fans a year ago. We rolled out a teaser CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN a daily teaser campaign introducing each campaign which encouraged fans to help campaign of hilarious visual skits to go CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £500–£1,000 character from the song GIRLI find this mystery girl for a week prior to alongside the mixtape, this was purely for We also ran a data initiative on the site the release. The teaser campaign consisted the fans prior to her second sold-out London AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC which took fans through a questionnaire to of Facebook messenger conversations with show. AGE: 14–34 find out which GIRLI character they were. We the blurred-out girl in the packshot. There was a fan invite first play Periscope FEMALE: 53% used her database shortly after to market On release, we launched the GIRLI stream with GIRLI via her Twitter profile on MALE: 47% the upcoming sold-out show at The Garage Pac-Man game as a website takeover, this launch. LOCATION: UK in London by catering each mailer to the received over 2,000 participants in 24 hours We worked on some fun content to data segment that matched the character and the concept was GIRLI being chased announce the release of GIRLI’s final single SUCCESS RATING: 10 and designed a 1990s-style fan flowquiz by various social networks, again further of the year. For ‘Fuck Right Back Off 2 LA’ around it. building on the concept. we created GIRLI airlines and took fans on a

17 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY DAVID GRAY Kobalt Label Services / iht Records

TEAM MEMBERS created a wealth of assets to drip-feed via primarily achieved by introducing an ever-changing and fan-dictated INVOLVED socials to his most dedicated fans. Spotify Best Of playlist. Through publishing a world-first digital As the compilation was released on the initiative we were able to generate excitement and news-worthy Sam Williams – digital marketing manager Friday before Halloween, we decided to pieces to promote this release. (KLS) make a tongue-in-cheek video asset that Multi-platform campaigns can be daunting, especially when you Nathan Liddle-Hulme – product and corresponded to this particular holiday suspect an artist’s fan base is primarily focused around one digital marketing manager (KLS) event. By compiling multiple “reaction cam” space. However, after close inspection, it became more apparent that David Emery – global marketing manager shots, we were able to generate a visual David Gray’s audience would likely engage in a fairly new technology (KLS) piece inspired by the classic horror movie, (Spotify) and brand new technology (playlist). Rob Holden & Chris Norton – artist The Blair Witch Project. This allowed us to A final key learning would be that being reactive to worldwide management (Mondo Management / iht create humorous visual assets that showed trends can generate incredible buzz and results. By using a comical Records) the artist’s personality. Halloween-themed asset, we were able to create discussion, humour Gavin Batty – socials and content (Mondo After A/B testing the Halloween-themed and, ultimately, broaden our reach. Management / iht Records) pre-roll versus a generic video asset, we found that the former resonated stronger OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN with core fans. As a result, our online advertising campaign targeted superfans Seminal British singer/ David Gray with this particular pre-roll. This helped to released his latest Best Of compilation on drastically improve CTRs as the core fan CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN 28th October 2016. Including two brand new base was essentially delivered a bespoke tracks, as well as a reworking of his first single, piece of content. The asset was also used for CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ The Best Of David Gray spans over quarter of TV advertising across multiple channels and a century of hits and classic catalogue. also alongside David’s appearance on ITV’s AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC To announce the record, a unique and Good Morning Britain. All of it was perfectly AGE: 24-44 world-first dynamic Spotify playlist was optimised for mobile. FEMALE: 63% launched. Titled The Best Of David Gray MALE: 37% Weekly, populates its track-listing KEY LEARNINGS LOCATION: UK & US based upon which of David Gray’s songs were played the most during the previous week. Debut Chart Position #30 SUCCESS RATING: 10 The notion behind this was to complement Although The Best Of David Gray is the compilation’s release with an ever- fundamentally a greatest hits compilation, changing Best Of David Gray, a greatest hits we were extremely careful for it not to be compilation for the streaming age. seen as another cheap release amongst a As the release collected music from the sea of bargain collections. past 25 years, a library of live footage was Whilst it does contain two brand new unearthed and watched by David for the tracks, we wanted to further legitimise and first time. Filming his reaction to the footage validate interest in its release. This was

18 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY HAMILTON CAST US

TEAM MEMBERS The terms in which to do so were to create INVOLVED an activation page that promoted streaming on Spotify. With the deal between Spotify Alex Ciccimarro – digital marketing manager and lyrics annotation site Genius just being Diane Vadnal – product manager announced, and Hamilton being a fan Natasha Villarraga – lead designer favorite amongst the Genius community, it Michael Mausler – lead web developer made perfect sense to bring the two worlds Catherine Ciapas – interactive producer together. Nat Guevara – label relations at Genius The Hamilton Musical and Original Cast Rob Markman – artist relations at Genius Recording have been a cultural phenomenon pulled from our timeline as the track played in-app. Genius also and runaway success. The in-house digital highlighted this track in its Spotify-curated Behind The Lyrics playlist. OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN marketing, creative and development team at Atlantic wanted to showcase the KEY LEARNINGS With the release of the Hamilton Broadway of the lyrics in an immersive experience Cast Album lighting up Spotify, the Atlantic through a musical timeline of Alexander Alexander’s life; each meaningful point in The timeline experience was premiered with Vanity Fair and has Records sales team presented the challenge Hamilton’s life. Through the web app, his life is represented by the song from received approximately 100k visits to the site – and growing. In of how the digital team could fan the flames. you can explore each key date through the play and annotations from the Genius addition, ‘My Shot’ was added to the Genius Behind The Lyrics community detailing the importance of this playlist, which has over 53k followers. Finally, both Spotify and moment. To make sure everything was Genius helped support the launch through their massive social accurate, Ron Chernow, historian and author media platforms. of the book which inspired the Alexander Hamilton play, helped verify the facts and associations. The web experience was launched with social support from Atlantic Records, Genius and Spotify, as well as the Hamilton cast accounts. CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN To take things even further, we scheduled CAMPAIGN BUDGET In house a video interview with Genius and the play’s creator/star Lin-Manuel Miranda. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC These video clips were then used by Genius AGE: 14-34 on the timeline. Lin also “verified” select FEMALE: 67% fan-generated annotations, giving them MALE: 31% the authenticity that only he can provide. LOCATION: US Finally, Genius took all of this information and incorporated it into its Behind The Lyrics SUCCESS RATING: 9 series with Spotify. Using the track ‘My Shot’, Spotify users were able to read the fun facts Photo: Joan Marcus 19 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY HONNE ATLANTIC RECORDS UK

track with Izzy Bizu ‘Someone That Loves You’ within a Spotify UK homepage takeover. • This allowed us to hit a huge audience on one of the band’s key platforms.

Valentine’s Day Download • We offered fans a free download of their track, ‘Woman’, to coincide with an intimate show on Valentine’s day.

KEY LEARNINGS

1. We grew our monthly listenership on Spotify to a peak of over 2.5m 2. Their album has collectively done over 60m streams on Spotify 3. Our live streams on their Facebook page reached a collective audience of over 1.1m people. 4. Their live stream on Spotify’s Facebook page was TEAM MEMBERS viewed over 400k times INVOLVED and the track was live they wrote a lot of the album songs which streamed on Spotify UK’s Facebook page gave it an authentic grounding. Callum Caulfield - senior marketing • Additionally Facebook pushed the manager, Atlantic Records UK session out with additional media credits. Twitter listening party Julien Vier - social manager, Atlantic • The recording from the session then • On release week, we had the guys CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Records UK went live on Spotify the next week as the answer fans’ questions about the album CAMPAIGN BUDGET £10,000–£15,000 Nick Long - head of digital, Atlantic acoustic version while all listening along; this included Records UK custom graphics that let fans know when AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Facebook live previews of album tracks the guys were listening to each track. AGE: 18-34 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN • Again taking advantage of Facebook • This allowed the guys to give a great FEMALE: 60% Live, we had the guys perform stripped insight into how the tracks on the album MALE: 40% Facebook & Spotify Live Stream Session back versions of unheard tracks from their were put together in a much more direct LOCATION: Global • We partnered with Spotify and Facebook album via Facebook live on their page. and digestible way than a standard track- to run their first-ever live streamed • The live streams went out after sunset by-track. SUCCESS RATING: 8 session each night as their music has a very night • The guys and Izzy Bizu performed the time feel to it. Video premiere in HPTO single ‘Someone That Loves You’ in Spotify • The setting was also the room in which • We premiered the video for HONNE’s

