Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
sandbox
MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA
                                      DECEMBER 12 2018
                                             ISSUE 218

thE year’s best music marketing campaigns
Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

thE year’s best music marketing campaigns
E
     very year we are overwhelmed
     by the number and the quality of      Contents                            16 ... FRANZ FERDINAND                30 ... BARBORA POLÁKOVÁ
     entries for sandbox’s round up        03 ... 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER          17 ... JERRY GARCIA                   31 ... RAY BLK
of the best marketing campaigns.           04 ... AMAZON MUSIC                 18 ... TOM GRENNAN                    32 ... RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
That is not just hot air; there were a     05 ... THE BEATLES                  19 ... GUNSHIP                        33 ... ROBYN
staggering number of submissions           06 ... TONY BENNETT & DIANA KRALL   20 ... CALVIN HARRIS                  34 ... SIGALA
this year, making the picking of a final   07 ... ANDREA BOCELLI               21 ... ISLAND CO. LAB                 35 ... JORJA SMITH
40 an especially arduous task this         08 ... BRING ME THE HORIZON         22 ... MYLES KENNEDY                  36 ... ROD STEWART
time around. Here, then, are the best      09 ... BRIT AWARDS 2018             23 ... DAN MANGAN                     37 ... SUPERORGANISM
40 campaigns of the year – listed in       10 ... BURY TOMORROW                24 ... KARA MARNI                     38 ... TANK & THE BANGAS
alphabetical order but with special        11 ... JOHN COLTRANE                25 ... METALLICA                      39 ... TROJAN 50
awards for the ones that had that          12 ... DEEZER                       26 ... M.O                            40 ... TWENTY ONE PILOTS
something extra, that something            13 ... DISNEY                       27 ... NICK MULVEY                    41 ... THE WOMBATS
unique, that something new. It is, we      14 ... GEORGE EZRA                  28 ... NINA NESBITT                   42 ... YEARS & YEARS
must say, a hell of a list.                15 ... FIRST AID KIT                29 ... NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC
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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

5 SECONDS OF SUMMER                                                                                          CAPITOL RECORDS UK

Team members involved                                                                       city, pop-up shops and video tour diaries.
                                                                                            Our content objective was to always be
Marla Altschuler, Hannah Maldon & Kinga                                                     reactive and timely.
Nowicka – Cantine (digital agency)                                                          3. Cocktails chats – a twist on the album
Maddy Smith – head of digital, Capitol UK                                                   track-by-track where the band got drunk
Becky Thomas – campaign manager,                                                            whilst explaining the album process – was
Capitol UK                                                                                  by far our most successful content thread.
Kate Sullivan & Abbie Hollebone –                                                           Each video has averaged over 350k views
digital managers, Modest! Management                                                        with 3m views across all seven videos on
                                                                                            YouTube and Instagram TV.
Overview of campaign                                                                        4. Flash sales that gave fans short
                                                                                            windows to access limited-edition
The release of 5SOS’s third studio album,                                                   merchandise and digital bundles to drive
Youngblood, marked a shift in direction                                                     pre-orders into album release. Social
musically and aesthetically for the band.                                                   media was key to announcing these
In a multi-layered campaign, we aimed                                                       drops and ensuring they all sold out
to re-engage the existing fanbase whilst                                                    and eventually contributed to the band           Our biggest learning was to never ask or expect from fans. They give
reaching new audiences through a more                                                       securing their third US #1 album and             so much already so we followed their lead and dropped tools for fans
mature style and vision.                                                                    making history.                                  to propel the album themselves rather than explicitly asking them to
    Content was key to new discovery,                                                       5. Global Snapchat lens for ‘Youngblood’.        create assets. For example, one of the main flash sale merchandise
engagement and the retention of existing                                                    The stats were overwhelming and helped           items included childhood photos of the band with the Youngblood
fans. At every step of the campaign a         within the fanbase. The activity trended      drive Shazams for the track particularly in      signature branding on top. We provided fans with all the main album
moment was created to excite fans and         worldwide before the video had even been      the US. Overall the lens had 262m plays          5SOS branding so they could create assets. Fans placed themselves
drive conversation. It was imperative         released and resulted in 145% increase in     and 185m views over three days.                  within the artwork using their own childhood photos, just like the
that everything came from the band            average daily engagement, 335% increase                                                        band. This created huge extended visibility across digital, reaching
themselves, with their own voice front        in daily likes and a 628% increase in         Results & key learnings                          outside of fans with the band interacting.
and centre. Below are a few examples of       average daily @ mentions.
activations where these key values were       2. Content evolution. The aesthetic for       • Youngblood the album went to #1 on the
put into action:                              this album developed throughout the           Billboard charts, making history with 5SOS          ! campaign breakdown
1. ‘Want You Back’ video teaser. A tweet      campaign. With the input of full-time         being the first band to have their first three
was sent from the band’s account with         creator Andy Deluca, we delivered daily       albums hit the top spot.                               CAMPAIGN BUDGET £15,001–£25,000
the video release date and a still from the   photo and video pieces from the band’s        • 1m album sales globally and 1.5bn album
                                                                                                                                                       AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
video. Every fan who engaged with this        travels, a frequency needed to keep the       streams.
tweet was delivered a personal response       audience engaged. These daily content         • ‘Youngblood’ the single has had 1n                             AGE: 14–18, 19–24
from a member of the band with an             posts were amplified by geotargeted           streams across all DSPs.                                AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 56% / 77%
unreleased gif from the video shoot. This     activities such as local Snapchat filters,    • ‘Youngblood’ #1 at US radio for five              LOCATION: Global – primarily UK, US and Australia
caused huge discussion around the video       individually designed tour posters for each   consecutive weeks.

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

AMAZON MUSIC
Team members involved                                                                                                                                             Carrie Underwood,
                                                                                                                                                                  twenty one pilots,
Steve Boom – VP, Amazon Music                                                                                                                                     Lil Wayne, Nicki
Tami Hurwitz – VP of global marketing,                                                                                                                            Minaj and Imagine
Amazon Music                                                                                                                                                      Dragons, with TV to
Josh Fein – senior marketing manager,                                                                                                                             come. Additionally,
Amazon Music                                                                                                                                                      select digital, radio,
Colin Gaul – group creative director, Amazon                                                                                                                      and display ads have
                                                                                                                                                                  launched in the UK
Overview of campaign                                                                                                                                              and Germany.
                                                                                                                                                                      Each creative
In August of this year, Amazon Music                                                                                                                              features a voice
launched its largest-ever multi-media                                                                                                                             utterance to engage
advertising campaign, titled A Voice Is All                                                                                                                       Amazon Music
You Need, highlighting the powerful vocals                                                                                                                        on Alexa, while
of iconic songs while demonstrating the                                                                                                                           highlighting the
simplicity of using your voice to find the                                                                                                                        power of voice. New
music you love. The multiplatform media                                                                                                                           ad creative featuring
plan – inclusive of TV, radio and digital –                                                                                                                       additional artists and
was developed with global independent                                                                                                                             songs will continue
agency Wieden+Kennedy, to celebrate the                                                                                                                           to roll out throughout
growth of Amazon Music and its lead in                                                                                                                            the rest of the year.
voice innovation.
    Each advertisement is a striking                                                                                                                               Results & key
visual interpretation of songs paired                                                                                                                              learnings: N/A
with isolated vocals from notable artists,
showcasing the emotional power of
simply asking for a chart-topping vocal
performance. The result is an ear-                                                                                                       ! campaign breakdown
grabbing, eye-catching musical rendition
of legendary tracks that end with a
                                                                                                                                              CAMPAIGN BUDGET N/A
listener asking Alexa to play the featured
artist. A voice is all you need to make that   campaign, with songs including: Kendrick       Since its initial launch, Amazon Music         AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
happen.                                        Lamar & SZA’s ‘All the Stars’; Ariana       has run online creative and billboard out-               AGE: N/A
    At launch mid-August, digital creative     Grande’s ‘No Tears Left to Cry’; Kane       of-home across the US in cities – including        AUDIENCE GENDER: N/A
featuring a variety of top artists across      Brown’s ‘Lose It’; and Freddie Mercury of   LA, NY and Nashville – featuring artists          LOCATION: US, UK, Germany
various genres began appearing in the          Queen’s ‘Somebody To Love’.                 such as Kendrick Lamar, Ariana Grande,

