A few weeks ago, an advert “mysteriously” appeared in local London newspaper the Hackney Gazette advertising a new company called Hackney Diamonds that had a curiously familiar tongue logo and mentioned being established in 1962 as well as things like “satisfaction” and “gimme shelter”.
Photos of said advert then “mysteriously” cropped up on social media and was inevitably picked up by major media outlets. “A new Rolling Stones album is imminent!” they roared. “It’ll probably be called Hackney Diamonds!! You should buy or stream it!!!” It all felt like heavy-handedness rather than a delicate sleight of hand.
Thankfully the next phase of the marketing is a lot more interesting. The inevitable HackneyDiamonds.com URL redirects to the band’s official website, but a post on the band’s official account on X/Twitter sent users to the DontGetAngryWithMe.com site teasing a clip of the band’s new song. Except it didn’t seem to play the clip.
The point was hammered home by the band’s account re-posting irate comments from fans (all of whom were claiming the site was overloaded and they were getting error messages) with comments like “Sorry, don’t get angry with me..” and “I’m not angry with you..”.
This is the point in a campaign where the marketing team starts to have a bit of fun, playing on fans’ anticipation and ramping it up by promising a clip that you can’t hear by delivering error messages as if it was 2002 again when websites fell over if more than 100 people went to them at the same time.
Presumably this is designed to get the whole thing trending on social media and, like a twist on the “tweet to unlock” mechanic, working as a “get angry to unlock” mechanic. It makes a nice change from all the other things people go onto X/Twitter to get angry about.
The band’s official site has a “break glass” skin that must be clicked a few times to open, and which leads to an email sign-up page. Then the official site itself has photos of the new shattered glass tongue logo being projected onto buildings and monuments around the world.
There is also now a 10-second video clip on X/Twitter, featuring a rapid-fire montage of the “Don’t Get Angry With Me” sticker appearing in an assortment of locations like road signs and phone boxes, and what one presumes is the intro to the new song, with what one presumes to be Mick Jagger counting in what one presumes to be Keith Richards’ riff.
Everything is rapidly ramping up and despite the contrived opening gambit for the campaign, it is becoming a lot more interesting and, yes, a lot more enjoyable.
