DECEMBER 11 2019 sandboxMUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA ISSUE 242 thE year’s best music marketing campaigns SANDBOX 2019 SURVEY thE year’s best music marketing campaigns e received a phenomenal Contents 15 ... THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA 28 ... KIDD KEO 41 ... MARK RONSON number of entries this year and 03 ... AFRO B 16 ... DJ SHADOW 29 ... KREPT & KONAN 42 ... RICK ROSS had to increase the shortlist W 17 ... BILLIE EILISH 30 ... LAUV 43 ... SAID THE WHALE 04 ... AMIR to 50 in order to capture the quality 05 ... BASTILLE 18 ... BRIAN ENO 31 ... LD ZEPPELIN 44 ... SKEPTA and breadth of 2019’s best music campaigns. 06 ... BEE GEES 19 ... FEEDER 32 ... SG LEWIS 45 ... SLIPKNOT We had entries from labels of all 07 ... BERET 20 ... DANI FERNANDEZ 33 ... LITTLE SIMZ 46 ... SAM SMITH sizes around the world and across 08 ... BIG K.R.I.T. 21 ... FLOATING POINTS 34 ... MABEL 47 ... SPICE GIRLS a vast array of genres. As always, 09 ... BON IVER 22 ... GIGGS 35 ... NSG 48 ... SUPERM campaigns are listed in alphabetical 10 ... BRIT AWARDS 2019 23 ... HOT CHIP 36 ... OASIS 49 ... THE 1975 order, but there are spot prizes 11 ... BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE 24 ... HOZIER 37 ... ANGEL OLSEN 50 ... TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB throughout for the ones that we felt 12 ... LEWIS CAPALDI 25 ... ELTON JOHN 38 ... PEARL JAM 51 ... UBBI DUBBI did something extra special. Here are 13 ... CHARLI XCX 26 ... KANO 39 ... REGARD 52 ... SHARON VAN ETTEN 2019’s best in show. 14 ... CHASE & STATUS 27 ... KESHA 40 ... THE ROLLING STONES 2 | sandbox | ISSUE 242 | 11.12.19 SANDBOX 2019 SURVEY AFRO B MARATHON MUSIC GROUP specifically focusing on Sweden, Netherlands, Ghana, Nigeria, the US and France. We saw the record started picking up across all the underground Afrobeats scenes so we decided to create another remix with WizKid so it could cross over to the mainstream market while still keeping the DNA of the track. ‘Drogba (Joanna)’ then took off in the US, where we implemented a US radio campaign very quickly which helped cementing the song in the American market. We also wanted to make the record more recognisable amongst the US market, so we remixed the track again with French Montana, which pushed the record further. The single peaked at #13 on the airplay charts and it has reached over 150m+ streams globally across all DSPs. Results & key learnings • 100m+ streams across DSPs •#13 US airplay charts • 100m+ reached on US radio • A-list on BBC 1Xtra • Most Played Record on Hot 97 (USA) • Silver record (UK) • 51m+ views of music video Swedish platforms. At the same time, •#1 Shazam charts Team members involved Overview of campaign Swedish fans started sharing the record • 155k followers on Instagram (within 12 months) having started and creating dance content on social with 30K Gavin Douglas, manager, Ahead of the launch of the ‘Drogba media. Ultimate Clientele (Joanna)’ single, we’d analysed Afro In addition to this, we’d created dance Mikey Lloyds, radio plugger, Plugged In B’s audience and saw that his fanbase content with popular dancers within the EDIT campaign breakdown Chris Capo, radio plugger, All Ears was building in Sweden. With this in Afrobeats’ core community and one of Dujon Fairweather, PR, Listen Up mind, we put together a remix of his these clips became viral. Thanks to these, CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+ Tom Roberts, sports PR, Shoot PR previous record, ‘Pull Up’ featuring Aden the record started building its own life AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Byze, radio plugger (US) & Asme, which became gold in Sweden online with many dance clips coming from Reza Sarrafieh, radio pluggers (US), Pars and prepared the Swedish fans and around the world. AGE: 0-13, 14-18, 19-24, 25-34 Promotions gatekeepers for Afro B’s next single To better hit these territories, we AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 40% / 60% Ian McQuaid, A&R ‘Drogba (Joanna)’. On the launch of ‘Drogba decided to create remixes with local LOCATION: Global (Joanna)’, the record was playlisted across artists across the key diaspora territories, 3 | sandbox | ISSUE 242 | 11.12.19 SANDBOX 2019 SURVEY AMIR PARLOPHONE Team members involved the best videos possible, so that he would create an alternate video clip of the single with the fans UGV. Amir, artist, Parlophone/Warner Music 16/05 – App launch France 28/05 to 31/05 – Instagram paid marketing campaign David Scantamburlo, Amir’s brand manager, 19/06 – National TV show (Touche Pas A Mon Poste) Parlophone/Warner Music France 09/07 to 15/07 – YouTube paid marketing campaign Alain Veille, managing director digital, 23/07 – Release of the alternate UGV video clip X Warner Music France Bertrand Polou, business development & Results & key learnings digital marketing director, Warner Music France • 11k app downloads Thibaut Hus, product manager, 118LAB / • Comparing the streams