The Best Music Marketing Campaigns of 2015-16

&
THE BEST MUSIC MARKETING
CAMPAIGNS OF 2015-16
NIKOO SADR // @HALLANIKOO
HEAD OF TRAINING & CAMPAIGNS
MUSIC ALLY (UNITED KINGDOM)
BACKGROUND
As part of our training and editorial services Music Ally need to
constantly keep in touch with labels, managers and artists and their
latest digital campaigns. This paper outlines some of those case studies,
giving an overview of the most interesting digital marketing campaigns
of 2015/2016. The examples will be across industry genres, platforms
and range from modest to big budgets. This paper highlights how they
were created, the results they achieved and key learnings.
The campaigns are listed in alphabetical order and cover everything
from massive stars all the way to independent artists. The results and
additional information regarding the campaigns are shared by the team
behind them but Music Ally has summed up key learnings and our own
opinion at the end of each campaign.
BEST CAMPAIGNS OF 2015/2016
1. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
2. GWEN STEFANI
3. LUDOVICO EINAUDI
4. MANS ZELMERLOW
5. MOONES
6. TOVE LO
7. TROYE SIVAN
8. YACHT
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE –
PAINTING WITH
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
THE SET-UP
›
Domino Records and Animal Collective created a
new app, Painting With, to promote the band’s
single, ‘Lying In The Grass’. The track plays
exclusively in the background as fans can paint
together with anyone in the world (or alone) to
create some trippy looking paintings. The
painting can then be turned into a photo or video
and shared to Instagram and Twitter.
›
The Animal Collective app is making strong use
of video - creating an album/single cover that
almost comes to life.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
Finding a way to additionally bring an album ‘alive’
through turning music into visual images and
creating a sharing experience with other people
can prove very useful for, in particular, heavily
visual bands. The Animal Collective app is a nice
spin on creating live visuals that encourages
engagement. Premiering a track only through the
app should have proven incentive enough for fans
to download the app but note that no results were
available for this campaign.
GWEN STEFANI – MAKE ME LIKE YOU
GWEN STEFANI
THE SET-UP
›
Unlike other any other live streamed event Gwen
Stefani provided a ‘first ever live music video’ for
her new single ‘Make Me Like You’ made during this
years’ Grammy’s. Gwen Stefani teamed up with
Target and showed the singer performing live on
stage in her music video during a commercial
break. Through various sets and costume changes
(many of them Target branded, inevitably) and even
included some roller-skating.
›
The video was after the initial premiere available on
Stefani’s Vevo channel. Target also organised
additional material for Facebook, Snapchat and
Periscope as well as bringing YouTubers Todrick
Hall and Meg DeAngelis along to shoot behind-thescenes content and perform cameos in the video.
GWEN STEFANI- RESULTS
 The event got highly publicised and
talked about worldwide, both in
magazines and social media.
 The video got 2m views in a week.
 Target got over 3bn media impressions
in 7 days.
 Pre-orders at Target outperformed the
overall expectations, according to
Interscope Records - and the album
landed Stefani’s first solo no.1 on
Billboard.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
Gwen Stefani found a way to make the most of a live streaming event – a first ever
live filmed music video. A great brand (and influencers) partnership with Target
that proved fruitful and beneficial for all parties both in exposure as well as sales.
LUDOVICO EINAUDI - NIGHT
LUDOVICO EINAUDI
THE SET-UP
›
For the launch of the single, ‘Night’, Decca
Records created a dedicated website together
with the Touch Pianist app. Fans could go on to
the site and guess what the single would sound
like by ‘playing’ it themselves.
›
The music video launched after 24 hours so
fans then could hear what it would sound like.
This was then accompanied by an additional
interactive advertising campaign on Spotify
where fans could play the music directly from
within the browser.
LUDOVICO EINAUDI
THE SET-UP
›
There were also coordinates disguised as
Morse code within the music video. For the
fans that were curious enough about the code,
they would find it pinpointing a river and
bridge near Ludovico’s birth place in Google
Maps.
›
Typing the location into a password box on the
dedicated website revealed a phone number
which fans could use to hear Ludovico’s
answerphone message (and fans could leave
their own messages).
