Prior to the release of his album, Motion, in November, Calvin Harris had sold over 2m albums and more than 35m singles worldwide.
With this release, we wanted to consolidate Calvin’s position as a creative global superstar and continue to break records. The addition of streaming to the singles chart in July added an extra dimension to our ongoing streaming strategy and was the ideal opportunity to demonstrate Calvin’s scale and global appeal.
Throughout Calvin’s career, we have worked closely with all of our global partners to deliver compelling campaigns and this album campaign was no different. All of our streaming partners, and Spotify in particular, worked very closely with us to execute a streaming strategy which yielded unprecendented results and took advantage of the ‘on air/on sale’ release of the single, ‘Blame’.
Key components included:
l A ‘Follow’ campaign using paid, unpaid and earned media to drive Calvin’s follower base in advance of album release.
l Homepage takeovers upon release of ‘Blame’ in all 57 Spotify-launched territories – working closely with our international team, this co-ordinated approach consolidated awareness upon release and drove streams massively globally (delivering over 22m impressions worldwide)
l A Spotify Browse playlist feature in key markets – the first time ever that an artist generated playlist was featured in Browse editorial
l Additional Spotify-owned Calvin Harris playlist Browse feature which extended Calvin’s reach within the platform even further and drove virality
l Significant support across Columbia- and Sony-owned playlists and channels
l Establishing Calvin as a curator and introducing new and standalone themed playlists in keeping with Calvin’s lifestyle and audience
l Calvin Harris Playlist Takeover n To celebrate becoming the first UK solo artist to reach 1bn streams, Calvin staged a live playlist takeover working with a playlist in excess of 1.5m followers n The event was driven by advance global homepage takeovers with banner and audio inventory, mobile notifications, CRM and comprehensive support across artist and label channels on the day of the event
l Calvin became the first British solo act to top 1bn streams on Spotify
l ‘Blame’ went to #1 on Spotify’s Global Chart within three days of release, making it the fastest streaming single to reach the global #1 position in Spotify history. It also broke the Spotify record for the most streamed track in a single day and was the first track to break 10m streams in a week globally
l ‘Blame’ had accounted for 227% more streams than previous single ‘Summer’ and 950% more than ‘Under Control’ within the first 10 days of its release
l Total number of Spotify followers reached across Motion album tracks stands in excess of 78.5m to date. ‘Blame’ has appeared in 500+ playlists with a combined reach of 25m+ followers
l #1 chart positions for singles ‘Under Control’, ‘Summer’ and ‘Blame’ featuring John Newman. This brings Calvin’s total #1 UK singles to five as a lead artist and seven overall
KEY LEARNINGS
Our approach to streaming on this campaign ensured, amongst many other things, longevity. ‘Blame’, for example, spent seven weeks in the Top 10 which is more than any other Calvin track with the exception of ‘We Found Love’. A truly global approach and working closely with our international and sales teams delivered unprecedented results and ensured that we were maximising every opportunity to present Calvin’s global scale and appeal.
Project Budget
Demographics