20 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY DANIEL HOPE CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,000–£10,000 TEAM MEMBERS This video clip was rolled out on social media, artist, label and INVOLVED AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC partner websites. Additional social AGE: 14-60+ Dr. Clemens Trautmann - president, media campaigns, newsletter FEMALE: 45% Deutsche Grammophon marketing and blog promotion MALE: 55% Stephan Steigleder - senior director, helped to increase interest for LOCATION: digital media, Deutsche Gr. this unique event. Before the Rupert Wagg - Deutsche Gr. actual event users could vote on SUCCESS RATING: 10 Christin Hofrichter - Deutsche Gr. the special fan area of Deutsche Katharina Honke - Deutsche Gr. Grammophon website (MyDG) Nikki Kawamura - Deutsche Gr. Bisseh Akame - Deutsche Gr. Adam Simonsen only watched by fans around the globe online but also an audience at Adrian Young- San Roessler (PWAP), Daniel Hope’s label Deutsche the Universal Music building could see it live. The absolute highlight Jonas Weber - Universal Music Grammophon teamed up with the of the masterclass was a live teaching of a violin student who was Andres Lauer - Universal Music Danish start up PLAYWITHAPRO for a participating online from . Nilguen Oez & Event Services Team - very special event: an online masterclass Before, during and after the show the masterclass was Universal Music with Daniel Hope. PLAYWITHAPRO are communicated via Deutsche Grammophon, Daniel Hope, specialists for classical music teaching PLAYWITHAPRO, Universal Music and KlassikAkzente, OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN videos by the world’s greatest teachers, Germany’s leading classical music platform run by Deutsche scholars and musical artists of the Grammophon, on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) 22nd April 2016 would have been the 100th classical instruments. The idea behind for the favourite tracks on the album, which and the specific websites. birthday of violin legend Yehudi Menuhin, was to offer an online forum regardless the fans wanted Daniel Hope to present and In order to capture this special masterclass and the impressions and Daniel Hope dedicated a complete of whether or not you’re a beginner or a demonstrate in his live masterclass. They of the artist as well as the team involved, this documentary clip album to his former mentor and close professional musician, for a free live- could also submit any questions which they was produced. friend. After fleeing from the Apartheid streamed masterclass and Q&A session would like to ask Daniel Hope. Total organic reach via all channels was more than 250,000 regime in South Africa and ending up in on PLAYWITHAPRO with Daniel Hope. users plus an additional reach of 200,000 via Facebook campaigns. England, Hope’s mother was offered a job For the announcement of this special KEY LEARNINGS During the live chat on Twitter parallel to the show, Adam as a secretary to Yehudi Menuhin, and later masterclass a special video ID with Daniel Simonsen, a classical clarinetist selected questions for the Q&A became his manager. Hope was shot. On 28th April at 5pm CET, the masterclass from around the world. The album, My Tribute To Yehudi Daniel Hope explained in this teaser took place in the ground floor of the In addition to the online masterclass where the album was also Menuhin, is a beautiful selection of works, clip that he is happy to answer any Universal Music building in Berlin, also the promoted as the central piece of the learning session, a second-phase mostly commissioned by or for Yehudi questions participants might have. home office of Deutsche Grammophon. album promotion and marketing around Menuhin‘s 100th birthday Menuhin. It was released internationally in This ranged from how to become a PLAYWITHAPRO installed a pop-up studio was successfully set up. As a result, the album My Tribute To Yehudi February 2016. professional musician to how technically in the building and the masterclass was Menuhin re-entered the German Pop Charts on #78 (its first entry was In order to celebrate this outstanding or interpretatively to deal with certain streamed live in Facebook and on the #43) It also went up the Classical Charts again from #13 to #3 and has violin legend and his 100th birthday, issues regarding playing style. PLAYWITHAPRO website. The event was not dominated the Amazon Classical charts at #1 for weeks.

21 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY KENT Sony / Spotify CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE: 14-60 Marisanna Danielsson, head of consumer FEMALE: 45% marketing, Spotify Nordics MALE: 55% Christine Gelfgren, marketing coordinator, LOCATION: Spotify Nordics Alice Löfgren, head of social media, Spotify SUCCESS RATING: 10 Nordics Gabriel Prescott, production manager, Spotify Nordics Fredrik Westin, communications manager Spotify Nordics Kent’s official social media Erika Wiklund, artist & label services channels, pre-briefs were manager, Spotify Nordics given to leading media Olle Wikman, artist & label services outlet Dagens Nyheter coordinator, Spotify Nordics – combined with broad media outreach covering OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN the band’s overall success on Spotify. Alongside the How do you say farewell to one of the three-month-long farewell most influential bands in Swedish tour, we instigated local data stories and shared with media. history, while summarising a relationship stretching more than 25 years? Kent’s KEY LEARNINGS music has been played an equivalent of 2,200 years on Spotify and currently has By giving something back to the thousands of fans of the band, we roughly 650,000 monthly listeners. big of a fan they were compared to the personal experience with physical and managed to tap into a massive cultural moment. On the day of launch, With the campaign Din Sista Tid Med rest of Kent fans in Sweden. The entire digital OOH advertising following the band we saw 30k visits. Since then, the site dinsistatidmedkent.com has Kent (Your Final Time With Kent), we experience was captured on a microsite around on their farewell tour. Through attracted over 100,000 Kent fans to express their love for the band. By wanted to cherish the bond between depicting not only Kent’s journey on the simple messaging – “Your love for Kent: offering fans an instant way of showing their appreciation, devotion music lovers and the band Kent. We music service, but how music fans of in black and white” – we sparked interest and pride through shareable social cards on Facebook and Twitter, did this by offering a deeply personal Sweden cherished the band’s impressive in both fans and the general public to covering their overall listening habits, we simplified the process by experience where you as fan could get catalogue since the band officially visit the Spotify’s unique experience offering a platform celebrating their musical history and allowed for a personalised data based on your listening announced their retirement in March 2016. while staying true to the band’s iconic unified and heartfelt goodbye. habits of the band’s music on Spotify, The launch of the campaign was carried minimalistic design and tone of voice. The campaign generated more than 12,500 positive reactions on including most-played songs and albums. out through a multifaceted marketing The launch of the microsite was also social media and 60+ articles in print and online, featuring in biggest Additionally, the fans found out just how strategy. We enticed fans to get their own carried out on Spotify’s local as well as Sweden’s newswire, TT.

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projection, balloons etc. A lot of things that have to go according to the plan. Some 40 people came together and told a wonderful story through 11 different environments, with a range of props, professional dancers and actors; all into three minutes on one phone camera shot. Alongside the live take is a five-minute behind-the-scenes video, which perfectly displays how much effort each and every crew member puts in to successfully make this historic moment. Such detailed production used in the live performance thoroughly deserves to go down in history within the world of music and technology thanks to Klingande and his team of creative experts.

KEY LEARNINGS TEAM MEMBERS By airing a music video live, it brings the audience and the INVOLVED viewers as close to the artist as possible. It allows live Marcus Lindgren - COO/producer - At participation and engagement with a direct response. It shows Night Studios courage. And the honesty in the format is highly appreciated. Mickel Yu - creative - At Night Studios Ida Tenggren - producer - At Night Studios David Lindberg - photographer - At Night Studios

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £10,000–£15,000 Music history was made on 8th September when French DJ and producer Klingande AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC teamed up with At Night Studios to AGE: 18-24 release the first-ever live-streamed music FEMALE: 60% video on Facebook for the new single, As it was Facebook live streamed, the producer from At Night Studios, MALE: 40% ‘Somewhere New’. Telling the story of a the video had no retakes, no editing Marcus Lindgren: When the first shot is LOCATION: Global couple who break into another dimension and no post-production. All produced made, that’s the one we have to go with that fulfils all their fantasies and wishes, in one single take, the first and only – because it’s live. We have no control SUCCESS RATING: 10 the video features perfectly executed performance was the finished and final over the outcome since it’s live. However, dance choreography, seamless set product. Director Måns Nyman planned we’d been planning for months to get the changes and clever camerawork. a selection of creative scenes, alongside right lighting, dancing, the right queues,

23 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY LANco / Shazam CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £15,000–25,000

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE: 18-34 FEMALE: 51% MALE: 49% LOCATION: US

SUCCESS RATING: 10

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED recognition technology, Shazam to this exciting first to market activation, Shazam visually enabled visually enabled a LANco endcard LANco’s fan member cards as way to extend this campaign and Debra Herman - head of music on Square Sony billboard allow for future interaction between LANco and their fans. partnerships, Shazam OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN that appeared after the debut of the Kyra Shapurji - account manager, Shazam band’s ‘Long Live Tonight’ music video KEY LEARNINGS Bob Foglia - strategic marketing, Sony As a way to reach and further interact on the 28th June. Fans who Shazamed Music Entertainment with their growing fan base, LANco the billboard had the chance to win their Through their visual recognition technology, Shazam was able Caitlin Daily - associate account manager, teamed up with Shazam to create a one- very own #LongLiveTonight House Party to visually enable a large scale, out of home creative on a digital Shazam of-a-kind activation. Through its visual performance by LANco. As an extension LED billboard.