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                                        BEST
                                                                                                                                                                                                          CATALOGUE
                                                                                                                                                                                                          MARKETING

THE BEATLES                                                           UMC / Universal Music Group

Team members involved                                                                                                                                                                                         historically
                                                                                                                                                                                                              laid-back
Katie Alley – head of digital, UMC                                                                                                                                                                             streaming
Lee Jenson – director of marketing, UMC                                                                                                                                                                        audience.
Orla Lee-Fisher – SVP global marketing                                                                                                                                                                             The
Guy Hayden – VP international marketing                                                                                                                                                                         YouTube
Jack Thomson – senior marketing manager,                                                                                                                                                                        live stream
USM                                                                                                                                                                                                              has
Olly Walsh – director of digital, USM                                                                                                                                                                            amassed
Doug Barasch – senior director, UMe                                                                commissioned brand new,                                                                                       over
Tom Smith – VP marketing, UMe                                                                      full-length music videos                                                     150k streams to date and will be edited
Jeff Jones – CEO, Apple Corps Ltd                                                                  for ‘Glass Onion’ and ‘Back                                               into digestible segments to be deployed
Jonathan Clyde – director of production,                                                           In The USSR’ that premiered with Apple          across The Beatles’ other social channels to drive traffic and
Apple Corps Ltd                                                                                    Music and YouTube respectively.                 sustain viewership of the full-length asset. The campaign trailer
Jeremy Neech – digital director, Lisa Salem –                                                          A core theme for this project was the       has smashed 1m views and beyond The Beatles’ undeniable social
digital marketing producer (both Motherlode                                                        impact and influence of the album and we        fanbases, we delivered over 600k impressions to UK cinema-goers
Media)                                                                                             eventised this discussion with a live stream    in only seven days. Our content and communications plan has so far
Darren Evans, Caroline Jones, Nick Barratt –                                                       from YouTube Space in London during             driven more than 500k clicks to retail and streaming partners overall
Able Media                                         Sam Okell and Kevin Howlett. The first of its   release week. The concept saw a panel of        and is currently tracking at over 15k clicks a day. The tweet to unlock
Richard Barnett – Trunk Animation                  kind, this truly immersive experience was       current artists, broadcasters and journalists   promotion garnered 15m impressions and 150,000 engagements
James Swindells – Loud Beings                      designed to engage a mobile streaming           debating with Giles Martin and host Matt        around #BeatlesMarkItFab.
                                                   audience and sustain listening across           Everitt as to “Could The White Album Be             The poster from the original packaging provided a colourful asset
Overview of campaign                               the entire album which was delivered to         Made Today?”. We globalised this moment         from which we produced a brand new promo video for ‘Glass Onion’
                                                   streaming services.                             but taking real-time questions from fans        which feels fresh and modern. As part of our sustainment plans, we
We adopted a range of strategies – from local          This multi-format product included a        watching live around the world, as well as      are launching a tool to allow fans to create their own version of the
events to social content and digitals tools – to   mass of unheard and unreleased outtakes         those in the room.                              classic poster by plugging in their own social media profiles.
market arguably one of The Beatles’ most           and acoustic Esher demo versions, alongside
eclectic albums and definitely one of the          the 2018 mix of the album, which gave us a      Results & key learnings
most creatively challenging artworks.              wealth of avenues to explore when it came                                                           ! campaign breakdown
   A campaign highlight was taking a literal       to marketing cross-platform and cross-          At the time of writing, this charted at #4
blank canvas artwork and producing an              demographic. Another first on this project      in the UK album charts, the White Album
industry-first enhanced playlist experience        was releasing all three versions of each        Spotify enhanced playlist has passed 85k                     CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
for this album on Spotify. This consisted of a     instant grat track to showcase the breadth      followers and accumulated over 3m streams                     AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
series of looped visual assets to accompany        of the album and versions available. We took    in a week. This activation was an industry                     AGE: 19-24, 25-34, 35-44
audio tracks from the album, interspersed          fans back to the studio and created visual      first and was successful at bringing to life              AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 60% / 40%
with in-depth interview footage with               representations of band members talking         elements from the physical booklet, as                            LOCATION: Global
producers and experts including Giles Martin,      between tracks on the outtakes and also         well a shared audio visual experience for

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

TONY BENNETT & DIANA KRALL                                                                                                             Verve Label Group / Fame House

Team members involved                                                                                                                        Is Here to Stay. A limited number of fans were also offered the
                                                                                                                                             ability to purchase tickets to an intimate performance by Tony
Alex Hines, Aaron Desire, Haley Furman,                                                                                                      Bennett and Diana Krall at the Rainbow Room in NYC on 12th
Kyla Buck – all Fame House                                                                                                                   September, where they performed songs off their new album.
                                                                                                                                                As a capstone to the Love Is Here to Stay campaign, the team
Caitlin Colletti, Megan Mark, Justin Jesena,                                                                                                 built a virtual tour showcasing George Gershwin’s history using
Michael Allen, Hadley Spanier,                                                                                                               Google Maps, milestones in Gershwin’s history, tracks from the
Mandy DallaCorte, Danny Bennett – all Verve                                                                                                  album and narrated historical moments.
Label Group
                                                                                                                                             Results & key learnings
Overview of campaign
                                                                                                                                             Debuted #11 on the US Billboard Top 200
Legendary artist Tony Bennett has one                                                                                                        • #1 US Top Jazz Albums (Billboard)
of the most celebrated careers in music                                                                                                      • Smule Campaign: 151k views, ~8k submissions
history, stretching over more than 70                                                                                                        • Reddit AMA: Views: 200k
years. In 2018, Tony Bennett teamed
up with jazz icon, Diana Krall, to release     the album’s tracklist were posted across            Following the release of the album,
a duets album, Love Is Here to Stay,           each artist’s social channels to continue        a video of the full song was released
consisting of songs from Tin Pan Alley         to build anticipation amongst fans.              featuring fan submissions singing
songwriter George Gershwin. The album          Additionally, we hosted an email for entry       alongside Tony Bennett. Tony Bennett
was first announced on Tony Bennett’s          sweepstakes giving away a hand-drawn             shared the video on his YouTube channel
92nd birthday across Bennett’s and             sketch from Tony himself featuring the           and social media platforms as a thank you
Krall’s social media accounts, along with      album tracklist.                                 to fans for their involvement. On album
the album’s cover art. Leading up to the           Next, the campaign utilised singing          street date, Tony Bennett took over Travel
announcement, fans were able to submit         app Smule to launch the ‘Duet With               & Leisure’s Instagram Stories featuring
their birthday wishes to Tony Bennett          Tony’ campaign where fans could record           his travels, artwork and new album,
and he shared a few fan birthday wishes        themselves singing along to the album            Love Is Here To Stay. The direct-to-fan
on his social media channels. From there,      title track, ‘Love Is Here to Stay’, alongside   e-commerce offering further reflected this
Fame House and Verve Label Group               Tony Bennett himself. Fans recorded
                                               themselves singing Diana Krall’s parts on
                                                                                                theme of bringing fans into the creative
                                                                                                process.
                                                                                                                                                ! campaign breakdown
collaborated on marketing the album,
with a focus on bringing the fans into the     the track ‘Love Is Here To Stay’, giving fans       Within the first 48 hours of the
creative process.                              a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to duet         pre-order, fans had the opportunity to                  CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
   This began with the rollout of a trove      with one of the most illustrious vocalists       purchase an exclusive album package                      AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
of behind-the-scenes teaser content            in history, Tony Bennett. Fans could then        that included a print of Tony Bennett’s                       AGE: 45-59, 60+
featuring footage of Tony and Diana            share their duets to their own social            own painting of his view from his NYC                 AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 48% / 52%
constructing the album together in the         media, generating further awareness for          apartment, alongside a collectible VIP                       LOCATION: Global
studio. Lyric graphics and videos from         the album.                                       lanyard and a digital pre-order of Love

