It’s every digital marketer’s dream to work with a band or artist that are so engaged with a project that they’ll do (pretty much) anything in the name of great content. Madness are that band. From Suggs hand delivering the album to lucky fans, to filming band members playing the special edition game, we were able to create a suite of unique digital assets.
The focus was to mobilise the loyal, existing fanbase and reach any casual or lapsed Madness fan. To achieve both objectives, we delivered creative social assets, whilst promoting cross-channel best practice through a mix of organic and paid-for posts.
The album announcement was typical of the band’s undeniable sense of humour, with a grand unveiling and Q&A with The Chelsea Pensioners. Designed to reward the dedicated and potentially convert a new or nostalgic audience, this video alone has had over 300,000 views.
The intricate album artwork was also a powerful and versatile tool, from a simple social puzzle to Universal Music UK’s first immersive web VR packshot. It was critical to sustain engagement between a series of tent pole moments throughout the campaign.
We quickly identified Facebook as the band’s dominant social channel – and episodic native videos such as animated pre-release teasers, to trackby-track narrations have amassed 1.3m views to date. Unique and comical footage that harnessed the band’s contagious personality and enthusiasm such as their journey to the Q Awards proved most popular, with over 160,000 global viewers.
As the campaign evolved, as did our promoted digital marketing activity. We ensured all content was carefully monitored and optimised to increase fan engagement and advocacy and sent a series of tailored emails designed to specifically reward loyalty of the ‘Madheads’ – the superfans and key influencers who helped to pollinate a wider audience.
Key TV moments such as appearances on Strictly Come Dancing and The One Show were also leveraged for online activations, that took the album message beyond the converted fans. Reactive marketing around offline promo moments and social conversation (such as #NationalMrApplesDay around the first single, ‘Mr. Apples’) also bolstered our effective retargeting strategy.
56k ship to date, #5 album – their highest album chart position in seven years, with the band’s best week-one sales since the start of the OCC in 1994.
A combination of effective organic and promoted posts helped to expand the social following and identify and persuade potential incremental fanbases. Our Facebook strategy resulted in a growth of Facebook reach up by 79%, post-engagement up 72% and video views up 70%.
We delivered all official video content to Vevo for the first time, resulting in 350k views for the ‘Mr. Apples’ and ‘Herbert’ lyric videos and continued placement and support from the service.
Universal Music UK’s first virtual reality 360 album artwork – to be rolled out across socials for fans to access across devices, including Google Cardboard.
Initiatives such as the Facebook Live video resulted in 163k views (158k unique viewers), 19k interactions, 1,605 peak viewership, which reduced the barrier between fan and artist was pivotal in connecting and converting to purchase. ‘Mr. Apples’ consistently achieved nearly double the average daily streams of similar Radio 2 A-listed singles receiving Spotify editorial support.
Project Budget
Demographics