24 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY LISSIE COOKING VINYL

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED

Marcus Knight - product & marketing CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN manager, Cooking Vinyl CAMPAIGN BUDGET £0 – £500 Chris Oygarden - digital marketing manager, Cooking Vinyl AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Anette Collins - international, Cooking Vinyl AGE: 18-34 FEMALE: 61% OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN MALE: 39% LOCATION: UK/US There was a standout track on the album called ‘Daughters’ which we wanted to SUCCESS RATING: 8 promote, but unfortunately it didn’t fit within our radio strategy. Because of this we had to find a non-traditional way of getting it to market. With the lyrical content being so focused around female empowerment, it were also able to place the online video but we also found that people were making and acoustically, answering fan’s questions that were typed into the made a lot of sense to release it alongside premiere with Glamour Magazine, which considerably higher donations than they comments field. The stream was well received with over 40k viewers, International Women’s Day, helping helped increase our reach by would pay on a traditional DSP. Rather than providing a very engaging and personal moment in the campaign. to raise awareness and placing it beyond a music- paying 99p for the download, people were possibly some money. We only environment and out donating £5-100, a clear sign that the ‘pay KEY LEARNINGS partnered with a non- to a wider audience. what you want’ mechanism was an effective profit called charity:water. Next we had to strategy for raising money. In total we were We found that the ‘pay what you want’ strategy was extremely In developing nations develop a way of able to raise just under £4,000, which was an effective at raising money. We raised £3,880 through 124 donations; women can walk for receiving donations. incredible result. according to charity:water, this is enough money to supply 158 hours a day to fetch Rather than Because the download campaign ran people with clean running water. In comparison, if we had the same water, so having easy agreeing to donate a two weeks either side of IWD (starting a amount of transactions via a traditional DSP, we probably would access to clean water percentage of income week before, and lasting for a week after), have made around £92, assuming the payback per track would be means those women made on digital single we decided to host a Facebook Live stream 74p. The campaign was also a great example of how identifying a can attain better access to sales, we opted for a on the day itself. This was a way for Lissie unique opportunity outside of a traditional campaign can really help education and employment. ‘pay what you want’-style to say thanks to fans who had got involved increase the exposure of the artist. In response to our IWD campaign, Charity:water supplied us with campaign, allowing people to – and to encourage more people to do so. Lissie was invited to be interviewed and perform on CNN News footage to create a video for ‘Daughters’, download the track for free but asking that Via live stream, she explained the reasons International which was a great and unique opportunity. It’s a great and with this we were able to secure Vevo they make a donation directly to the charity. behind her partnership with charity:water accomplishment to be able to open up an artist to a host of new fans promo support of 2m video impressions Not only did this mean that 100% of the and IWD, as well as the story behind the while also being able to use that exposure to do some good and give across their homepage and YouTube. We income was going directly to the charity, song itself. She also performed the song live something back.

25 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY LITTLE MIX SYCO / SONY MUSIC

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Anya Du Sauzay - senior digital marketing CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,000–25,000 manager, Sony Music Rami Kadri - digital channel manager, Sony AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Music AGE: 10-24 Alice Frost – head of campaign marketing, FEMALE: 81% Syco MALE: 19% Sheema Siddiqi, senior digital marketing LOCATION: Global manager, Modest! Management

SUCCESS RATING: 9 OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN

We wanted to create a global moment in time for the release of the first single, ‘’, centred around their markets and has entered the top 20 in over 59 markets, also peaking first-ever live performance of the track at #17 on the Global Spotify Chart. This is officially Little Mix’s most on X Factor by executing a global timed trip and Americana campaign aesthetic. The So what next? In the lead up to album successful single to date and our highest US chart position. release on the Sunday night immediately 10-second ‘Shout Out To My Ex’ “prequel” release the road trip campaign theme Facebook live stream of the performance achieved following the performance. To maximise videos told the story of how the girls came continued with the launch of Little Mix’s 377k views in 24 hours – with 100k people tuning in live. The stream on this moment and take it to a global together to embark on this trip of a lifetime ‘Glory Days’ Road Trip – a three-day global reached a total of 2.7m people. The girls’ performance video on X audience, we secured an exclusive deal and were released on the band’s social road trip challenge, mixing Snapchat Filters Factor’s YouTube hit 5m views in 72 hours before we made it private with X Factor and ITV to live stream the channels in the four days leading up to and real world road trip pit stops in over to ensure that we weren’t monopolising streams and downloads. performance on Facebook (ex-UK) – the The X Factor performance. To tie all of our 20 countries around the world, giving fans This was by far the most-viewed video from this season’s X Factor. first time this has ever been done. elements together, the band also appeared the opportunity to experience a Little Mix Since release, Little Mix’s social media engagement has To build anticipation of the performance, in two X Factor promotional TV ads on ITV journey of a lifetime as the fifth member of skyrocketed – our UK engaged audience on Facebook alone we used PR and social media to drive people featuring them on their road trip car in the the band. increasing by 422%. The video for ‘Shout Out To My Ex’ is the band’s to watch the show and didn’t tease more desert and officially counting down to their fastest-viewed video – currently on over 65m. Our launch campaign than a few seconds of the song, instead performance. KEY LEARNINGS also helped us achieve one of Sony’s biggest album pre-orders on creatively using the lyrics as the main talking Other ongoing fan engagement activity Glory Days, reaching 30k the day before release. point and to drive intrigue. included creating a real #ShoutOutToMyEx ‘Shout Out To My Ex’ hit #1 on UK iTunes We took a risk with the timed Sunday release of the song which In addition, we shot bespoke video Telephone Hotline manned by the Little within two hours of the live performance, lost us more than two sales days, but it paid off and there was content with a cinematic feel on the set of Mix girls where fans could call up and leave went straight to #1 on the UK Charts for undeniable value in mobilising a global fan base and driving them the album photo shoot and single video a message to their ex. We received nearly three weeks and subsequently topped to one big moment. Arguably helping us achieve better results than shoot with the band which was in keeping 5,000 calls in a week and it went down a the UK Spotify & Radio chart. The if we’d stuck to the traditional release model and helping to cement with the desert ‘getting over your ex’ road storm with the fanbase and online press. track has peaked at #1 on iTunes in over 22 Little Mix as of the UK’s biggest pop artists.

26 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY JAMES VINCENT McMORROW BELIEVE RECORDINGS

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED

Nick Parry, Believe Digital CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Andy Tweedale, Believe Digital CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,000–£10,000+ Chloé van Bergen, Believe Digital Paul King, We Make Awesome Sh AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Tom Nield, We Make Awesome Sh AGE: 18-34 Rob Hampson, We Make Awesome Sh FEMALE: 60% OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN MALE: 40% LOCATION: UK, Australia, North America & Europe A week ahead of the release of third album, , James Vincent McMorrow invited SUCCESS RATING: 7 his fans to take part in an interactive location-based album pre-stream. During the week leading up to the album release on 2nd September, fans were able to fish-out-of-water months, where the KEY LEARNINGS visit selected record stores globally new songs began to crystallise. He to stream the album. Geo-fencing then recorded between Toronto, his Following the concept of the technology meant fans had to be in home city of and London over album, the campaign got fans the designated record store listening the course of roughly the next year. “moving” in order to listen to the locations to access the album stream The album’s backbone was formed record. It saw high engagement though a webpage on their mobile in each of these places by a few key across multiple cities, mainly device. producers that McMorrow met during London and Toronto, and was extremely well received online, being To tie in with the album concept, his travels. The result is an album applauded by fans for its unique and creative initiative. Record James encouraged his fans to move to about movement – geographically, stores taking part promoted the campaign across their social different locations around the world, mentally and emotionally. This is channels and hosted Official Listening Location poster in-store. The including cities where the album was what formed the concept behind the campaign ran for a week, over which time pre-orders of the album written, to enjoy an exclusive first listen We Move Album unlock campaign gradually increased. of the record. Fans were able to visit and the locations that were picked. The campaign was able to bridge the worlds of online and offline, over 60 hand-picked record stores The campaign was designed and creating dedicated listening spots using geo-fencing technology, worldwide to listen across Europe, built by development company We something that’s generally untapped in music marketing. The North America, and Australia. Make Awesome Sh, who worked design, UX and webpages built by We Make Awesome Sh were clean, We Move was written in constant alongside the UK digital marketing user-friendly and engaging. We feel the campaign engaged and transition. McMorrow decamped to Los team at Believe Digital to launch the rewarded James Vincent McMorrow’s super fans, and was a great Angeles in late-2014 for six particularly project. story to create leading into album release.