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

ANDREA BOCELLI                                                                       DECCA RECORDS (UK), VERVE (US), SUGAR (IT)

Team members involved                                Sì is Andrea’s first album of new music in                                                      Facebook placements optimised for awareness, and reused data to
                                                 14 years, so it was vital that the strength of                                                      push fans through the marketing funnel. This meant we enjoyed
Sophie Hilton – director of marketing, Decca     the new songs was forefront; and the album                                                          Facebook ads which performed above benchmark across the board,
David Heath – senior digital marketing           included duet partners such as Ed Sheeran,                                                          encouraging strong social growth. At the forefront was our Facebook
manager, Decca                                   Dua Lipa, and Andrea’s son, Matteo Bocelli.                                                         Canvas creative; a customisable and immersive storytelling format
Toby Hawkins – senior digital media planner,     We also knew that the track ‘Fall On Me’                                                            which gives us a way to tell the full story of the album and which
Fused                                            would appear on Disney’s The Nutcracker                                                             achieved an incredibly low CPM.
Graham Parker – president UMC, Verve             soundtrack. This presented enormous                                                                     Our Facebook Live Q&A reached 904.1k people and achieved
Holly Adams – SVP strategic marketing,           opportunities to leverage with our digital                                                          159.3k engagements. It was a huge moment for us at a key time for
Verve                                            spend and led us to develop creatives that                                                          awareness, overperforming at a rate of 28x above benchmark.
Hadley Spanier – head of marketing, Verve        would resonate with these audiences,                                                                    The multi-language ads were also a huge success, and saw us
Michael Allen – VP digital, Verve                tapping into new fanbases too. We took                                                              achieve an incredibly efficient CPM rate at half of benchmark (£9.14
Caitlin Colletti – director digital marketing,   a storytelling approach, relying on video                                                           against a benchmark of £18.53).
Verve                                            that focused on the connection between                                                                  We ran a search and display campaign through the Google Display
Megan Mark – manager digital marketing,          Andrea’s music and his family.                     we produced, which were recorded in              Network, focusing on The Nutcracker, and audiences of shows where
Verve                                                Central to the campaign was Andrea’s           multiple languages including Italian, English,   Andrea had made TV appearances (such as The New York Times,
Justin Jesena – director digital analytics,      duet with his son, Matteo, which culminated        Spanish, and even Russian. To exploit this,      CNN, and Billboard). On YouTube, we ran TrueView ads, and took
Verve                                            in a music video for ‘Fall On Me’. This            we ran ads targeting users based on their        advantage of a new feature where we could target user uploaded
Emily Frost – senior digital media planner       connected perfectly. Just one month after          device’s language settings. For example,         content featuring our music with YouTube Cards, directing viewers to
Francesco Pasquero – Sugar Music                 launch it has become one of Andrea’s               Russian fans living in the UK would have         official content and retail.
Alberto Locatelli – Sugar Music                  most-viewed videos of all time. To celebrate,      seen Russian language versions of our                Our global Linkfire link generated circa 300k clicks over the course
Luca Oldani – Scozzese                           YouTube presented Andrea with their golden         advertising.                                     of the four-month campaign.
                                                 button award, marking the milestone of                 We carefully reused data throughout              In its opening week, Sì became a #1 album in both the UK and US
Overview of campaign                             1m channel subscribers – the first ever            the campaign and remarketed to fans with         album charts. Andrea Bocelli’s first #1 album ever, and 20 years after
                                                           classical singer to achieve this feat!   newer and more relevant content, including       the last classical album topped the UK chart.
The campaign began with an in-depth                           We also filmed a Facebook Live        clips from Andrea’s appearances on US
report from our internal insights team to                                 Q&A two days before       and UK television. We never ran one piece
understand Andrea’s audiences and their                                     release, solidifying    of video for more than a few days, and
habits – online and offline. This would                                     the father and son      consistently refreshed the visuals, meaning          ! campaign breakdown
help us decide a creative direction                                         bond portrayed in the   the frequency amongst our audience
as well as plan and allocate media                                               video.             showed huge increases in brand lift.
                                                                                                                                                                CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
spends. Key findings included that                                                      Andrea’s
our core audience consumes                                                           reach is       Results & key learnings                                      AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
news online in a web browser,                                                         global and                                                              AGE: 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59, 60+
uses Facebook as their primary                                                         this was     Once we had developed our creative                     AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): Slight female skew
social network and consumes                                                            reflected    strategy, we focused on platforms where                           LOCATION: Global
music online using YouTube.                                                         in the assets   we knew our audience would be. We built

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                             BEST
                                                                                                                                                                                                CRYPTIC
                                                                                                                                                                                               CAMPAIGN

BRING ME THE HORIZON                                                                                        RCA UK

Team members involved                                                                                                                     Results & key learnings