two weeks prior to the app launch and innovation & new usages, Warner Music two weeks after the app release, the single benefited from a +20% France streaming increase. Augustin Stephan, UX/UI designer, Warner • There is also a significant stream peak on the day of national TV Music France show (TPMP) broadcast (1m audience). Perrine Guyomard, innovation & new usages manager, 118LAB Instagram: Cédric Passinay, digital video project • 9.7m impressions over all posts/stories under #AmirEtMoi manager, Warner Music France • +58% engagement Tiago Correia, global business development • +23% reach manager, Warner Music Group Tom Pascoe, marketing Facebook: director, HoloMe • First Amir post – reach five times higher than average George Stuart, project • Over 40k interactions manager, HoloMe Zuheb Javed, unity developer, of Amir’s new single, ‘5 minutes fans’ loyalty by offering a unique UGC HoloMe avec toi’. experience. The idea was to enable fans EDIT campaign breakdown Overview of to create and share their The mobile app ‘Amir & Moi’ enabled fans campaign own UGVs with Amir’s to create their own videos using the Amir CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,001–10,000 hologram. It was augmented reality hologram and to share AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC Parlophone & designed to: their UGV on social media. 118LAB used • Encourage When opening the app, fans could place AGE: 19-24, 25-34, 35-44 augmented reality virality to support Amir wherever they wanted and even film AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 25% / 75% technology to the new single themselves alongside the hologram. LOCATION: France promote the launch • Strengthen the Amir challenged the fans to produce 4 | sandbox | ISSUE 242 SANDBOX 2019 SURVEY BASTILLE VIRGIN EMI RECORDS Team members involved Betsy Chadbourn, digital manager Rory Dewar, head of content Khush Savjani, content Stars Redmond, Eleven Management Overview of campaign Our goal for this campaign was to reengage the fanbase, using innovative activations, whilst utilising the narrative of the ‘Bad eventuality ended in death. As far as we are aware, this is the Decisions’ official video. first time this has been done in the music industry. To begin the video campaign, we created a global Snapchat filter Results & key learnings scavenger hunt, which ran a week prior to release. At this point, fans Over the tease week and release week of the campaign, we gained knew nothing about the upcoming 19k Spotify followers, 5k Instagram followers and had our peak day video. We created 14 filters, each on YouTube on release of the music video for the last six months. containing an individual letter The Snapchat activation received 100k impressions and 2.2k which spelled a lyric from the entries. The YouTube premiere had almost 5k live viewers. The bot single once put together correctly. received 3k new users and the quiz had over 5k uses. We also had We placed these filters in approximately a quarter of a million views across our activation Bastille’s top 14 streaming cities which correlated to the time that the track in our bot, called Dr Dan’s Diagnoser. Fans social posts. globally at a famous landmark or location, ‘Bad Decisions’ appears on their latest had to make a series of bad decisions instructing fans to find them and work album, Doom Days. We then teased up to in order to be served one of the four together online to complete the phrase release with a series of illustrated tarot characters from the video. They were EDIT campaign breakdown using an original hashtag. They then had cards and self-help posters relating to the encouraged to share these results to to enter the phrase into a splash page. We themes found in the music video. socials with an original hashtag. We saw a CAMPAIGN BUDGET £1,001–£2,000 incentivised by promising the release of a On release day, we did a YouTube huge uplift in subscribers from this. AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC special date if we received enough correct Premiere for almost 5k live watchers, Finally, we created a “choose your entries of the phrase. followed by a comment Q&A and destiny” adventure campaign for AGE: 14-18, 19-24 On the aforementioned date, we community poll. The video is currently Instagram Stories, where fans could make AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 34% / 66% released a cryptic teaser, with a distorted sitting on almost half a million views. decisions and choose their own outcomes LOCATION: Global image from the video and a time stamp Post-release, we launched a new flow for the music video. The twist? Every 5 | sandbox | ISSUE 242 | 11.12.19 SANDBOX 2019 SURVEY BEE GEES UME / FAME HOUSE Team members involved Alex Hines, Fame House Aaron Desire, Fame House Haley Furman, Fame House Lawrence Yamoah, Fame House Carrie Paul, Fame House Chris Dashwood, UMe Overview of campaign Gees playlist that contributed to the second-highest spike in Spotify listeners of all time.