sandbox 06 Tools Soundcharts

07–08 Campaigns Amy Winehouse, Jean-Michel Jarre,

Deezer, Avenged Sevenfold 09-12 Behind The Campaign Biffy Clyro

MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA NOVEMBER 02 2016ISSUE 167

FINDING AND KEEPING YOUR SUPER FANS

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COVERFEATURE

How to create, and keep, your super fans

All fans may be equal to musicians, but some fans are certainly more equal than others. Yes, we’re talking the super fans, the semi-mythical tier of hyped supporters who will shell out for expensive box sets, champion your cause on social media and send your records up the chart by sheer force of will. It is a concept so potent that it has now reached from band into brand marketing, with Forbes – of all people – recently writing about super fans as “the secret weapon in marketing”.

One of the advantages of an art as visceral as music is that fans are far more likely to obsess over their favourite band than their #1 soft drink.

Equally, though, the power of individual taste in music means you can’t exactly create super fans, no matter how clever your marketing. What you can do, however, is encourage them along their journey, leading fans up the tunnel from casual to super.

You also need to work to keep your super fans, of course. We’ve all gone off bands, however much we once loved them, and to see super fans turn on their former idols for

SUPER-MARKETfinding and keeping your super fans

any number of imagined slights can be a truly desperate sight.

With this is mind, sandbox presents its guide to encouraging, and keeping, your super fans.

1) Locate your existing, as well as potential, super fans

The logical first step in this process is finding existing super fans, as well as those who could one day become them. In the digital age, there are hundreds of ways in which you can measure fandom, from seeing who has signed up to your email database to remarketing techniques (see Darren Hemmings interview on page 4 for more on this). Essentially, though, it all boils down to engagement, both online and off, as Cyber PR founder Ariel Hyatt explains.

“Who is in the front row at shows?” she asks. “Is there anyone you see often in attendance? Who hangs around the merch table? Look to see who is interacting with you on Facebook, Twitter and any other socials. Who is liking your Instagram posts? These are your super fans and they should be categorised as such.”

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes an actual or

Not all fans are created equal. What most acts want is as many fans as possible, but the super fans are often the first to flock to them and will often be the ones still there long after the stadium shows and #1 singles have dried up. Holding and cultivating them in a time when there are so many other distractions has never been more important. Marketing experts speak to us about how to identify super fans and how to ensure they stay super fans.

potential super fan, so marketers will have to establish their own guidelines. “It’s all about analysing the data and setting certain parameters,” says Luke Ferrar, senior digital marketing manager at Virgin EMI Records. “A fan has to have completed X action to belong to X group. Using Facebook as an example: super fans may have had to have liked, commented on a post, and watched over 50% of a video; casual fans may have just liked the page of the artist, potential fans may like a page of a similar artist.” If, during this process, then you can identify potential influencers or band champions among your fan base, then all the better.

2) Talk to them, in any way that feels right

Nobody likes being ignored. So it should come as no surprise that one of the keys to encouraging and keeping super fans is to talk to your fanbase. If this seems like incredibly open-ended advice, that’s because it is: there are hundreds of different ways to communicate with your fans and the best way to do it will depend on what you know about them, how many fans you have and the ways that the artist in question feels comfortable about communicating.

Scott Cohen, CEO of The Orchard and manager of The Raveonettes , says that communication helps to create the right environment to move casual supporters into super fans. “There is one set of messaging that should go out to random people that may or may not like an artist. The second that goes out to fans of the band. And the third messaging that goes to a much smaller group that is the super fans and often that is even one-on-one

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a message before everyone else. And then when the information becomes public their attitude is, ‘Oh yeah I already knew that.’ And they feel like part of an inner circle.”

Cohen adds that email is “still the most effective way” of communicating with fans, a view shared by Walter Gross, who heads up digital marketing at Sony’s Legacy label. ”Email is your only owned data source ,” he says. “You look at Facebook or Twitter and all these other platforms, and we have seen this with the way they have changed their algorithms […] It is very clear that those platforms have matured, they have a business model now and they are essentially making you pay to access their data. And email lists are our data. And it allows us, over time, to build a 360-degree profile of the fan.”

XL-signed electronic producer Powell , who has a background in advertising, recently demonstrated the power of email in encouraging super fans, when he published his email address on billboards in New York and London. “I don’t like Facebook, I don’t like Twitter,” he told The Guardian. “I stuck my email address on a billboard instead, and I had a thousand real conversations.” This approach paid dividends both in engaging

communication,” he explains. “The super fans should know any

information that you are going to ‘press release’ first. They shouldn’t find out about gigs or new releases or you’re heading into the studio because they’ve read a press release. They should know because they get

fans and creating media attention. But would probably only work for someone with his level of fame, rather than a Beyoncé-esque superstar.