Nick Antoniou – senior digital marketing                                                                                                  The campaign lead to the single premiere on Radio 1 as Annie
manager, Sony Music UK                                                                                                                    Mac’s Hottest Record. Following the set-up of the ‘Mantra’ teaser
Will Stevens – marketing manager,                                                                                                         campaign, we launched the album pre-order across the band’s
Sony Music UK                                                                                                                             socials and introduced their new official website, as well as their
Sophie Graham – international marketing                                                                                                   official stores.
manager, Sony Music                                                                                                                           Across the band’s website and official stores, we’ve had almost
Raw Power Management                                                                                                                      1m page views and 7,000 product sales with Instagram being the
                                                                                                                                          second-highest revenue driver after the band’s website and mailers.
Overview of campaign                                                                                                                          The reaction across the band’s socials was incredible, with more
                                                                                                                                          than 20m impressions over those two weeks which is the most
Bring Me The Horizon have been on a                                                                                                       the band ever had in one week. On launch, we also delivered 75,000
rocket of a journey over the last few years,   decode and piece together the puzzle left                                                  emails with a 26% open rate. The album reached a total of 5k pre-
selling over 2m albums globally to date        by the band. With support and interest                                                     orders in these two weeks which was 1k more than total pre-orders
and playing sold-out shows in over 40          from press such as Kerrang! and NME,                                                       of their previous album, That’s The Spirit. The campaign resulted in
countries, including two sold out nights at    it was on everyone’s minds that Bring                                                      peaking at #10 on the iTunes chart, entering the iTunes Top 50 in 44
The O2.                                        Me The Horizon were set for a climactic                                                    countries and the pseudo video trended at #1 on YouTube.
   To promote the band’s comeback              return.                                                                                        On Spotify, the track was streamed 5.3m times and was added to
single, ‘MANTRA’, and to support them              The campaign set-up had everything:                                                    15 New Music Friday playlists, including #4 in the UK and #6 in the
in maintaining this momentum as well           from finding 10 different voiceover actors,                                                US. It was also added as the first track to Rock This, as well as to a
as pushing them further, we launched a         recording 45 minutes’ worth of audio          We kept updating the voice message           further 33 Spotify lists with ‘MANTRA’ in #1 position in 13 of those.
mysterious two-week global outdoor and         messages, setting up 12 different phone       every 72 hours to encourage fans to keep     Similarly, on Apple Music the band received support across the board.
digital campaign.                              lines in 10 countries… to getting posters     calling. The more they stayed on the line,       All this aside, the campaign has firmly re-established Bring Me
   Centralising the theme around a fake        displayed around the world, building          the more clues and audio teasers they        The Horizon as one of the leading alternative bands produced by the
cult, posters were displayed across the        four websites, hiring actors pretending       would get.                                   UK and has since made them a household name.
globe which pointed the public towards         to be part of the cult before the band’s         The fanbase was fully reignited and
a website and a hotline, which received        performance at Reading Festival. The          new listeners were on board, making
over 40,000 calls in two weeks. What           campaign successfully combined together
                                               tangible and digital experiences, bringing
                                                                                             Bring Me The Horizon a household name,
                                                                                             As a result, the press coverage has
                                                                                                                                              ! campaign breakdown
was waiting for them was a mysterious
website urging them to “Join a Cult” called    the overall theme of the lead single into     been constant. There has been amazing
MANTRA and an answering machine                the real world.                               support across the board including an                  CAMPAIGN BUDGET £5,001-£10,000
which played unsettling voice messages             The phone line was hugely successful,     NME feature and a Kerrang! cover and                       AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
and teased snippets from the band’s            receiving more than 40,000 calls in two       interview, followed by being made Greg’s                        AGE: 14-18, 19-24
upcoming single. Each time it was called,      weeks, with an average call duration of       Tune Of The Week and Annie Mac’s                       AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 60% / 40%
different teasers played, provoking            five minutes. On launch we had more than      Hottest Record on Radio 1 upon release,                        LOCATION: Global
enthusiastic fans across the internet to       100 people on the line at the same time!      earning its place firmly on the A-List.

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Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                     BEST LIVE TV
                                                                                                                                                                                           & SOCIAL

BRIT AWARDS 2018
                                                                                                                                                                                          MEDIA EVENT

                                                                                        BPI / SOMETHIN’ ELSE

                                                                                                                                               BRITs in real time as we broadcasted live on every
                                                                                                                                               platform (Musical.ly, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube
                                                                                                                                               and Twitter) – a first for a UK awards show. Content
                                                                                                                                               was also syndicated to artists to spread the celebration
                                                                                                                                               surrounding the winners and performances.

                                                                                                                                                Results & key learnings

                                                                                                                                                Our success is measured by follower growth, engagement
                                                                                                                                                and video views – always driving to a peak on awards night.
                                                                                         involved going live on all platforms,        We also evaluate the quality of artist involvement. Our goal is to
                                                                                         curating regular social stories on           make The BRITs relevant to a younger, global, social audience.
                                                                                         Instagram and Snapchat, delivering              We secured 57 social activations with BRITs talent in the build-up,
                                                                                         exclusive video content on Facebook and      including a digital exclusive performer announcement during a Liam
                                                                                         YouTube and providing always-on artist       Payne Twitter Q&A. This one activation generated 2.2m impressions
                                                                                         updates on Twitter. These activations        and 211.6k engagements.
                                                                                         were accompanied by the audience-facing         One KPI was to increase live stream views on event day: we
                                                                                         call to action; “Celebrate with us on 21     achieved our largest live audience ever with 8.1m views across seven
                                                                                         February”, designed to drive a single        streams. Our YouTube live stream views alone increased by 57%. We
                                                                                         ‘tune-in’ message for the night itself.      reached another KPI by breaking 3m social followers.
Team members involved                      Overview of campaign                              Our strategy focussed around @BRITs’        At the awards we worked with 60 individuals to capture exclusive
                                                                                         social audience and pop music fans.          content, including for our Instagram Story which saw a 482%
Giuseppe De Cristofano – director of       In 2018, we provided The BRIT Awards’         Throughout the campaign, we gave our         increase in views. We dominated nine out of 10 UK trends on Twitter,
digital, BPI                               digital audience with the most                audience more opportunities to engage        appeared in three out of 10 worldwide trends and generated over
Dorothy Hui – VP of digital, Sony          comprehensive experience of the show in       with their favourite BRITs talent. We also   1.8m engagements. In the week following, we had 17.9m Facebook
Adam Cardew – digital director, Sony       its 38 year history.                          optimised content for every platform;        video views.
                                               Between October 2017 and February         developing the relationship with our
All from Somethin’ Else                    2018, we utilised the best social platform    followers and promoting the awards.
Tom Young – executive producer             features, mimicked how our audience               We recruited a 15-strong influencer          ! campaign breakdown
Nan Davies – executive producer            interact and engaged with our biggest         squad and worked with over 50 nominees,
Lee-Anne Richardson – head of production   fans to embed ourselves in their feed,        performers, presenters and guests to
Zosia Morris – senior producer             utilise them as evangelists and grow @        amplify big moments and key campaign                      CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
Tom Pollard – video producer               BRITs’ personality, brand and audience.       messaging. By leveraging these accounts,                   AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
Will Hardy – social producer                   Central to this approach was our          we led their consumers to the @BRITs                         AGE: 14-18, 19-24, 25-34
Grace Medford – social producer            “excitement you have to share” mentality      content that would be most relevant.                   AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 30% / 70%
Niomi Fraser – assistant social producer   where we created must-see, shareable              On awards day, consumers experienced                        LOCATION: UK
Chris Blacklay – designer                  moments across all platforms. This            the excitement and celebration of The

9 | sandbox | ISSUE 218 | 12.12.18
Sandbox - thE year's best music marketing campaigns - MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA - Music Ally
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                              BEST
                                                                                                                                                                                                  USE OF
                                                                                                                                                                                               GEOLOCATION

BURY TOMORROW                                                                      Sony Music/Music for Nations

