The revenue opportunity from sales of the lavish boxset release was clear, but the challenge was to let fans appreciate the quality of a premium product that they would have few chances to see in person (being stocked in just a handful of physical stores).
This was the fifth in a line of reissues from the Paul McCartney Archive Collection, which had established a consistent level of sales for the premium reissue formats.
We had to find a way of “lifting the lid” of the box online and demonstrating to fans the scale and quality of the images and memorabilia in it. We worked with MPL to create two platforms to tell the stories of the tour:
Online tour diary: Based on www.paulmccartney.com, we created an interactive Google Maps that, day-by-day over a period of several weeks in the run up to release, worked its way through the dates on the legendary 1976 tour. For each date there was the setlist and a gallery of Linda McCartney photos from the photography book in the boxset, giving a significant look into some of the premium imagery. The map allowed fans to submit their memories of the shows: both written accounts and user-submitted voicemails. MPL provided images of Linda’s actual diary from the time, giving users of the site a privileged insight into the story of the tour.
A number of the remastered tracks were previewed on the site and it also included an animated “fly-through“ of the entire box.
Announcements about tour date reveals were made through Paul’s email and social channels.
Print ad activation of augmented reality gallery of boxset content.
We put a call to action on our Record Collector print ad for readers to use the uView augmented reality app (installed userbase = 100,000+) to scan the ad and preview video content, open galleries of images from the books and watch the “fly through” video of the boxset.
• Boxset sales in the UK alone generated almost 55% more revenue than any of the previous three deluxe reissues.
• Paul’s Facebook saw over 1m unique visits during the four weeks of the campaign.
• AR app had a click-through rate of 16% and delivered over 360 clicks to retail, all from one print ad in Record Collector.
Key learnings:
Fans love to know the stories behind the music. Access to a wealth of visual content allowed us to give fans an excellent “behind the scenes” look at the 1976 tour and, in so doing, showcased the quality and scale of the visual assets in the boxset.
Keeping the ideas focused on what we knew fans were interested in (content) led to executions that delivered real value and utility to them. We used technology to deliver this, rather than for technology’s sake.
Older consumers of premium physical product don’t just live in a physical world – they are highly engaged with technology when it serves a purpose for them.
Planning was vitally important: to ensure everyone has bought into the idea; the technology is built in time; the content is cleared for use; and the plan is communicated well with fans. This requires all parties to start well in advance.
Project Budget
Demographics