LUDOVICO EINAUDI CAMPAIGN DETAILS
 Label
Decca Records
 Campaign budget
£2000-5000
 Demographics targeting - Gender
Female 55% / Male 45%
 Audience demographics targeting - Age
18-34
 Audience demographic targeting - Location
UK, Italy, US
LUDOVICO EINAUDI - RESULTS
 Website landing page had 8k visitors on launch day.
 Average dwell-time on site was 2 minutes according to the Decca team.
a fantastic result,
 Large amount of return visitors once video was launched after 24
hours.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
A classical artist can and should make use of
the same tactics as pop acts. A well-executed
and well-structured campaign, playing with
new methods to reach a wider audience as well
as serving to super-fans.
MANS ZELMERLOW –
SHOULD’VE GONE HOME
MANS ZELMERLOW
THE SET-UP
›
The aim was to set up a competition in which fans
from all over the world could enter. Fans could, by
working together, unlock the music video (hosted
on YouTube) to “Should’ve Gone Home”. The more
streams “Should’ve Gone Home” got on Spotify, the
faster the video would unlock.
›
If fans could unlock it early, Måns would host an
extra Q&A on Twitter. A percentage meter was
viewable on a dedicated campaign site so
everyone could follow the advancements. The
landing page also contained the Twitter feed
based on #unlockshgh and a map showing the
locations of the hashtags.
MANS ZELMERLOW
 During the campaign period, between 9-21st of September, the number of
unique visitors increased by 16000% and visitors were coming in from all
over the world.
• The video got 300k views in a week.
• The different hashtags being used during the campaign was spread 12746
times by fans from all over the world which resulted in a #1 worldwide
trend on Twitter.
 The streams on “Should’ve Gone Home” increased a lot after the campaign
was over due to the support it got on both radio and Spotify editorially
after the campaign period.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
A stream-to-unlock campaign that perfectly
captured how Spotify and YouTube can be used
in symbiosis and drive additional revenue for
artists as well as creating a momentum for a
video premiere. It was also a competition that
worked perfectly for the target audience
providing them with prizes they desired and
giving them an incentive to spread the word
about the campaign organically.
MOONES – ZOOMES BY MOONES
MOONES
THE SET-UP
›
Just before the New Year, Moones found an
inventive way to livestream and promote their
latest album, Modern Music Moguls. The stream
was featured on YouTube and included footage of
a brick wall in London, with the band challenging
fans to figure out where exactly it was located
and then tweet the code hidden under a piece of
chewing gum stuck to the wall in order to win
£4,000 (initially their budget for a promo video).
›
When certain milestones in views (5k, 10k, 40k)
were reached the camera would reveal more of
the brick wall and the surrounding area.
MOONES - RESULTS
 Extensive coverage in many newspapers extending far out of the usual press
the band usually receives, which also contributed to bringing in new listeners
for the released album.
 Because of the coverage the successful winner found the code within a day –
much faster than initially anticipated by the band.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
Moones managed to get maximum spread of their
absolutely bonkers idea of a campaign. Simply brilliant
idea that attracted fans and magazines to open up their
eyes for the band far outside their initial fanbase.
TOVE LO - TIMEBOMB
TOVE LO
THE SET-UP
›
Making the most of the meaning behind the
single ‘Timebomb’, a dedicated site was built
where fans all over the world could log in to
watch the new music video together with another
fan from anywhere around the world. A live video
feed was showing the fans that pressed play on
the video at the same time. When the music
video ended, a picture remained of the time the
fans spent together.
›
Occasionally Tove Lo herself would log in to
watch the video together with fans. The video
itself was played trough a YouTube player, which
meant every view generated revenue back to the
artist.
TOVE LO - CAMPAIGN DETAILS
Label
Creative Labs/Universal Music Sweden
 Campaign budget
£5000-10 000
 Demographics targeting - Gender
Female 50% / Male 50%
 Audience demographics targeting - Age
15-20
 Audience demographic targeting - Location
World wide with Sweden and USA in the top 2
TOVE LO - RESULTS
 In the first 48 hours, 2900 Timebomb pictures
where shared all over the web.
 Average time on the site was over 6 minutes,
a lot longer than the music video it self.