Team members involved                                                                                                                       to meet the band during soundcheck they needed to share a
                                                                                                                                            pre-loaded text tweet in order to win. This tweet included venue
Julie Weir – label head                                                                                                                     specific information such as date, time, ticket links and also
Joel De’ath – marketing manager                                                                                                             included a link to the tour playlist on Spotify.
Tom Critten – marketing assistant                                                                                                              With over 1,000 entries, streaming figures quadrupled as a
                                                                                                                                            result of the viral upsurge in tweets sharing the streaming link
Overview of campaign                                                                                                                        and excitement during the upcoming tour. Also as a result of
                                                                                                                                            people being made aware of the tour dates regularly the majority
Utilising Google Maps and location-                                                                                                         of dates along the tour sold out post the release of the third
tracking technology, we created a band-                                                                                                     section of this initiative.
branded map, hosted on the band’s official
website.                                                                                                                                    Results & key learnings
    Using the iconic design of the Black
Flame sigil, we invited fans to “Claim Their                                                                                                • We gained a visual representation of the distribution of Bury
Flame” in which they pre-saved the                                                                                                          Tomorrow fans globally.
album playlist on streaming services,                                                                                                       • We gained in total 3,500 followers to the Black Flame album playlist
placing a geographical stake in the                                                                                                         • We quadrupled streams to that playlist with our third incarnation
ground above their location, showing                                                                                                        promoting the tour playlist (with Black Flame tracks at the top)
their dedication to the band and                                                              add gold branding to their previous black     • We increased organic engagement with Bury Tomorrow on socials
excitement for the upcoming album.                                                            flame and gave fans a chance to ‘collect’ a   with map discussions on social media.
    During the first week of the                                                              higher prestige than other fans promoting     • The band achieved their highest chart position with this album
initiative, we garnered 2,057 unique                                                          competition.                                  (#21) compared to previous albums (highest #38).
followers to a newly created playlist,                                                           This again inspired organic posting        • We were able to garner further support with live music companies
and as an aside we benefitted from                                                            between fans as they competed to be           by offering access to our marketing campaign, whilst also ensuring
1,173 unique mailing list signups.                                                            the first to view the video, and the first    the album was promoted, resulting in the quadrupling of streams.
These figures now stand at just below                                                         to obtain a gold sigil, leading to more       • Favourable Spotify playlisting through promoting pre-saves.
double for the entire campaign.                particular fans in far-off locations (such     excitement around the track.
    Visually the black flame sigil engulfed    as Iceland) and reward them for being             Post-album release, we decided to
the entire world, leaving limited ground       fans of the band). Given the success of        re-engage the Black Flame map for a third
                                                                                              time. This time attempting to promote
                                                                                                                                                ! campaign breakdown
untouched by the flame, giving a visual        the campaign we decided to reignite the
representation to the popularity of the        initiative around the release of the second    streaming figures and ticket sales around
band. It also stimulated conversation          single, ‘Knife Of Gold’.                       their upcoming UK and European tour. We                   CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
between fans on social media, by                   We offered fans the chance to view the     included a golden ticket icon above each                   AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
screenshotting their own particular flame      video 24 hours early, whereby in return        location of the gig venues along the tour.                   AGE: 14-18, 19-24, 25-34
on the map and attempting to connect           for a sign-up to the mailing list, the video      Fans were instructed in order to win                AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 60% / 40%
with others in their proximity.                would be emailed to them before anyone         the chance for early entry to the show,              LOCATION: GB / DE / US / ES / BR / AU / NL
    We ran organic initiatives to find         else. This also offered fans the chance to     a further two tickets, and the chance

10 | sandbox | ISSUE 218 | 12.12.18
SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

JOHN COLTRANE                                                             VERVE LABEL GROUP/FAME HOUSE

Team members involved                                                                                                                                     fans with the branding of The Lost Album: Both
                                                                                                                                                          Directions At Once.
Emily Levy – Fame House                                                                                                                                      Phase two of the campaign included a
Leslie Owens – Fame House                                                                                                                                 Coltrane covers campaign where fans were
Alex Hines – Fame House                                                                                                                                   encouraged to enter a hashtag social media
Oliver Schrage – Verve Label Group                                                                                                                        campaign by posting their covers of tracks from
Hadley Spanier – Verve Label Group                                                                                                                        the album to unlock never before seen footage
Megan Mark – Verve Label Group                                                                                                                            of Ravi Coltrane at Van Gelder Studio where his
Caitlin Colletti – Verve Label Group                                                                                                                      father, John Coltrane, recorded the album.
Justin Jesena – Verve Label Group
Michael Allen – Verve Label Group                                                                                                                          Results & key learnings
Danny Bennett – Verve Label Group
                                                                                                                                                           Interestingly, nearly 60% of link clicks throughout
Overview of campaign                                                                      or that matched similar demographic           the campaign were attributed to look-alike audiences of fans
                                                                                            profiles of direct fans of John Coltrane.   that may not have directly followed Coltrane’s pages, but were
In 1963, world-renowned and Pulitzer                                                        Ads utilised a mix of video containing      demographically similar to those direct fans. This may indicate that
Prize-winning jazz saxophonist and                                                       the new music, images from the box set,        direct fans were aware of the album and chose to purchase through
composer, John Coltrane, recorded a         accumulated over 1.2m followers who          and text about the release to entice fans      their preferred means of buying music, and therefore didn’t need the
series of songs that were never released.   monitor the page for anecdotes and           to explore further.                            help of advertisements to be reminded to purchase.
In 2018, fans finally had the opportunity   highlights from the artist’s catalogue.         This creative was A/B tested across            Furthermore, clicks to Linkfire were almost evenly split across
to hear these songs via the release of          Similarly, fans still Google for         each online channel to see which content       social media and Google’s search and display network despite a
Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album     information, images and videos related to    struck a chord with each subset of             majority of the budget being allocated to Facebook and Instagram.
on Verve Label Group. Verve Label Group     John Coltrane on a daily basis. Knowing      fans. Facebook proved to be the most           Google display also yielded a more inexpensive cost-per-click,
and Fame House’s goal for this album        this, Fame House’s paid media strategy       successful platform throughout the             indicating that John Coltrane fans may be more likely to purchase
was to drive streams and purchases          aimed at reaching fans in these online       campaign since it allowed for wider            music while browsing the web than while scrolling through their
of the album. To achieve this, Verve        locations with the goal of converting them   targeting based on interests fans had          news feeds.
Label Group and Fame House devised          to purchase. Additionally, Fame House        expressed on the social network, as well
a comprehensive digital paid media          and Verve looked beyond jazz standards       as the ability for more dynamic photo
strategy across social media and search/    and classics by serving ads to fans of       video content than possible on search
                                                                                         and display. Fans on Facebook were also
                                                                                                                                            ! campaign breakdown
display placements, beginning with          hip-hop and funk as a way of reaching
the launch of the album’s pre-order in      listeners who may be accustomed to           exposed to multiple pieces of content
addition to a robust teaser campaign        widely used samples of the jazz greats       throughout the campaign, allowing for a                     CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
featuring never-before-seen journals and    like Coltrane.                               larger story to be told around the album’s                   AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
tapes from the album’s recording at Van         Verve Label Group and Fame House         release. Impulse Records/Verve Label                        AGE: 25-34, 35-44, 45-59, 60+
Gelder Studio in 1963. Although Coltrane    targeted online users that had expressed     Group also created a Coltrane Trivia                     AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 70% / 30%
passed decades before the birth of the      direct interest in John Coltrane over the    campaign where fans could test their                             LOCATION: Global
internet, his official Facebook page has    years, as well as fans of similar artists    knowledge of John Coltrane and engage