27 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY MADNESS

OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN

It’s every digital marketer’s dream to work with a band or artist that are so engaged with a project that they’ll do (pretty much) anything in the name of great content. Madness are that band. From Suggs hand delivering the album to lucky fans, to filming band members playing the special edition game, we were able to create a suite of unique digital assets. The focus was to mobilise the loyal, existing fanbase and reach any casual or lapsed Madness fan. To achieve both objectives, we delivered creative social assets, whilst that harnessed the band’s contagious first single, ‘Mr. Apples’) also bolstered our – to be rolled out across socials for fans to access across devices, promoting cross-channel best practice personality and enthusiasm such as their effective retargeting strategy. including Google Cardboard. Initiatives such as the Facebook Live through a mix of organic and paid-for journey to the proved most video resulted in 163k views (158k unique viewers), 19k interactions, posts. The album announcement was popular, with over 160,000 global viewers. KEY LEARNINGS 1,605 peak viewership, which reduced the barrier between fan and typical of the band’s undeniable sense of As the campaign evolved, as did our artist was pivotal in connecting and converting to purchase. ‘Mr. humour, with a grand unveiling and Q&A promoted digital marketing activity. 56k ship to date, #5 album – their highest Apples’ consistently achieved nearly double the average daily streams with The Chelsea Pensioners. Designed We ensured all content was carefully album chart position in seven years, with of similar Radio 2 A-listed singles receiving Spotify editorial support. to reward the dedicated and potentially monitored and optimised to increase the band’s best week-one sales since the convert a new or nostalgic audience, this fan engagement and advocacy and sent start of the OCC in 1994. A combination video alone has had over 300,000 views. a series of tailored emails designed of effective organic and promoted posts The intricate album artwork was also a to specifically reward loyalty of the helped to expand the social following CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN powerful and versatile tool, from a simple ‘Madheads’ – the superfans and key and identify and persuade potential social puzzle to Universal Music UK’s first influencers who helped to pollinate a incremental fanbases. Our Facebook CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £5,000–£10,000 immersive web VR packshot. It was critical wider audience. strategy resulted in a growth of Facebook to sustain engagement between a series Key TV moments such as appearances reach up by 79%, post-engagement up 72% AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC of tent pole moments throughout the on and The and video views up 70%. AGE: 34-60 campaign. We quickly identified Facebook One Show were also leveraged for We delivered all official video content FEMALE: 35% as the band’s dominant social channel online activations, that took the album to Vevo for the first time, resulting in 350k MALE: 65% – and episodic native videos such as message beyond the converted fans. views for the ‘Mr. Apples’ and ‘Herbert’ LOCATION: UK animated pre-release teasers, to track- Reactive marketing around offline promo lyric videos and continued placement and by-track narrations have amassed 1.3m moments and social conversation (such support from the service. Universal Music SUCCESS RATING: 10 views to date. Unique and comical footage as #NationalMrApplesDay around the UK’s first virtual reality 360 album artwork

28 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY VERONICA MAGGIO UNIVERSAL MUSIC SWEDEN - CREATIVE LABS CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,000–£10,000

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE: 14-44 FEMALE: 60% MALE: 40% LOCATION: “Website”

SUCCESS RATING: 10

TEAM MEMBERS meant that you could learn from other people’s mistakes and this INVOLVED made the activity a fun collaboration. Campaign made by Creative Labs Together with news magazines, blogs and her own social media Ted Criborn - creative copywriter, UMG accounts, we released clues and riddles that gave out important Eddie Persson - head of creative labs, UMG building blocks of the lyrics. This expanded the campaign beyond a Daniel Åberg - designer, UMG single site and encouraged people of all music tastes to see if they Nils Wester Litens - video commissioner, could solve the puzzle. At the end of the campaign, the final word UMG had 838 guesses before a 15-year-old girl from Gottenburgh solved it – “Sufletten” (“convertible top”) – and unlocked the song on Spotify. OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN This triggered a remarketing activity to the 40,000 people who had been active in the campaign, which instantly took the song to the Veronica Maggio is a Swedish artist who is Spotify top 50 in Sweden. famous for her unique lyrics and storytelling Her fans needed to identify 97 words to Google synonyms and to analyse her technique. For the song ‘Ayahuasca’, we did out of the 170,000 words in the Swedish previous work. KEY LEARNINGS something unexpected. We removed the language and place them in the exact order. The custom site we built for this allowed vocals and the lyrics from the track. To make it even harder, her fans were just the vocal track to be added in dynamically The site was open for 30 hours and got around 4,000 participants On Veronicamaggio.se, we uploaded given one guess each. If they completed the with each guess. As soon as a word was as well as great coverage in Swedish news outlets such as Elle, an version of the new song. challenge the song would instantaneously discovered and unlocked, the vocals for that Café, Expressen, Gaffa and more. The most successful part of the However, the vocal track was muted. The be released on Spotify. It wasn’t supposed part of the track could be heard. Another campaign was the strong activation through the remarketing challenge for her fans was to guess the lyrics to be easy; we wanted people to really think important feature was that everyone could campaign. It worked so well because people were genuinely word by word to add it back in. about which words she is most likely to use, see each other’s guesses in real time. This interested in hearing the final song and to hear the parts of the lyrics they had worked with themselves. 29 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY MELANIE MARTINEZ WARNER MUSIC SPAIN

TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED (all Warner Music Spain) CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Gonzalo Cuevas - digital marketing manager Daniel Rodríguez - Atlantic product manager CAMPAIGN BUDGET £0–£500 Carlos Fernández - social media specialist Lucas Holten - Atlantic label manager AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Guillermo González - marketing director AGE: 14-24 FEMALE: 85% OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN MALE: 15% LOCATION: Spain To promote the physical release of Melanie Martinez’s Cry Baby in Spain, we created SUCCESS RATING: 10 a special pre-order edition that included Melanie’s Cry Baby necklace. Also we ensured we were reaching the perfect target concert, several actions took place, such as the release of two covers audience (thanks to the research done of Melanie’s ‘Pity Party’ and ‘Mrs Potato Head’ by Tuá’s band and a with our innovative tool, CIRAOS Music) by Melanie Martinez Make Up Challenge run by Drew where the winner teaming up with key YouTuber Drew Tuá, had the chance to meet Melanie at the show. supported by another four influencers for The campaign ended with a sold-out show in and our key the online campaign. This campaign lasted YouTuber covering it on social media. for two months, starting with the release announcement and finishing with the show KEY LEARNINGS Melanie played in Spain. The pre-order edition was announced by • Debut at #6 on Spanish top albums sales list. Drew two weeks prior to the release on the • Stayed in the Top 100 best-selling albums for eight consecutive same video where she reacted to ‘Tag You’re weeks. It’ and ‘Milk & Cookies’, showing the CD, the • Total reach: 299.8k users on Twitter and Instagram. necklace and posting the pre-order links. • Specific YouTube content created for this campaign achieved 140k The rest of the influencers posted pictures views. showing the whole pack on Instagram and • 36.3K interactions and 12.1% engagement rate. Twitter throughout the following two weeks, • More than 10K unique visitors to the product landing page. thus keeping the conversation about the • Great campaign impact, which combined with the successful sales release alive, which led to the pre-order numbers resulted in the track ‘Pity Party’ entering the top list for the packs selling out. biggest radio station in Spain, being one of the most-aired songs. In between the album release and the • Huge media coverage, including general and specialised media.

30 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY SHAWN MENDES Spotify / Virgin EMI

TEAM MEMBERS OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN in the spotlight. When OOH boards went INVOLVED live, Shawn shared them in social and *All Spotify Diehard Shawn Mendes fans know encouraged fans to snap a pic for the Rocco - head of artist marketing that he is as much a songwriter as he chance to meet him on his tour. CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Eric Alexander - director of artist is a performance artist, and his album CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £25,000+ marketing Illuminate saw him taking the reins on KEY LEARNINGS Alex Bodman - global creative director the writing process in a bigger way than AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Christian Navarro - associate director of his previous album. Illuminate was his Our work stood in stark contrast to other AGE: 18-34 brand marketing opportunity to show the world what his marketing materials for Illuminate and FEMALE: 50% Marian Dicus - head of North America fans already knew – that Shawn has brought to life a different side of Shawn. MALE: 50% consumer marketing something more to say. So instead of Leaning into this side of him showed LOCATION: US, Canada & UK Blaike Ford - marketing associate putting his face front and center, we drew fans that Spotify understood the artist Jamie Herbert - consumer marketing inspiration from his music and created a they love. The campaign garnered 21.7m SUCCESS RATING: 8 Rasmus Wangelin - Global ACD / design social and digital campaign that shared his impressions across the US, Canada and lyrics with the world and put his writing the UK.