Other musicians embrace social media. Oliver Cox, contributing writer for Soundudes (a platform that existed to connect musicians with their SoundCloud fans), cites former Civil Wars singer Joy Williams as a good example of a musician who communicates with their fans on Twitter “like they’re humans, not wallets (asking them for advice on getting through a rough day)”, which he says “is a great way to forge a strong emotional bond”.

Artists can, of course, also pick up the phone and speak to their fans – “Skype with the artist”-style packages are often popular rewards in crowdfunding campaigns – or meet them for coffee. Alternatively, there’s the modern version of a coffee shop natter: Twitter Q&As or Reddit AMA sessions. The possibilities are myriad.

3) Bring your fans into the “journey”

One of the main points that separates the super fan from the regular follower is a strong emotional bond with the artist. That means they are emotionally invested in the artist’s success and will, as a result, do anything to enable it. This can go too far at times, when packs of fans turn on their idols’ perceived rivals. But if cleverly harvested, this emotional super fan power is one of the strongest tools in marketing.

Talking to your fans is one way to do this. Another way is to bring them into the “journey”, giving them insight into the artist’s development. Again, there are many different ways to do this and the right approach will

depend on the artist. But the key is to offer content that takes the fan “backstage” both literally and in a metaphorical sense.

Video works well for this. In a blog, Ben Sword, founder of Music Marketing Classroom, offered 32 different kinds of video content that he says can help to create super fans, from “making of the video” directors commentary, to video diary updates, soundcheck videos, Cribs-style home tours and “live from the mercy booth”. These may sound like esoteric viewing but an official Metallica soundcheck video from Brisbane in 2013 has almost 350,000 views to date. And the joy of modern technology means that creating and uploading this kind of video content is incredibly easy.

4) Involve fans in the music-making process

A key part of this “journey” is the actual process of making music. Bringing fans into this process, then, will reap dividends. Doing this this can be as simple as posting “in-studio” videos tracking the process of songwriting and recording, updating a blog or dropping subtle hints as to the masterpiece you are making via social media. Artists can even ask fans for their advice, on anything from lyrics to the name of the album.

Equally, getting fans to invest emotionally

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in a new album can sometimes be as simple as getting them to invest financially in it. This is something we have seen with crowdfunding sites such as PledgeMusic or Kickstarter, where fans are asked to cough up their hard-earned cash to help their idols record and promote their new releases.

Clearly, this has a financial benefit for artists. But helping a band to record a new album will also help fans to connect more with the release: you’re clearly going to pay more attention to an album that you helped fund than one that simply turns up on Spotify one Friday morning. Again, this approach won’t work for a superstar act that in no way needs your

But exclusive content can also be used to encourage super fandom and keep your existing super fans happy.

Again, this can take many forms, from exclusive tracks sent to an artist’s mailing list to instant grat downloads for albums to pre-orders. You can also have fun with it: underground dance producer Moodyman , for example, sent bonus 12-inch singles seemingly at random to fans who ordered his most recent album; Zomby likes to tweet out links to download recently completed songs; while Powell gave a zip file of unreleased productions to a selection of fans who wrote him emails.

“Once an audience of super fans has been identified, I recommend maintaining the relationship on a more personal level by rewarding the fans with exclusives or ‘first look’ content,” says The Orchard director of interactive marketing Dan Griffiths. “This can be anything from carrying out a Q&A to a small number of fans via Google Hangouts, which I have done with several artists, inviting fans down to a show early to watch a soundcheck to selling them a very limited release with a larger profit margin.

money. But it has already worked for bands as diverse as Marillion and Ben Folds Five.

5) Reward fans with exclusive content

Exclusive or limited content is like halogen light to a super fan moth: not only will they pack your merch stand at gigs, they will also shell out large amounts of money on limited box set releases just to get their hands on a replica laminate backstage pass from your 2001 tour. This, naturally, is something that labels and artists will exploit for financial gain.

MOTIVE UNKNOWN’S DARREN HEMMINGS GIVES HIS NO.1 TIP FOR IDENTIFYING AND CREATING SUPER FANSKeep sets of custom audiences across any platform allowing remarketing, in which you track visitors (or clicks on links, or transactions – as applicable) for seven-, 30-, 90- and 180-day periods. That way you can combine (or subtract) them to get a ‘3D’ picture of your fan base. For example, the 30-day audience minus the seven-day audience shows you everyone who has NOT visited in the last seven days, but who DID visit in the last 30. Ergo, these may be stronger fans who just need a bit of re-engagement.