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SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

DEEZER
Team members involved

Global, UK, Brazil and Colombia artist
marketing and comms teams at Deezer
Good Relations – PR agency

Overview of campaign

Music is incredibly personal and can move
listeners to a certain emotion or memory.                                                                                               Deezer’s core message of personalisation, but it was also a key part
However the same song can evoke                                                                                                         of supporting and promoting the Deezer NEXT programme. Around
different feelings or have alternative                                                                                                  the time each campaign launched, the NEXT musicians involved
meanings for each person. For example,                                                                                                  experienced a positive increase in streams of their songs featured in
one may feel heartbreak but another may                                                                                                 the campaign as follows (from launch date):
feel empowerment. Deezer’s Music With                                                                                                       • 159% increase Zak Abel’s ‘Love Song’ between 16th September
Sole showcased this personal journey                                                                                                        and 22nd October
through a digital campaign that visually                                                                                                    • 102% increase of Cythia Luz’s ‘Deixa Ela’ between 7th and 9th
showed the different interpretations of                                                                                                     November
the same song.                                                                                                                              • 29% increase of Feid’s ‘Nuestra Canción’ between 16th and 21st
    Using the close connection between          Deezer challenged the graphic artist in     to negativity, Zak’s shoes were covered         September
sneaker culture and music, Deezer               each region to first listen to the track    in warm ‘sunset’ colours to signify the
challenged a graphic artist and a musician      on their own, before creating their         positive end to his relationship. For       The media and press worldwide were also engaged with the story,
in three different countries to use colourful   interpretation on a blank sneaker. The      every region, the shoes were completely     with titles covering the story included Séries em Cena (Brazil)
sneaker designs to show what a song meant       musician then described the meaning of      contrasting and visually showed the         Yahoo! News (UK) and El Tiempo (Colombia) and totalling a reach of
to them personally. All three musicians         their song. For example in the UK, Daniel   deeper meaning music has to each            156,455,841. The long version of the video generated a total of over
involved in Music With Sole were part of        Cordas drew a burning bridge and a toxic    person.                                     185,000 views across all social platforms in Colombia and UK.
Deezer’s support programme, Deezer NEXT,        ocean to reflect a bad breakup in Zak’s        The designers also created a special
as the development of emerging artists is       ‘Love Song’. While Daniel had alluded       Deezer ‘Flow’ pair, featuring the songs
hugely important to Deezer’s ethos. The                                                     that influenced both artists on their           ! campaign breakdown
pairings were as follows:                                                                   creative path. To launch the campaign,
    • Brazil: hip-hop singer Cynthia Luz                                                    Deezer created a wide range of assets
    with artist Pomb interpreting ‘Deixa                                                    including video and a competition for PR,                   CAMPAIGN BUDGET N/A
    Ela’                                                                                    social and the Deezer community.                           AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
    • Colombia: reggaeton singer Feid with                                                                                                         AGE: 14-18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59
    artist Pol interpreting ‘Nuestra Canción’                                               Results & key learnings                                   AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): N/A
    • UK: pop singer Zak Abel and artist                                                                                                            LOCATION: Brazil, UK and Colombia
    Daniel Cordas interpreting ‘Love Song’                                                  The campaign was designed to show

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SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                              BEST
                                                                                                                                                                                              FAMILY-CENTRIC
                                                                                                                                                                                                MARKETING

DISNEY                                UNIVERSAL MUSIC (UMC)

                                            Overview of campaign                           of the site, encouraging them to pick           Results & key learnings
                                                                                           different Disney tracks to sing-along with.
                                            Families love to sing along to Disney          One of our innovative creatives was a           We reached #1 in the compilations chart
                                            music. This insight may be unsurprising        ‘build your own microphone’ asset that we       on week one and were pleased to see that
                                            for most people and, as such, UMC              put on Pinterest, the creative seamlessly       the sales of the albums are sustaining,
                                            has released multiple successful sing-         fitting into the platform with a crafty twist   dropping only one place in week two and
                                            along titles. As the world has become          to promoting our album. We also created         three respectively.
                                            increasingly more digital, we have seen        Snapchat geofilters around Disney stores.           This campaign saw over 5m impressions delivered, 1.4m views
                                            that families like to share their sing-along   Our social media assets worked in perfect       across different content and platforms with over 60k clicks to
                                            moments with the world, uploading videos       unison with our family-centric TV ad            retailers via Linkfire. Our approach for stand out creative worked
                                            across social platforms. We therefore          which saw kids and parents singing along        delivering an engagement rate 377% higher than Universal
                                            saw an opportunity, to marry songs from        in costumes in and around the home.             Benchmark across Facebook and Instagram in feed with video ads.
                                            across the Disney catalogue with official          We had witnessed the phenomenon                 Using multiple ad formats on one platform was also a great
                                            sing-along instrumental versions in one        of UGC featuring kids ‘singing their heart      success with our ‘Swipe up to sing along’ Instagram Stories gaining
                                            package for the first time. From nostalgic     out’ with Frozen, so we partnered with          a 127% higher view through rate than Benchmark. We also saw
                                            favourites like ‘Under The Sea’ to new         Disney Junior to launch a competition           brilliant success from our first foray into Instagram GIFs, with over
                                            smash hits such as ‘How Far I’ll Go’, ‘Sing    asking parents to capture their little ones     55k views on one of the stickers in 24 hours.
                                            Your Heart Out Disney’ has a song for          singing ‘How Far I’ll Go’ for a chance to win       Silence Media returned a fantastic engagement rate with dwell
                                            every voice to sing-along with – bringing      the album and be featured in a new music        time 20% longer and a CTR 300% higher than industry benchmark.
                                            together the best-selling compilation          video for the track which would appear on       Over 27 hours of total interaction time with the interactive packshot
                                            brand with Disney for the first time.          the Disney Junior Vevo channel.                 across premium sites, a great win for us.
                                               From the outset, we wanted to employ            Influencers played a vital part in          • Varied media mix allowing cross platform frequency among core
                                            marketing strategies that integrated into      the digital strategy on this campaign.          audiences
                                            native Disney activity, encouraged parent-     We have built a pool of Disney fans             • Moment targeting also key for engagement (Twitter targeting half-
Team members involved                       to-parent sharing and paired a bought          at UMC that we’ve established strong            term conversation during half-term)
                                            media plan with relatable video creative.      relationships with. We sent products
Hannah Chadwick – marketing manager,
Toni Tuesday – digital marketing manager,
                                               Wanting to ensure we would reach
                                            our audience at as many touch points as
                                                                                           to relevant influencers (those with kids,
                                                                                           those who love to sing, UK-based) and               ! campaign breakdown
Shannon Conway – digital creative content   possible, we therefore created bespoke         encouraged them to ‘story’ themselves
co-ordinator, Carolyn Allen-Coyle – A&R     content that felt native to each platform.     singing and using our Instagram stickers              CAMPAIGN BUDGET £10,001–£15,000
consultant (all UMC)                        From Instagram stories with cute kids          and a swipe up CTA.                                       AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
Mickey Tropeano – digital media planner,    asking you to “swipe up to sing along”,            Looking back on the campaign, our
                                                                                                                                                       AGE: 0-13, 25-34, 35-44
Fused                                       to carousels created from lyric videos,        creatives paired with audience-first
Nancy Coburn – marketing manager, Disney    framed in a Sing Your Heart Out Disney         marketing approach including tactic
                                                                                                                                            AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): Primarily female parents of
Jamie McCall – marketing co-ordinator,      border. These square edits were also           remarketing strategies, helped to deliver us                     young kids
Disney                                      used on Silence Media where we built an        a #1 album.                                                  LOCATION: UK only
ELS – TV ad                                 interactive banner aimed to engage users