 Participants from all over the world with over
160 countries logging in.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
A great way to encourage fans to keep
watching a video and prolonging the
‘life’ of a video premiere by providing
a unique experience of the video. Not
only great to spread the word about
the
new
increased
video
but
revenue
also
helped
streams
by
applying the meaning of the song in a
whole new way and connecting fans
with each other.
TROYE SIVAN – WHEN IN
SWEDEN…
TROYE SIVAN
THE SET-UP
›
Universal Music Denmark used top influencers in
Denmark to gain attention and press there around
Troye Sivan’s sold-out show in Stockholm. None of
the Danish newspapers or TV were picking up on
doing interviews with Sivan (except for Ritzau, the
Danish news agency), which led to the label’s
decision to bring YouTubers Rasmus and Julia Sofia,
to interview Troye (himself also a YouTuber).
›
The YouTubers had freedom to formulate the
interviews themselves. They also posted about their
trip across all their socials – a purely organic move
on their behalf.
TROYE SIVAN - RESULTS
 Julia Sofia’s video had 52,730 views in
six days while Rasmus’ had 46,419
views in just four days, which according
to Universal Denmark is “higher than
some of the music video views for
Universal Music Denmark’s key local
artists”.
 The tracking link for the album in the
videos contributed to 77.5% of the
overall traffic, with peaks on video
release days.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
Troye Sivan was the perfect artist with an audience fitting
for this type of promotion; it resulted in both a wide reach
as well as helping to build up Sivan’s relatability. It was a
campaign that made the most of YouTubers and influencers
to connect with the right demographics. How come more
artists are not connecting with fans through content they
relate to and via the channels they actually use everyday?
YACHT – L.A PLAYS ITSELF
YACHT
THE SET-UP
›
For the launch of the single, ‘LA Plays Itself’, the
band related the launch directly to the city of
L.A. Famous for its bad traffic, L.A played a
significant part of the campaign. Every time
traffic was bad the track would unlock.
›
The traffic was monitored via the Uber app;
when Uber prices surged 1.1x the normal rate
the music video unlocked. When traffic was
really bad, surge prices doubled 2x and a
remix by Darq E Freaker played. Fans could
follow the updates via Yacht’s Twitter account
for automatic updates.
YACHT - CAMPAIGN DETAILS
 Label
Downtown Records/ BBDO NYC
 Campaign budget
£2000-5000
 Demographics targeting - Gender
Female 45% / Male 55%
 Audience demographics targeting - Age
18-30
 Audience demographic targeting - Location
US, with large bases in LA, NY, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Austin
YACHT - RESULTS
 The campaign brought on expanded media coverage far beyond
music blogs because of its wide appeal gaining significant coverage
on Pitchfork, Buzzfeed, The Verge, Engadget, LA Times, Gizmodo and
Stereogum, which resulted in more than 15m unpaid media
impressions.
 Within two days, the video had exceeded 100k views and the site was
shared more than 5,000 times across social media.
 Album pre-orders had increased by 23% by the end of the campaign
week.
 Uber contacted the band after launch asking to collaborate.
THE MUSIC ALLY OPINION
A great campaign that tapped into what everyone
experiences when living in LA – bad traffic – which
thus ensured proper impact for the music while
reaching new fans. The band really managed to create
a moment that was appealing beyond their existing
fanbase. Plus this was just one part of a wider
campaign that used tools like Google Maps, BuzzFeed
and annotations on Genius.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
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“THE BEST DIGITAL MARKETING
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BY NIKOO SADR
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About Music Ally
At Music Ally we love music, and we love tech. We believe that these worlds should not be battling each other and so
our mission for the past ten years has remained the same: to explore ways that the two worlds can work profitably
together. Music Ally has been providing publications, consulting, research, events and training to the music and
technology industries since 2001.
About Nikoo Sadr
Nikoo is responsible for training and campaigns at Music Ally. She is involved in the research and development of new
materials based on best practice principles for the global music business; working directly with leading global
companies and start-ups to develop methods that help support growth and development in the rapidly changing
sector. Nikoo also writes for the Music Ally digital marketing publication, Sandbox, contributing editorial and insight
into the developments in the changing market.
This report is brought to you by MIDEM
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professionals, cutting-edge technologies, brands, ad agencies and
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Midem is the place to boost your network, make new deals, source
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