Equally though on a more basic level if you have your own online store and

can track purchases via Facebook Conversion Pixels, you’d be able to see who has been purchasing and over what period.

That would also allow you to establish who the super fans are

and also ensure that you can either continue to connect with them (via

paid placement or organic engagement), or you can seek to re-engage other fans to

draw them in such that they ultimately become super fans.

The Raveonettes, for example, invited some of their most loyal fans to a special invite-only show last year.”

6) Name your fans

Rihanna has her Navy and Lady Gaga her Little Monsters, so why shouldn’t your artist have their own fan army? OK, this might sound a little grandiose for someone who is far from Rihanna levels of fame, but having a name for your fans makes it easier to talk to them on a personal level, while they will feel part of a select group of fans who go beyond

the casual consumer. Just ask former Inspiral Carpets

organ player Clint Boon, who never misses the opportunity to mention his own “Boon Army”.

You don’t need to stop at

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naming your fans, either: you can create your own fan hashtag – like Lady Gaga’s #PawsUp – or even Twitter emoji, like Gaga’s #JOANNE or the Rolling Stones’ tongue symbol.

7) Put your fans in the spotlight

Creating a name, hashtag or emoji for your fans gives them one way to show off their fandom. In the social media age, there are

by everyone from Nine Inch Nails – whose remix.nin.com site allows fans to download stems of Nine Inch Nails’ songs then post their remixes – to Björk, who asked fans to remix and cover her song ‘Army Of Me’ for the charity album Army Of Me: Remixes & Covers.

What’s more, the growing popularity of lip-sync apps like musical.ly and karaoke apps like Smule has made it easier than ever before for fans to ally themselves with their favourite artists’ music and it is no coincidence that artists like Ariana Grande (musical.ly), Luke Bryan (Smule) and Jason Derulo (both) have added these tools to their marketing mix. :)

many more, making this into one of the most important steps in encouraging and maintaining your super fans.

You can, for example, invite your super fans to take part in your video. In 2012, Graham Coxon did just that, asking fans to send in dance footage for the video for his single ‘What’ll It Take’. The final promo included clips sent in by 85 fans from 22 countries. The following year 30 Seconds To Mars were criticised for asking fans to get the lyrics to their song ‘Do Or Die’ tattooed on their bodies for a lyric video.

Another possibility is to ask fans to submit remixes and cover versions of your song, a route that has been taken

MARKETERS GIVE THEIR NUMBER ONE TIP FOR IDENTIFYING AND ENCOURAGING SUPER FANS

Neil Blanket, head of marketing at MuteWith regards to super fans, I would imagine our approach is quite similar to other labels/marketers; we use the tools available to us such as Facebook Insights, Google Analytics etc. But a lot of it comes to down a general knowledge base and sense of who our artists are – and therefore who their fans are. We are yet to drill down into this to actually target specific named people, but it’s quite possible.

I think that with the right artist creating super fans is actually possible – someone like Marina & The Diamonds does that really well, but it’s not really something we’ve concentrated on here – which is more to do with the type of newer artists we’ve worked with, although it’s definitely something we’d like to get into.

Dorothy Hui, VP, digital at Sony Music Entertainment UKIt’s all about A&R. My top tips are establishing a strong, emotional connection with super fans by creating music they couldn’t live without; delivering consistently entertaining, moving and memorable live performances; and using CRM and social to identify and engage with super fans on an ongoing basis.

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TOOLS Data is defining the current music industry, with every other startup claiming to bring the final word on data analytics to the table with whatever service they’re providing. But really few platforms offer the depth and streamlined experience that we need to harness data efficiently.

The latest to enter the fray is Soundcharts, which offers real-time charts, social, playlist and airplay monitoring to the music industry.

sandbox spoke to David Weiszfeld, founder and CEO of Soundcharts, who initially built the platform for his own use, saying that he had a personal need for it after working as VP of international exploitation for Universal Music France where there was no automated way to track the analytics that Soundcharts offers.

“If you break an artist in 2017 and you don’t use data, it means you’re lucky,” he said.

For all the big music companies, data intelligence has been a huge step. Apple Music’s purchase of Semetric, Pandora buying Next Big Sound and Spotify’s acquisition of The Echo Nest all mark significant moves to use data more efficiently in their businesses. As Weiszfeld told us, his life has been about trying to sell music on a global level. With Soundcharts arriving around the same time that Next Big Sound was bought, it seemed to be, in his words, the “right tool at the right time”.