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SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                      BEST
                                                                                                                                                                                          USE OF
                                                                                                                                                                                         PODCASTS

GEORGE EZRA                                                        COLUMBIA RECORDS UK

Team members involved

Edd Blower – senior digital marketing
manager, Columbia Records UK
Alex Eden-Smith – head of marketing,
Columbia Records UK
Corrina Kavanagh – audience development
manager, Columbia Records UK
Sheniece Charway – marketing assistant,
Columbia Records UK
Emma-Lee Percy – senior CRM manager, 4th
Floor Creative, Sony Music UK
Ryan Lofthouse, Josh Sanger, Amanda Playle
& Matt Walker – Closer Artists

Overview of campaign
                                                                                                                                         social moments like the Shotgun Burp and continued to extend
It had been three years since George’s                                                                                                   his ad creative.
first 4x platinum album was released
and in our research we learnt that not                                                                                                   Results & key learnings
everyone had seen the content from
album #1. In the lead up to the first single,   ran x6 creatives on launch that aligned     and his humour/smile front and centre in     • #1 album
we began re-engaging his lapsed fans            with our audience targeting. In the 10      his lyric videos was a deliberate decision   • #1 single
with online ads, using previous videos          weeks between launch and release,           and something that resonated – with          • 2x platinum singles
such as his live sessions, Ezra Express,        our advertising strategy was focused        ‘Shotgun’ hitting over 100m views.           •Best-selling artist album of 2018
music videos and behind-the-scenes              on who the audience was, where they            His pet project, the George Ezra &        • Database growth of over 54% in one year
footage.                                        are online and how engaged they were        Friends podcast, was also an incredible
    We also launched his weekly journal, a      with George. We then ran a host of          format that allowed listeners to discover
newsletter that George writes each week,        different ad creatives to take the fans     more about him and his guests, talking
                                                                                            honestly about a variety of subjects.
                                                                                                                                             ! campaign breakdown
giving his fans an insight into his week        deeper into George’s world. Most of
and the occasional exclusive. It has been       these ads took learnings from what was      Around the album release, Apple Music
running for 85+ weeks. This then bled into      overperforming on his socials organically   hosted the live Abbey Road video                         CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
his March tour and studio sessions, both        and were therefore built around George’s    sessions. Spotify hosted an intimate                      AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
of which were opportunities to capture          personality, musicianship or humour. For    event at “Tamara’s” for his top fans.            AGE: 0-13, 14–18, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59, 60+
photos and videos, which we used leading        example, one of our best-performing ads        Since release, we have continued to              AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 40% / 60%
to the album launch in January 2018.            was a video of George watching his own      document George’s global touring story                           LOCATION: UK
    Alongside our pre-order incentive, we       advert. In a similar vein, putting George   with videos and photos, reacted to organic

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SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

FIRST AID KIT                                                  COLUMBIA RECORDS

                                                                                         chosen given the respective sound quality     Results & key learnings
                                                                                         and intimacy of each medium.
                                                                                            To add the element of surprise, we         • Week-one album sales up 70% against previous album, Stay Gold.
                                                                                         recorded entire “sound scenes” binaurally     Ruins charted at #3 on release week, eight places above Stay Gold. It
                                                                                         – a first for any music cinema campaign       is both the highest-charting folk and Americana album this year.
                                                                                         – that allows the audience to hear in full    • The cinema ad was recognised at the Digital Cinema Media Awards
                                                                                         360-degree surround sound. The creative       in two categories: “Highly commended” in the Best Use Of Innovation
                                                                                         featured the sisters signing acoustic         In Cinema category and nominated for Best Use of Cinema (Small).
Team members involved                        content and media to count; you need        versions of the lead singles whilst walking   Competition came from the likes of Sky, Max Factor and Nike so it
                                             to cut through and so surprising your       around the Zylia microphone allowing          shows that music campaigns can compete with brands with much
Sim Rollison – senior digital marketing      audience with something they haven’t        the audience to feel at the centre of their   larger budgets given the right idea and execution.
manager, Columbia Records                    seen or heard before is going to be your    harmonies.
Bec Adams – senior marketing manager,        best route to success.                         The band’s audience tend to be 25+ and
Columbia Records                                Live has always been one of First        ABC1 – and their cultural consumption
Laurence Warder – director, Sony Music       Aid Kit’s strengths and we wanted to        leans towards ‘indie’ media, therefore            ! campaign breakdown
Kris Winter – audio engineer, Sony Music     put performance front and centre when       arthouse cinemas (with full Dolby sound)
Liam Jenkinson – media planner, The 7Stars   marketing their fourth album, Ruins. The    were a natural choice, especially as the
                                             plan was to record the band’s duets using   album release coincided with Oscar                        CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
Overview of campaign                         the state-of-the-art audio equipment and    season. For the podcast adverts, we                        AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
                                             give fans the opportunity to hear their     worked with Acast to target film, music                   AGE: 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-59
Adverts are usually endured rather than      vocals in the best possible environments;   and culture shows, testing two different               AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 50% / 50%
enjoyed. When you’re working on a limited    an innovative harmony between content       tracks to maximise the higher frequency                          LOCATION: UK
budget, you need every penny spent on        and media. Cinema and podcasts were         of this channel.

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SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY                                                                                                                                                                   BEST
                                                                                                                                                                                                         FAN
                                                                                                                                                                                                     ENGAGEMENT