31 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY METALLICA UNIVERSAL MUSIC CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+

TEAM MEMBERS AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC INVOLVED AGE: 34-44 FEMALE: 30% MALE: 70% Claudia Schmitter - manager of digital Germany media, UMG LOCATION: Jascha Farhangi - head of press & online 9 promotion, UMG SUCCESS RATING: Jens Winckelmann - head of rock Sven Kilthau-Lander - senior director press promotion fan chat via livestream with all band members, starting at 3pm CET. Milijana Gojic - senior digital marketing, UMG Every fan could participate using the hashtag #AskMetallica. Dominic Hesse - senior director of digital At first Metallica split up and travelled to the north, south, east media, UMG... “and many more” and west to talk about their new album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct: James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo gave OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN interviews live from 2-3pm CET in Munich (Rock Antenne), Köln (WDR2), Hannover (Radio 21) and Berlin (Star FM). Following the interviews, the absolute highlight of the day was about to begin: becoming a part of the big #AskMetallica fan chat via livestream. Each band member was streamed from their respective station and united in the #AskMetallica multichannel stream; a unique event in the history of Metallica. Fans could ask questions via Facebook, YouTube or Twitter using the hashtag #AskMetallica. The selected questions were answered in the live chat which fans were able to follow via the livestream with Metallica: http://tinyurl.com/ metallicalivestream.

KEY LEARNINGS

• 255,000 Facebook Live streams, 2.8m reach, 8k simultaneous Metallica in Germany. Four rock heroes, four access cities and one exclusive livestream chat. • 89,000 YouTube live streams, 7k simultaneous access, 190,000 Metallica are conquering Germany and views VOD after one day a spectacular Wednesday was lying ahead • 800 outlets/media coverage (online & offline) for all Metallica fans. The “4 Horsemen” • Homepage placement/own live player on Europe’s biggest travelled to all four cardinal points, visiting newspaper four German cities and four radio stations. • Possible bad timing as it was 3pm CET on a working day, which was Following the visits, there was an exclusive midnight in most parts of the US.

32 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY MØ RCA Records / Sony Music / Volume

TEAM MEMBERS fanzine on secret city locations, sharing their personal stories using INVOLVED #MOxSurface on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Karen Marie Ørsted, MØ KEY LEARNINGS Bjørn Nielsen, manager Sara Høyer Kragelund, Microsoft A key learning is – once again – fans showing their willingness Peter Elers, Microsoft to engage and participate when artists turn to them for creative Johannes Dybkjær Andersson, Volume collaborations. This ties fans even closer to their idol and, at the Camilla Kempf Pallis, Volume same time, fans are a strong below the line driver for an above the Emil Sørensen, Volume line campaign targeting both specific and broad audiences. MØ x Surface connected Surface Pro 4 strongly to young, OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN creative consumers in a campaign that ran across 12 European Countries and reached more than 30m consumers around The challenge: how can we make a product the world. The campaign KPIs were to boost awareness and that is perceived as technically superior get consideration – and it performed well. emotionally under the skin of consumers? More than 400 contributions have come in from fans. How can we highlight the Fans from more than 30 countries participated and drew possibilities and relevance communications across MØ and Microsoft channels. The fanzine of digital creativity and was distributed by local fans in more than 20 countries. The productivity in a fast-moving, fanzine was shared at MØ shows in 21 European and UK cities. globalised world? photographs, poems and collages with The answer: genuine fan the singer. engagement, worldwide co- As the editor of the fanzine, MØ used creation and a match between her Surface Pro 4 and its unique pen to one of the most interesting assemble and remix collages of the fan art. stars of the popular music This happened while she was touring and CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN landscape, MØ, and Microsoft’s recording her new album, with the Surface CAMPAIGN BUDGET N/A Surface Pro 4. Pro 4 functioning as the ideal device for her MØ is and songwriter behind MØ sought to get closer to her fans and to on-the-go creativity and productivity. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC one of the most streamed tracks of all collaborate with them while bringing the The fanzine – titled Empty Billboards, AGE: 24-44 time on Spotify, ‘’. With over 50m concept of the fanzine into the 21st century. Overloaded Minds – was distributed at FEMALE: 25% views on her recent single, ‘Final Song’ Microsoft provided the perfect technical merchandise stands at selected MØ shows MALE: 75% and a feature on the Major Lazer single solutions to fulfill this dream. on the singer’s tour as well as online LOCATION: and worldwide ‘Cold Water’ with , she has After a call for submissions, the fan through the Microsoft’s Sway software, established herself as a true popstar. contributions started pouring into a digital which also functioned as a blog depicting SUCCESS RATING: 10 Fascinated by her creative fan base and notebook created in Microsoft’s OneNote. the creative process. Fans from all over the the fanzine culture of the 1970s and 1980s, More than 400 fans shared their drawings, world were also involved in distributing the

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RCA LABEL GROUP UK OLLY MURS THE OLLYBOT TEAM MEMBERS to maximise social engagement as well as in the first 24 hours, with OLLY MURS - 24 HRS INVOLVED driving album pre-orders, catalogue streams an average dwell time FACEBOOK MESSENGER DIGITAL INITIATIVE and video views. We also added bespoke of 2m 30s, resulting in Nick Antoniou - digital marketing manager, responses for key international markets a 30% increase of album Sony Music with exclusive content and details about pre-orders on that day. The users were then Joel Freeman - senior channel manager, upcoming shows. retargeted through paid digital campaigns, WMA Our flagship digital initiative was the driving deluxe album pre-orders. James Bassett - head digital creative, Sony interactive album teaser which we launched The Ollybot has 10,000 active Music 10 days prior to release. The website allowed conversations to date, with more than 450k Terence Summerball - digital producer, Sony fans to engage with a video while listening messages received. It has 500 bespoke Music to exclusive snippets from the album. Fans responses, containing 150 exclusive photos Simon Forbes - product manager, Sony were able to watch the aftermath of a house and videos. We believe it’s the first truly Music party as default, but could hold down and engaging messenger bot for a UK artist and We Make Awesome Sh ’turn back time’ to see what happened the showcases our ambition for best-in-class night before. The video ties into the album’s execution in the market. OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN 24 HRS title and theme. The sampler We also rallied his fanbase around a few featured six tracks from the album, giving distinct digital initiatives that ran alongside As this was Olly’s fifth album, we wanted to fans an opportunity to hear music ahead of all digital and traditional campaign elements: demonstrate a real statement of intent and its release. a stream-to-unlock initiative resulting in 10k create another impactful launch, positioning additional UK streams on the latest single; this record as his biggest and best yet. We a collection initiative that drove 5k new focused on re-engaging his existing social Spotify followers in 24 hours and a musical. fanbase, as well as converting young chart ly competition with more than 58k entries. streamers into Olly fans. Our key takeaway was centered around As his fanbase is mainly female, with how to run an engaging campaign for a CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN the 13-17 and 18-24 age demographics returning artist. By giving fans access to dominating, we created a Facebook initiatives they wouldn’t necessarily expect CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ Messenger chatbot which we called The from Olly Murs, we realised these were our Ollybot. The main idea behind this initiative most effective digital marketing assets. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC is that Olly’s fans can ask the bot anything These initiatives significantly increased AGE: 14-24 they want. By asking the right questions, KEY LEARNINGS our reach and engagement, helping us FEMALE: 75% fans could access Olly’s music, playlists, migrate Olly’s young audience (under 17) MALE: 25% tickets, and exclusive content instantly. Olly has a big social following, so it was our away from YouTube and towards paid LOCATION: UK / Europe Most of the responses are personalised and job to capitalise on this and make sure he streaming services. They also allowed our designed to initiate a conversation, based had a strong presence online, delivering paid campaign around the album to become SUCCESS RATING: 9 on Olly’s tone of voice, current trends and another #1 album. In terms of results, the highly targeted by focusing on non-fans that consumer behaviours. Our objective was interactive video had more than 230k views had already interacted with our content.

