For Sweetener, Ariana Grande’s fourth album, Universal have really put their shoulder to the wheel, making it clear this will be a blockbuster leading all the way into next year.

First up, they have bundled a download version of the album along with “priority venue entry to a 2019 Ariana Grande Headline Tour + future discounts”, calling it The Sweetener Pass (which sounds like someone refusing Canderel in their coffee). This is, they are at pains to stress, NOT a ticket, but rather just swifter access to the venue and you will still need to buy a ticket, although no dates for her tour next year have even been announced. It is a smart play to drive sales in opening week but, as Taylor Swift found out last year when she tried to gamify ticket pre-sales, teen fans (or, more precisely, the parents of teen fans) are not necessarily going to be overjoyed at having to fork out for extras to go with a ticket they have to buy separately and have no guarantee of actually getting until they go on sale. There are, however, “specified Sweetener album or album bundle orders” on her official site that come with pre-sale access to tickets for the as-yet-to-be-confirmed tour. These include a T-shirt/album bundle for $35, a tie dye mask/ album bundle (?) for $20, a three-pack of socks/ album bundle (!) for $35, a “fanny pack”/album bundle for $45 and the “web exclusive” Cloud fragrance/album bundle for $25. (Cloud, in case you were wondering, is “a dreamy blend of alluring lavender blossom, forbidden juicy pear and mouthwatering bergamot”.) You can also just buy the CD version of the album for $13 and get pre-sale access. It is not all about hooking the tour to the album, however.

She also has a Snapchat lens based around the new album. The lens allows you to virtually try on the tie dye mask and buy it, along with the album download bundle, for $20. This is perhaps most notable for the fact that it is a further move by Snapchat to partner with one of the biggest pop stars in the world to turn itself into an e-commerce store, something it began testing the waters with in April through the introduction of the Shoppable AR feature. But it doesn’t end there.

For fans in the UK, she is also working with location based marketing company Landmrk on a Sweetener-themed treasure hunt. A series of “sweet spots” (see what they did there?) can be found on a dedicated mobile website. When you go there, you have to decipher a code on a nearby billboard (either real or virtual depending on the location) and prizes include tickets to her UK tour – whenever that is – CDs, assorted merchandise and “location specific selfie filters” that are designed to be shared (for bragging rights) on social media. There are already a lot of moving parts to this campaign and they will almost certainly be added to when the 2019 tour dates are announced.

There has been growing debate in the US about the role of album bundles in driving week-one sales (see the Travis Scott/ Nicki Minaj spat mentioned overleaf) and it is not clear for now if Billboard will move to tighten the chart-eligibility rules or if the dizzying range of bundles that Ariana Grande is offering here will become the new normal.