FRANZ FERDINAND                                                                           DOMINO RECORDING COMPANY

Team members involved                                                                                                                                                      fresh personal video content from the band
                                                                                                                                                                           announcing their tours and introducing
All Domino                                                                                                                                                                 new band members Julian and Dino, while
Bart McDonagh – senior product manager                                                                                                                                     a series of vignettes captured in the studio
Brooke Salisbury – head of marketing                                                                                                                                       wove through the set up period to further
Will Grant – digital marketing manager (UK                                                                                                                                 share the album’s narrative.
& international)                                                                                                                                                               The band were strong with numbers
Corey Zaloom – digital marketing manager                                                                                                                                   on Facebook (1.9m), but fairly new to
(North and Latin America)                                                                                                                                                  Instagram, and we’ve close to trebled their
Jason Reed – head of digital                                                                                                                                               followers here across the campaign – from
Brandon Becker – head of global digital                                                                                                                                    60k on announce in October 2017 to 115k
accounts                                                                                                                                                                   on release in February 2018 and 160k today.
Björn Flòki Bjornsson – digital design                                                                                                                                     Equally their Vevo subscribers have more
manager                                                                                                                                                                    than doubled during the campaign and their
Glynn Bolter – junior digital designer                                                          exclusive music video for single ‘Feel The      Twitter has grown by over 30%. It’s just been Facebook that’s proven
Johanna McManus – US product manager                                                            Love Go’ and captured social content for        tougher to drive scale of growth, which is relatable for many artists.
Cerne Canning – Red Light Management                                                            Apple’s channels – a ‘Glasouija Board’ video    Using unique merchandise packs as prizes, we more than doubled
                                                                                                Q&A. A Side By Side audio commentary            the band’s mailing list size across the campaign with ‘sign up to win’
Overview of campaign /                                                                          piece for Alexa and a First & Last Time video   competitions – a hugely successful mechanic when working with a
Results & key learnings                                                                         interview gave Amazon users a unique            large social fanbase.
                                                album announcement, the band Facebook           perspective on the new material. Superfan          There’s never a shortage of ideas when it comes to working with
Always Ascending followed a few years’          live streamed a tiny gig from Paris, which      events with Spotify and Deezer furthered        Franz. With DSP partnership opportunities and social innovations
hiatus for the band. They’d released Right      coupled with the album news saw full            fans’ opportunities to directly connect with    stronger than ever, and a band who are a label’s dream – creative,
Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action in          penetration of their 1.9m Facebook fans         the band.                                       deeply involved, hard-working – 2018 proved an especially fun and
August 2013 and toured it globally, had a       across 24 hours.                                   We started the campaign with 3m Spotify      fruitful time to take the band to market globally.
shift in line-up and spent a year writing and       We revived the Franz Ferdinand Fan Club     monthly listeners, launched the album with
demoing their new music before recording in     - once run by post and email – to beef up our   4.3m and 10 months post-release have
Paris with producer Phillipe Zdar.
   This break between albums had seen
                                                Spotify pre-save offering, incentivising the
                                                band’s fanbase to follow them on Spotify
                                                                                                maintained at 4.2m. Based on their Spotify
                                                                                                toplist, we created The Sound of Franz
                                                                                                                                                    ! campaign breakdown
the major shift in consumption trends           and save the album with a gated monthly         Ferdinand catalogue playlist and via on-
toward streaming and a multi-territory          web experience featuring exclusive videos,      platform advertising and social shares have               CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
Ralph Lauren sync on ‘Take Me Out’ was          lyric reveals and the opportunity to interact   driven its follower count to 22k.                          AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
driving very healthy catalogue engagement       directly with the band. This attracted north       Close collaboration with the band’s social                   AGE: 25-34, 35-44
as we prepared for the campaign. With           of 4k subscribers, who were added to the        media agency GH05T ensured the right
                                                                                                                                                       AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 60% / 40%
multiple key markets to court, ideas with       band’s mailing list post-release.               mix of social content intersected key time
global scale were crucial to the set-up             The band enlisted friend and director       zones across the span of the campaign. Live      LOCATION: Global, with a particular focus on US, Latin
of Always Ascending. On the day of the          Diane Martel to produce an Apple Music          footage and throwbacks were balanced with                America, France, Germany and UK

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SANDBOX 2018 SURVEY

JERRY GARCIA                                                        RED LIGHT MANAGEMENT

Team members involved                         which was promoted across the platform
                                              and our socials and featured the new
For Red Light Management & Round              music from Before The Dead alongside
Records:                                      Jerry’s later folk & bluegrass side projects
Marc Allan, Kevin Monty, Lauren Goetzinger,   including Old & In The Way, the Jerry
Hank Bateman, Evan Cooper, MC Saunders,       Garcia Acoustic Band, Garcia Grisman,
ATO Records, Gupta Media                      along with collaborations with Link Wray,
                                                        CSNY (Jerry played pedal steel on
Overview of campaign                                         ‘Teach Your Children’) and
                                                                more. We also worked
In May 2018, the Jerry Garcia                                    with our reps and
Family LLC, Round Records                                         programmers at Apple,
and ATO Records released                                          Amazon, and Pandora                                                    Results & key learnings
Before The Dead, a collection                                     on spotlighting the new
of Jerry’s earliest known folk &                                 release in platform-        musical development.                        The promotion cycle helped us net currently over 100k Spotify
bluegrass recordings, pre-dating                                curated playlists, new          Our social media plan was to highlight   followers of Jerry Garcia in addition to rapidly boosting follower
the formation of The Grateful Dead                           release placement and social    Jerry’s rise as a budding folk and          counts on Jerry Garcia social media accounts on Facebook (855k),
in 1965.                                                media promotion.                     bluegrass musician in the Bay Area folk     Instagram (143k). Multiple Instagram stories per week helped us
    From the start, we aimed to market            As Jerry is considered one of the          scene of the early 1960s through sharing    build free impressions about the release at about 8k per story while
this release to the core audience             most prolific live performers of all time,     rare photos and detailed historical notes   reach of the account hit about 50k fans in our key demo per week.
of Garcia/Grateful Dead fans (AKA             it was only natural for us to team up          from the release. We were also able to          A strong retargeting campaign with Gupta coupled with D2C
Deadheads), bluegrass fans and also           with Ticketmaster to send an email             refurbish the oldest-known video of Jerry   marketing from our email list along with a consistent and high
enthusiasts of the rapidly burgeoning         advertising a discount of the release to       Garcia playing music with new audio from    quality content plan on social media resulted in about 4k pre-
Americana genre. First, in order to           affinity touring acts. We were able to         the release which we posted on social       orders/first week sales and significant awareness about the
increase awareness about Garcia’s role        target a significant number of fans which      media to the delight of fans and used in    project to core fans and the greater folk, Americana and classic
in the development of the Americana, we       generated a very competitive open rate         our paid retargeting campaign with Gupta.   rock fan communities.
teamed up with The Bluegrass Situation        and CTR which led to a significant boost in       In addition to sharing anecdotes from
to co-present Jubilee: A Celebration          week one sales.                                Jerry’s friends and collaborators, we
Of Jerry Garcia at the Ace Hotel in Los           We also worked with WSM 650, the
                                              original home of the Grand Ole Opry in
                                                                                             also reposted record stores and fans’
                                                                                             photos of their vinyl sets and executed
                                                                                                                                             ! campaign breakdown
Angeles, which featured an all-star cast
of today’s most visible artists on the        Nashville (a station Jerry listened to as a    the retargeting campaign with Gupta to
Americana/roots rock scene.                   kid) and KZSU Stanford (which originally       core Garcia fans along with bluegrass and               CAMPAIGN BUDGET £25,001+
    On the digital side, we partnered with    broadcasted some of the recordings)            folk fans on Facebook, Instagram, and                    AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC
key DSPs to service the music to key          to get the release on air in front of          Google/YouTube. This sustained output                    AGE: 25-34, 35-44, 45-59, 60+
fan and genre audiences. We teamed up         bluegrass/roots enthusiasts which              of content on all Garcia channels greatly             AUDIENCE GENDER (M/F): 64% / 36%
with the Spotify curation team to create      also made for a unique marketing tie-in        increased awareness about the project for                     LOCATION: Global
a revamped This Is Jerry Garcia playlist      given both of the stations’ roles in Jerry’s   the duration of the campaign.

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