34 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY TOM ODELL UK CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET £500–£1,000 TEAM MEMBERS worked with them to create bespoke video (tilts) and VH1 writing that the campaign and visual content across YouTube, Instagram could be “the future of album drops”. INVOLVED AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC and Vine. To premiere the first video of the AGE: 14-44 Edd Blower – Senior Digital Marketing campaign, Tom partnered with Fyuse, a FEMALE: 65% Manager, Columbia spatial photography app which allows users MALE: 35% Bec Adams – Marketing Manager, Columbia to capture 360 photos in such a way that LOCATION: UK Paula Hanley – Head of Digital, Columbia they appear to be 3D, to launch a new music Callum Roberts – Channel Manager (ex- feature. This allowed fans to experience new SUCCESS RATING: 9 Columbia Records UK) music in an entirely new and visual way. We introduced unique fan moments OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN such as international pop-up shows and surprising superfans with Tom giving them was released in April 2016 a lift to the album playback in his Mini. We and, as it had been three years since Tom gave fans access to a WhatsApp activation Odell’s debut platinum-selling album, via a number that was only shared once. Tom we began planning at an early stage and personally used the group to send private identifying key campaign goals. Our digital messages to the fans, as well as logging in to team’s core goals were to re-engage Tom’s chat to fans one-to-one. Beyond the album fanbase, challenge what was expected activity, the group became extremely effective of Tom and to ensure he was even more in activating international fan groups. We’ve accessible across the entire campaign in a since moved to Facebook Messenger for his bid to convert potential fans. We worked current European tour. with our insight team to identify Tom’s most Tom’s live and TV performances have active fans, lapsed segments of his fanbase always shown to form a deep connection and finally those potential fans we were with fans and new audiences. With this in keen to reach during the album campaign mind we set to achieve this in the digital and beyond. Using this research, we plotted space by partnering with BuzzFeed and Messaging our campaign starting with the basics such Sakks Fifth to reach new potential • Open rate: 80-90% as engagement across social channels and fans via Facebook Live activations, whilst • Since then we have moved the same approach to Facebook reaffirming the fanbase’s familiarity with introducing candid Facebook live moments Messenger with one activation driving 5k signups. streaming services as the chart reporting throughout the campaign, including a live had changed since the last album release. performance from Tom’s Paris hotel room. Influencers In our pursuit of reaching both lapsed and • x9 influencers across Instagram, Vine and YouTube. potential fans, we collaborated with social KEY LEARNINGS • Organic reach of over 1m. influencers whose work suited the direction and vision Tom had for the album or who FYUSE Live stream had shown previous interest in Tom. He then 17k new followers, 8.8m photo interactions • New audiences reached by partnering with BuzzFeed and Sakks Fifth Avenue (982k views). Total reach of over 3.5m users. 35 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY PASSENGER COOKING VINYL

TEAM MEMBERS first ever full-band live performance at ensure we successfully re-engaged lapsed INVOLVED London’s Bush Hall on album release day, fans while creating maximum buzz and 23rd September, which was captured by excitement amongst his core fanbase. We Chris Farrow - head of marketing & product a multi-camera live stream via Facebook built a content-based sequential strategy management, Cooking Vinyl for a global album release celebration to engage the lapsed and casual fans in Rachel Stoewer - digital marketing, and has had over 1m views. This was the build up to the album release. This was Glassnote Entertainment Group followed shortly by Passenger’s largest ever integrated with key moments in Passengers’ Anette Collins - head of international artist headline show in front of 14,000 fans at the promotional calendar to capitalise on the & label services, Red Essential Ziggodome in Amsterdam on 26th October, organic and non-paid exposure in order Dan Medland - artist manager, ie:music which was the first-ever live music event to convert these casual fans into the core to be simultaneously live streamed across fanbase. Rebekah Tayler – artist manager, ie:music Facebook, YouTube and Twitter’s Periscope. Digital ran throughout the campaign from Tom Burris – digital marketing, ie:music The campaign began in mid-June 2016, with announcement through to week of release in the UK. Passenger prides himself on his YouTube channel, with Neil Reed (plus team) - director, Seesaw Passenger busking in six UK cities ahead of when we added additional marketing videos achieving over 34m views in the last three months, including Creative Marketing launching his brand new single, ‘Somebody’s including TV, radio and outdoor to join the ‘Somebody’s Love’ at over 2.5m views and ‘Anywhere’ at 2.4m views. Love’, on 17th June, which was premiered by dots of the digital campaign plus the great Streaming has also been key in this campaign, with ‘Anywhere’ at OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN Ken Bruce on Radio 2. Passenger also visited radio, TV and PR exposure as well as a really 14.5m streams and ‘Somebody’s Love’ at 7.5m. Passenger current regional radio stations in the cities he was solid retail campaign for both physical and has 7.4m global listeners (122nd in the world). The strategy to use live Following the global success of ‘Let Her Go’, busking to reintroduce himself and warm up digital product working with all key partners videos on Facebook allowed us to reach over 30m people pre-album we knew that Passenger’s fanbase was vast stations for his new material. to achieve high-profile exposure. release. His busking videos were a large part of this, which brought and far-reaching, but despite this he had In the fiercely competitive chart battle about 20k fans to each event across the UK, Europe and North never had a #1 album, his previous album week of release Passenger wrote a song KEY LEARNINGS America, with millions of fans tuning in online. ‘Whispers’ charted in the UK at #5. The about going head to head with Bruce strategy was built around the question of Springsteen for the #1 spot, which he filmed Following an intensive week of release how to utilise fantastic high-quality audio and released on his Facebook. It was widely chart battle with and and visual content to engage his lapsed and shared by fans and picked up by NME.com, Shawn Mendes where the album yoyo-ed CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN broad potential fanbase with the new music. Rolling Stone and more. For marketing, we in the midweeks from 1 to 2, Young As The Being creative with the content allowed ran a digital campaign exclusively using Morning Old As The Sea was Passenger’s CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £25,000+ us to reach lapsed fans, new audiences, first-party data. Due to the size and scale first album to debut at #1 on The Official casual fans and dedicated fans across of his audience we were able to identify Album Charts in the UK (as well as #1 album: AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC multiple platforms with a global reach. three targeting segments according to Independent Albums), also achieving #1 AGE: 14–34 The content consisted of busking tours depth of engagement and recency. We in Australia, & FEMALE: 60% being streamed live on Facebook, promo defined these segments across all key and Top 10 in a further five territories. MALE: 40% videos, bespoke filmed lyric videos, live platforms and built out remarketing lists Pledge Music also achieved its first-ever LOCATION: UK in the studio videos and cover versions who could be reached at various points in #1 album with this campaign. Passenger is recorded and filmed during the European the campaign. We activated these audiences now playing his biggest live shows to date SUCCESS RATING: 9 tour. This all culminated in Passenger’s with relevant messaging and creative to with a full band, which completely sold out

36 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY THE RAVEONETTES Beat Dies Records /

TEAM MEMBERS forward to 2016 and the Raveonettes are at of pre-ordering the album, downloading INVOLVED it again with a new set of prescribed rules. this month’s track or to listening to it in a This time they decided to write, record and playlist environment on both Spotify and The Orchard release a track every single month of 2016 YouTube encouraging multiple streams and/ CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Dan Griffiths - director, interactive marketing and assemble the Anti-Album. Each song is or subscriptions. CAMPAIGN BUDGET £2,000–£5,000 Scott Cohen - founder and VP international written, recorded and released in the same The Raveonettes will be concluding the Kelly Bensadon - artist management month. No work is done in advance. campaign by not only releasing the album, AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Ben Poliszczuk - client relations manager We developed a digital marketing but also by hosting a special intimate pre- AGE: 18-44 Airene Resurreccion - manager, interactive campaign around this concept that heavily launch party in San Diego on 21st January design focused on remarketing and re-engaging 2017 where they will perform the album FEMALE: 50% MALE: 50% Vipul Chopra - interactive design fans based on the ‘hype cycle’/‘engagement in its entirety. In total, 150 tickets for the LOCATION: Global Lucy Blair - director, international sales and loop’ theory. party have been given away for free via the marketing As well as monthly track deliveries, band’s mailing list and fans will be flying in SUCCESS RATING: 8 Adam Saunders - senior retail sales and the band also supplied highly stylised from all over the world to see this special marketing manager lyric videos for each track and studio performance. Nic Rizzi - senior director, international sales teaser trailers. and marketing Each single release was treated as KEY LEARNINGS an ‘album release’ in the conventional • 20% increase in Instagram followers since OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN sense, with socials, website and monthly Despite being a rather unconventional the campaign began newsletters being rebranded, audiences release strategy (and only being two-thirds The Danish duo The Raveonettes burst onto being segmented, digital advertising of the way through the pre-release phase,) The lifespan of this campaign has forced the scene in 2001 with their scheduled, all with an eye to growing with a small advertising budget ($270 per us to experiment with new formats to keep now infamous first two albums inspired streaming figures and D2C sales. track), the ‘anti-album’ and the band not fans engaged (360° video, Facebook Canvas by the Dogma 95 movement. They created With the release of each monthly actively touring has already achieved the etc.). An extended ‘pre-release’ phase a set of rules such as all songs could only installment, fans are driven towards following results: enabled us to identify which tracks to push be written in B flat, no hi-hat allowed and theraveonettes.com to build remarketing at radio come the album’s conventional vocals recorded in one take. Fast pools. Fans are presented with the option • $36,000+ in D2C sales release early next year. We have been able • 1,500,000+ audio streams to fine tune our digital advertising strategy • Inclusion in 70+ playlists that have driven with the release of each track building a over 700,000 streams on Spotify alone better understanding of the band’s current • 6m Facebook impressions audience and reengaging fans who have • 150,000+ YouTube views on ‘anti-album’ fallen out of the loop. lyric videos As the campaign unravels, we are • 128% increase YouTube channel finding new discoveries, not only about subscribers, 28% increase in views and 23% The Raveonettes, but how the traditional increase in watch time compared to the release format may be turned on its head in same period in the previous year the future. SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY RALEIGH RITCHIE COLUMBIA RECORDS UK

