Madeon’s fanbase is fervent but globally dispersed. They’re not traditional music purchasers, so the challenge was to channel their online activity to reach beyond the existing fanbase around the release of his debut album, Adventure. We also wanted to go beyond the traditional metrics of a successful album campaign with an artist we knew could effectively showcase innovative digital creative.
We rallied his fanbase around three distinct creatives that ran alongside all traditional campaign elements; two simple games based around free download mechanics and a more complex one that enabled you to remix the album.
The first, Crack The Code, asked fans to decipher a code based on a custom alphabet that features prominently throughout Madeon’s work for the past three years. Fans took to social media to discuss and share answers with each other, greatly increasing the engagement around the mechanic.
The second, for a set up track called ‘Imperium’, followed suit with a different creative and together they contributed to a large email database allowing us to communicate directly with a highly engaged group of fans. This gave us the platform on which to launch our third creative, called The Adventure Machine, built using the new HTML5 WebAudio APIs. This went live shortly before the release of the album and allowed fans to play with samples from the album, creating their own mixes in real time on their desktops, mobiles and tablets. We used samples from the singles as well as previously unheard tracks from the album, giving fans an opportunity to hear music ahead of its release.
The inspiration came from a viral video Madeon had posted years earlier of him using a Novation Launchpad to mix his favourite tracks and we hid an Easter Egg within the website that allowed fans to control it using their own Launchpads. Album and tour messaging was placed around the game and drove significant numbers to retail platforms.
l Awards for the Adventure Machine: winner of both a Lovie and People’s Lovie FWA winner BIMA finalist
l Since its launch on 16th March, the Adventure Machine has been used by over 406k unique users, with an average dwell time of over seven minutes. These users were then retargeted through paid digital campaigns and accounted for 15% of total clicks through to the deluxe album download.
l Total time playing samples: 2,924 days
l Number of samples played: 24.3m
l Clicks driven directly from the Adventure Machine: 52k to purchase or streaming platforms, 22k to view tour dates
Other achievements include 50+ major media articles and front page coverage on Reddit. It was also showcased by Google as a great example of an innovative mobile experience. The two games that preceded the Adventure Machine generated over 32k new sign ups to the mailing list. The database’s performance is in the top tier of Sony’s artist mailing lists in terms of click-throughs and engagements, which is testament to the fans we were able to reach through the games.
Our key takeaway was centred around how to run a fan-led campaign. By giving fans tools they could use to communicate with each other, they became our most effective marketing asset. This earned media significantly increased our reach and active audience. It also allowed our paid campaign around the album to become highly targeted by focusing on the large group of users that had already interacted and shared content we had created for them.
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