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