TEAM MEMBERS of Raleigh’s debut album (You’re A Man Now Else and Sony Music successfully guiding INVOLVED Boy) over the summer months and through them throughout. As a result, they are festival season. already planning additional music- André Carroll - brands manager, Sony Music The resulting content included five focused activation for 2017 and beyond. Partnerships short episodes detailing the BTS process, Some key results from brand and artist Ruth Clarke - Sony Music partnerships along with the short film Hi Maintenance, side listed below: Mark Rivers - Somethin’ Else Raleigh’s first self-directed piece which was outs to Topman’s 1.4m UK database and 200k US database. Nan Davies - Somethin’ Else inspired by the album track ‘Cowards’. As TOPMAN • Pre-launch, Raleigh was also invited to be a part of the Topman Carol Bailey - Topman well as starring in, directing and writing the • By re-investing in the music space in such LCM ‘F’ROW’- a coveted spot, where he sat alongside fashion film, Raleigh also worked alongside award- a creative way, Topman has bought itself favorites including David Gandy, Dougy Pointer and . OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN winning string arranger Rosie Danvers the kind of credibility within the artist and This association along with the fashion specific press the project has (, , ) and consumer communities that cannot be generated is a great first step into the fashion world and has already Sony Music’s Partnerships team was producer (Emeli Sandé, , measured financially. resulted in demand for him in other fashion-specific campaigns presented with the opportunity to help ) to create the film’s score – all • With touch points across all of their construct Topman’s re-entry into the of which was captured for use across artist social media platforms (Snapchat, Twitter, The main thing we’ve learnt from this project has been not to world of music partnerships. After years and brand social channels. Instagram etc.) Topman has also gained underestimate a big brand’s ability to be nimble in production, of no engagement within the music space, The campaign was supported by a pre- additional followers which has been execution or roll out. With the help of Somethin’ Else, Topman was the idea from the brand and their agency promotional media partnership with NME reflected with the content being some of extremely open and willing to compromise on a number of creative Somethin’ Else, was to reignite an old which invited fans and aspiring creatives to their most engaged and viewed of all time. points – which resulted in a true collaborative output. This level of project around music video partnerships. be involved in the shoot. In order to enter, • The final episode of the series (which has true collaboration allowed our artist to authentically tell its story, all Knowing the challenges this would applicants were directed to a bespoke over 50k views to date) also specifically whilst fulfilling a brand brief beyond its expectations. present (contentious hosting rights, music Raleigh Ritchie hub on Topman.com, which highlighted some of the trends and items licensing, creative ownership etc.), we also hosted all supporting content. worn in the film – which will no doubt see an worked alongside Somethin’ Else to shape The short launched on 4th August uplift in sales once this seasons numbers the proposition around an artist-based alongside a collaborative digital, social and are accounted. passion project focusing on telling a story PR strategy. Combined, it has received just • In addition, the joined up PR approach by CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN of collaboration. Through research on under 850k views and has gained the most the Topman in-house team and Joss Meek CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ audience data and knowledge of the brand’s fan engagement from any content posted on from Wired PR meant that for the first objectives, we quickly identified that singer, Topman’s channels in 2016. Coverage from time Topman had coverage in music press, AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC songwriter and actor Raleigh Ritchie would both print and online press has been huge, including The 405, Link UP TV and Celebmix. AGE: 14-34 be the perfect collaborator – and set to work with support from publications that include FEMALE: 0% developing his idea to create a short film. Hunger, Wonderland and Creative Review. RALEIGH RITCHIE MALE: 100% From the offset, we had two key • Topman-specific benefits included; LOCATION: UK objectives in mind: 1) reintroducing KEY LEARNINGS average weekly visits of 850k on the Topman’s involvement in music-based Topman x Raleigh Ritchie hub, a banner on SUCCESS RATING: 8 content in the most authentic and impactful Topman has had a successful first step Topman.com with average impressions of way possible; and 2) extending the lifespan back into the music world, with Somethin’ 20k and album messaging included in mail

38 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY SECRETLY GROUP SECRETLY GROUP

club that is big, broad and straightforward – a place for every fan. Then we called it all “Secretly”, which remains, we hope, a charming misnomer. The secret is out, shoppers.

KEY LEARNINGS

Special edition LPs sell out fast. We have sold 100% revitalised, format: the record club. of every monthly exclusive item. Secretly Society is super simple. One record, in a members-only, exclusive vinyl color, shipped monthly to each subscriber’s door. Sign up for three, six, or 12 months and receive CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Angel Olsen’s magnificent album MY CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £1,000–£2,000 WOMAN on clear vinyl in September and TEAM MEMBERS Preoccupations’ post-punk ripper self- AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN titled record in lovely taupe for October. INVOLVED AGE: 18-44 After that, expect a mix of new FEMALE: 20% Laura Sykes - head of digital, Secretly Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar and Secretly artists, established vets, MALE: 80% Group Canadian — the arts and culture and top-notch represses LOCATION: Global Nick Faidley - head of merchandising, triumvirate otherwise known from our timeless back Secretly Group as Secretly Group — have put catalogue. With 20 years SUCCESS RATING: 8 Ben Swanson - co-founder & co-owner, together Secretly Society, our in the rearview, we set Secretly Group spin on a classic, and recently out to build a record

39 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY SHINEDOWN ATLANTIC RECORDS US

TEAM MEMBERS as 300 shows each year. Additionally, the directions and playlists for fans that Shinedown on the streaming service and join the artist email INVOLVED group ardently supports digital interactive featured Shinedown and other Carnival Of newsletter list – all with just one click. campaigns to engage and build relationships Madness performers. As a capstone to the experience, fans received an email Yannick Peary - digital marketing with fans while . Promoted heavily to Shinedown’s welcoming them to Shinedown community and delivering their Catherine Ciapas - interactive producer The Carnival Of Madness 2016 tour, millions of followers across social media, individually tailored playlist and directions to their selected Carnival Anthony Delia - product manager headlined by Shinedown spanned 17 the initiative prompted fans to enter their Of Madness tour stop. Tonianne Tartaro - creative sold-out shows across the US from New home address and select the tour stop Michael Mausler - web developer Hampshire to Texas. With many fans they intended on attending. Then the site KEY LEARNINGS traveling hours to experience the , generated an exclusive Spotify playlist for OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN the Atlantic Records in-house digital the exact amount of time the drive would The Shinedown team was able to surprise and delight fans with this marketing and creative team devised a take as determined by Google Maps. unique campaign that capitalised on anticipation and excitement Shinedown is one of the most prolific rock strategy and method to integrate Google Using Spotify’s API, fans were able to leading up to the shows. bands on the touring circuit – doing as many Maps and Spotify – creating customised add the playlist to the collection, follow Furthermore, by collecting email addresses and Spotify followers the label and artist increased direct marketing opportunities for future initiatives.

