Personally curated by Marc himself, Trials Of Eyeliner is the first and the definitive career box set, showcasing a musical journey through best-loved album tracks, all of his singles, rarities and one-off collaborations.
From the beginning of the project, the primary objective was to involve and engage Marc in every aspect of the campaign and to reach not only his devoted fanbase, but also more casual, cultured music fans.
The announcement strategy included a dedicated landing page and an ad in the programme at Marc’s Leeds gig that night. We also announced the release with a video trailer. Marc has always pushed boundaries in his (often controversial) music videos – the box set trailer was a 60-second and highly visual montage showcasing just that. Upon announcement, we also incentivised fans with a free copy of ‘If You Go Away’ EP, strictly limited to the first 500 to order the box set from our D2C store; this sold out within 36 hours. The dedicated landing page was used throughout the campaign as a way to present all the contents and information about the product, giving fans an exclusive preview of the booklet and collect retargeting data.
To sustain engagement between the announcement and release, we created a selection of Facebook lyric cards and worked with Universal’s editorial team, uDiscover, on a series of six written features covering various aspects of Marc’s career, plus a filmed interview for their YouTube.
We also partnered with Amazon Front Row and Sony Xperia, providing them with exclusive video pieces, which reached over 50m fans.
On the week of release, rather than posting a conventional unboxing video, we filmed Marc opening his box set for the very first time. Marc’s genuine delight and excitement resonated well with the fans, delivering over 40k views in 24 hours.
To celebrate the album release, we held an exclusive event – Marc In Conversation with Simon Price at The Magic Circle in London. The most engaged fans were given a personalised invitation to enter the ticket ballot. The event included an hour-long conversation with the journalist, an audience Q&A and a live acoustic performance. All guests received a branded velvet eyeliner pouch as a nod to the release title. As the tickets were very limited, we live streamed the event to Marc’s Facebook page. The stream has reached 90k people and received an overwhelmingly positive feedback from the fans.
As this is a high-end product, our primary goal was to target Marc’s super fans and ensure we communicate the incredible quality of the box to them.
Working with fan communities and experts to get under the skin of what the fans get from their following of the artist and how they respond best to marketing initiatives was essential in structuring this campaign.
The unboxing video is by far the best performing piece of content on Marc’s Facebook page, with reach over 1,000% higher than the page average. It has demonstrated that Marc not only endorses the release but that he is personally excited about and sees it as a worthwhile purchase for his fans.
Since release, the reach of Marc’s Facebook page has increased by 453% and post engagement by 559%. On announcement, Trials Of Eyeliner was #1 in Amazon Pre-Orders and Moves & Shakers charts. The box set is also one of UMC’s D2C bestsellers this year. The D2C buy link on the product landing page generated over £30k in revenue.
Project Budget
Demographics
