The campaign consisted of two main elements: a high-frequency instant grat track strategy; and a fan-driven Facebook Live viewing experience.
Historically, we’d plan up to three instant grat-style tracks between announcement and impact date, but for R.E.M. At The BBC we decided to drip feed six. This approach lent itself to a project such as this; with 95% unheard audio and unseen visuals. The striking artwork also allowed us to create a series of accompanying visualiser assets. These were bespoke to each track but also worked sequentially when deployed across R.E.M.’s social channels. Additional premiere placement with online partner publications such as NME and Pitchfork further maximised reach beyond the core fanbase.
Whilst there are challenges when pitching live or unplugged-style versions of tracks to playlists, our streaming strategy was as important as the traditional marketing plot to reach physical buyers. An alternate version of ‘Losing My Religion’ was decided as our first
IG, to harness the mass appeal and love for the original, in the hope that any saves to fans’ own Spotify’s collections would then influence placement of the subsequent IG’s in the algorithmically-powered Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists.
We harnessed an opportunity to ride the social hype that surrounds the annual Glastonbury ticket race around the final IG by delivering a performance video of ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know (And I Feel Fine)’ from R.E.M.’s headline set in 1999, in line with Glastonbury 2019 ticket sale, which resulted in over 20,000 views in its first 24 hours on YouTube.
We utilised BBC talent including Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley –bringing their nostalgic contributions from the physical product sleeve notes to an online audience through a sequence of animated social quote cards. These acted as the main spokespeople for the release and, thus, we required very little from the band members themselves.
The campaign culminated in a special interactive Facebook Live on the band’s official page. The objective was to showcase some of the audio-visual content from the package through a communal and social viewing experience online. The stream was teased ahead of time and a Facebook event encouraged fan to RSVP and join the conversation pre stream. We wanted to supercharge the traditional Facebook Live concept and hand control back to the fans.
After going live to their 4.3m Facebook followers, fans were encouraged to use the like and love reactions within the stream to vote for which piece of content from the BBC archives they wanted to see next. This interactive viewing experience enabled fans to determine the order flow of content and chat in real time as they collectively watched and reminisced.
The interactive Facebook Live reached over a quarter of a million people with the broadcast, with over 35k engagements and 8k fan votes for their favourite BBC performances. The two-hour live stream saw over 2k unique responses, which were overwhelmingly positive and engaging. To date, the long tail appeal of the VOD stream surpassed 500k reach, 50k engagements and an impressive viral reach as the band’s most organically shared post to date. The stream continues to live on the page for those who missed the appointment to view and continues to attract daily views and interactions.
Our IG strategy had an impact beyond this product with a 15% average growth in streaming consumption of R.E.M.’s catalogue in the UK during the campaign period. This focus on the streaming offering complemented and did not cannibalise the commercial performance of the physical product; the deluxe format outsold previous reissues more than 2:1.
The animated artwork sequences, which included no band footage have so far exceeded 137k views in total on YouTube alone. When added to the performance videos for ‘Nightswimming’ and ‘It’s The End Of The World as We Know It’, they’ve amassed well over 200k views. The BBC quote cards were replicated cross-platform but notably delivered an 18% increase in social engagement on Facebook, the band’s primary and largest channel, year-on-year when comparing similar in-campaign content. Retargeting persuadable audiences who had engaged in R.E.M.-based conversation on Twitter also delivered a link CTR to purchase/stream 65% higher than UMG benchmark.
Overall, this content-led strategy returned impressive engagement rates across our paid for media with CTR and VTRs up to 384% higher than UMG benchmark respectively.
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