• 11% total newsletter list growth • 15% increase in Spotify followers • 8% conversion rate of email sign ups • 3MM+ reach across social media

CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET In house

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE: 18-34 FEMALE: 48% MALE: 52% LOCATION: US

SUCCESS RATING: 8

40 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY ALAN WALKER Syco / Sony Music Sweden

TEAM MEMBERS PRE LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH INVOLVED Recording of ‘Faded’, with vocals by Iselin • Continue to engage with fans via tailored Solheim. Three teasers were released. An digital material. Curated content includes: CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN Lisa Hultengren - creative manager, Sony exclusive platform for gamers was created. behind-the-scenes material, video CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,000+ Johanna Hoffman - product manager, Sony Each invited member received an identity interviews, videos from live shows etc. Claes Uggla - director, A&R, Sony Music number based on when they joined. e.g. • Invite more listeners via ‘Faded’ remixes. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Katrin Bohman - head of international “Walker #62”. Platforms include exclusive AGE: 14-34 exploitation, Sony Music preview of upcoming material and forum for “WALKERS” FEMALE: 45% discussions. The EDM/House/Electro genres don’t MALE: 55% have fans like the Swifties, Belibers or OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN LOCATION: Global BROAD LAUNCH Directioners. So we asked ourselves, what if Alan Walker entered the music scene in late December: ‘Faded’ released on all digital we could create “Walkers”? To deeply engage SUCCESS RATING: 10 2015. In just four months, the 18-year-old music platforms and the music video on with Alan’s core fans, we created a platform, went from being an unknown gamer to a YouTube. Partnered with a number of made for Alan’s gaming fans and optimised record-breaking artist with his first single, ’s biggest gamers. Bought media to attract and interact with them positioned ‘Faded’. But Alan’s rise to instant success on Twitch, YouTube, Swedish radio and by their interests and behavior. The design is Dance Chart in 41 markets, #1 on Spotify in 19 markets, #6 on Spotify is about more than a good song. This is the Spotify. heavily inspired by programming aesthetics. Global Chart, #1 on Shazam in 19 markets, #1 on Shazam worldwide story of how carefully curated content and a January: launch of the gaming-centric To join, you need to access a special chart (seven weeks), #3 on YouTube Music Global Top 100 Video strategic digital dialogue united the gaming ‘Faded’ competition where gamers were code. The goal of the platform is to share Chart, #80 on and music world – by creating an innovative invited to creatively include ‘Faded’ in upcoming material, get feedback and create • 8bn impressions on Radio in Europe, #1 on European Airplay Chart digital landscape. their own gaming videos. The competition exclusive material with the fans. for seven weeks, A-rotation on BBC Radio 1 in the UK outline was to make a short video in your • Worldwide Soundtrack on Beats1 Radio TARGET AUDIENCE favourite computer game and upload the KEY LEARNINGS • Germany’s “most streamed track in a week” (3.69m) ever and • From day one the gamers have been clip to YouTube. The task was to be as cracked Adele’s ‘Hello’ record. an important part of our work with Alan. creative as possible, combining ‘Faded’ With groundbreaking digital strategy, Our gaming approach is incorporated in and interacting in the video game in an innovative fan engagement and creative ALAN WALKER everything we do: branding, marketing, innovative way. During the competition, music content, we built an artist that • The most successful breaking act of 2016. visuals, typography and influencers. We also we highlighted selected videos in a playlist attracts both the core audience and the • Established as one of the hottest new names within Electronic hide gaming references in our content to on Alan Walker’s YouTube channel. Alan mainstream crowd. Alan Walker is today the Music. engage with the core audience. then selected three winners that won most successful breaking act in 2016. • Had a successful European summer tour at the biggest festivals • During the campaign, we collaborated prices containing merch, Motorola smart in EDM such as Tomorrowland, Creamfields and Summerburst. with big professional gamers (with large watch, Sony headphones and STEAM gift SINGLE “FADED” Currently touring in China and is scheduled for a North American tour followings on YouTube or Facebook). Some cards. • Sales: over 8m sold units worldwide in the fall. of the collaborations included: Song/ February: release of ‘Faded (Restrung)’ • #1 on official singles chart in 10 markets • YouTube: 2.6m subscribers/ Facebook: 690k followers/ Instagram: video push from their socials, spreading/ and associated music video, which was • 485m+ Spotify streams, 610m+ YouTube 233k followers /Shazam: 12m followers joining the ‘Faded’ competition and specific performed by an orchestra and filmed in a views, 11.5m+ Shazams • The campaign for ‘Faded’ won a Cannes Lions for ‘Excellence In marketing on gaming sites, such as Twitch. dismantled nuclear reactor. • #1 on iTunes in 23 markets, #1 on iTunes Music Content Production and Distribution Strategy in June this year.

41 | sandbox | ISSUE 170 | 14.12.16 SANDBOX 2016 SURVEY WARD THOMAS SONY CATALOGUE GROUP CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN CAMPAIGN BUDGET: £25,000+ TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE: 24-44 Heidi Boston – senior digital marketing FEMALE: 56% manager, Sony Music MALE: 44% Julie Sandrin – head of digital, Sony Music LOCATION: UK Bekka Collins – channel manager, WMA Jeanne Cloyd – GUPTA SUCCESS RATING: 10 Media Phil Connolly – product manager Jon Cauwood – marketing director, Commercial Division Will Calligan – digital assistant The cherry on top of this campaign was when we managed to get OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN them social support from the likes of during week of release, whilst Carole King mentioned This year, Sony CG signed an exciting new personalities. Facebook HQ and her love for their cover of ‘You’ve Got A joint venture with WTW Music and released Bowl both hosted them for special Q&As and Friend’. UK country duo Ward Thomas’s second performances. All live sessions saw record album, Cartwheels. The duo – made up of spikes in reach and engagement. KEY LEARNINGS 22-year-old twin sisters, Catherine and Lizzy They launched their Snapchat presence Ward Thomas – independently released around their Glastonbury performance • Ward Thomas made history by their debut album in 2014, which sold 25,000 and we released a personalised geofilter becoming the first UK country act to reach copies in the UK. on the recent UK tour as well. On top of the #1 spot in the UK album chart, with From the moment they were signed, we an extensive digital marketing campaign the album remaining in the top 5 for three focused on getting the girls to fully embrace targeting country and pop acts, we also put a weeks social media and develop an authentic strong focus on video content, to showcase • To date, the band are the fastest-selling tone of voice. We also ensured a presence their amazing vocal craft and . We UK country act in the UK, also supported at video shoots, TV promos and gigs to revamped their Snug Sessions and unveiled by a first-class retail and promo plot create bespoke behind-the-scenes content, acoustic videos every week, with a mix of • All three singles have been added to the A List on Radio 2, with ensuring a constant stream of high-quality original tracks and covers done in their own massive support from Bob Harris, Ken Bruce and Chris Evans activity throughout the summer and beyond. unique style. We were the first Sony label • Fans were given exclusive tour pre-sale access when ordering the The girls always understood the importance to deliver a 360 video to Vevo, with a great album via the D2C store of their online presence: with practice, they performance shot ahead of their media • Between May and October 2016, the follower growth across all really took to Facebook Live and used it event at the Roof Gardens. We continued platforms totals 32,000 each week in the lead up to the album the 360 theme with a special reveal of the • There is much more to come over the next few months, as the girls release, growing in confidence each time, album track listing, also emphasising the headline the Brooklyn Bowl Christmas Country 2 Country Social, before whilst showing their endearing and quirky importance of their lyrics. heading out for 22 dates in the spring

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Contents  PRIME TIME [email protected] IS AMAZON MUSIC MARKETING’S 08 Beyond Music – EU rules on e-book lending 09 Data dive: 10 key facts about SoundCloud GREAT MISSED OPPORTUNITY? Burning question 10 Need to know Is 2016 digital music’s year of reckoning? 11 Country profile: Italy Registered company number: This sandbox report is part of our courses worldwide to thousands of We would love to hear from you to 04525243 suite of publications that make up professionals, with clients ranging from hear more about what you do and 858212321 the music:)ally business intelligence Universal Music Group, Sony Music, explore ways in which we might work VAT number: WMG, Spotify, O2, Nokia, BPI, PRS and together. service. You can have a free no- © Music Ally Ltd. For the purposes of strings two-week sample of our full AEG as well as PR agencies, managers personal, private use the subscriber may subscription here: and startups/entrepreneurs. Please get in touch with Anthony print this publication or move it to a Churchman [email protected] storage medium; however, this publication We also: is intended for subscribers only and as http://musically.com/subscribe/ such may not be redistributed without l offer digital marketing services to If you have a digital campaign-related permission. We provide information on the new labels, artist managers, artists and story for sandbox, please contact Lil music business. This includes a daily other music related companies, from Patuck on [email protected] Subscribers agree to terms and conditions set up on the music:)ally website, bulletin with the latest news and campaign advice and strategy through except where a separate contract takes analysis on the digital music business to implementation and execution If you’d like to talk to us about precedence. music:)ally has taken all and weekly e-magazines with exclusive our digital marketing/mentoring reasonable endeavours to ensure the l provide consumer research and training services, consultancy or validity of all items reported within this interviews, the latest campaigns, document. profiles of the most cutting-edge tools bespoke research as well as help specific research services, please and startups, all the way through to the companies spot opportunities through contact Karim Fanous on We do not assume, and hereby disclaim, key data on territories worldwide. specialist consulting [email protected] any liability for loss or caused by errors or omissions. In particular the content is not intended to be relied upon music:)ally is also the leading training l work with global events and also If you’d like to subscribe, add in making (or refraining from making) provider on digital marketing, growth put together our own conference and new subscribers, or talk about a investments or other decisions. We cannot and development in the music networking events on the most cutting- corporate deal, then please contact be held responsible for the contents of any linked sites. industry. We have many years of edge topics Anthony Churchman on experience delivering a wide range of and much more... [email protected]

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