Soundcharts’ dashboard is slick, allowing users to search for artists and track

analytics across distribution platforms, streaming and download stores, plus their most recent addition – a worldwide airplay monitoring solution.

Radio airplay is still one of the biggest cost-per-revenue avenues around, and paying third parties to monitor each territory’s airplay is costly, with potential revenue from other territories being missed altogether.

Soundcharts offers a real-time view of all your major radio stations globally, so at the time of writing, we knew that BBC Radio 2 had just finished playing ‘When We Were Lovers’ by Jack Savoretti (11:42am), which, on closer inspection, had been played by the station some 50 times in the last 90 days, 48 of which occurred in the past 30 days.

Across the continent in Savoretti’s parents’ home country of Italy is 28% of Jack’s fanbase, only a slight increase on the UK which is short a couple of hundred. There his most-played song is ‘The Other Side Of Love’, which RMC played this morning at 6am,

one play of 68 in total, 44 of which have occurred in the past 90 days, suggesting that Jack’s fanbase there has been more long standing than in the UK, given that his latest release was only a few days ago.

So that all sounds like data, right? Granular data with a real use within the industry.

The ability to watch more than one artist at a time is what Soundcharts sees as setting itself apart from competitors such as EI and Revelator. While platforms such as these do a great job, they are aimed at users who need reports on the music they have the rights to, whereas Soundcharts offers intelligence across the board, allowing industry users to dissect the data of other artists to drive conversations in the direction they want. “Look, my artist has way more downloads than yours. Give me a record deal/publishing deal/gigs.”

Cross-comparison and benchmarking are fundamental points of negotiation within data analytics. As the digital world moves so fast, it’s vital we see our results alongside others to accurately assess current strategies.

Soundcharts currently has well over 9,000 users, including a mixture of both indie and major labels, plus distributors, managers, and even festival bookers and publishers – so there’s an incentive for most roles in the industry.

Pricing is reasonable for the amount of data on offer, starting at €36 (£32)

SOUNDCHARTSper month for individual users such as artists and managers, rising to €149 (£134) for independent labels, distributors and platforms with

up to 10 artists. The airplay stats are only available to Enterprise users, who would have unlimited artists and, as always, a large fee subject to negotiation.

Perhaps the best case in point is Weiszfeld’s own artist – 16-year-old Petit Biscuit . Under David’s management, Petit Biscuit is #10 on the Spotify charts, and he claims that Soundcharts is his number one tool, and the reason he manages without a label: “I always know what’s going on,” he says. “I know what’s going on quicker than if I was signed to a label”.

The biggest companies around us are using more and more granular data. If there’s nothing to back up one’s endorsements, then we’re throwing money away. Soundcharts offers the ability to check metrics for all artists – not just those you have the rights to and the arrival of its airplay feature is significantly driving its position.

While Weiszfeld doesn’t like to commit to particular road maps, there do appear

to be more metrics on the horizon. The platform plans to delve much

deeper into data than it already does, expanding its hundreds of monitored airplay stations to thousands. The most notable thing to expect is the arrival of a mobile

app, which he promises by the end of the year. :)

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The latest projects from the digital marketing arena CAMPAIGNS

The Amy Winehouse Foundation is helping victims of drug and alcohol abuse via Amy’s Place, a safe shelter for female victims that offers support and education to tackle the resulting issues of homelessness, mental health and unemployment.

Its Resilience Program teaches the subject of drug and alcohol awareness as well as prevention, taking it into more than 100 secondary schools in the UK, driving a 20% decrease in pupils’ likelihood of under-age drinking. An important cause getting much-needed backing.

Now to mark the 10th anniversary of Back To Black, her masterpiece, Island Records has partnered with Vevo to raise funds for the charity, launching a cover contest that is open to anyone. Four new lyric videos have been uploaded to the late artist’s YouTube channel, with links to download brand new backing tracks for each one (‘Tears Dry On Their Own’, ‘Rehab’, ‘Just Friends’ and

‘Back To Black’) for fans to record their own toplines over.

The instrumental backing tracks were produced by longtime collaborators and patrons of the foundation, Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, offering fans the opportunity to record their own versions of these songs

and upload them to YouTube and win the chance to have their performance filmed and recorded in a studio and then debuted on the official Island Records YouTube channel.

Both Island Records and Vevo will be contributing funds from the campaign to the foundation so that the volunteers can continue to help young people avoid the difficulties that Amy Winehouse faced herself. This is a simple yet powerful campaign celebrating the anniversary of one of the greatest contemporary albums ever made and we hope to see some great covers coming out of it.

French electronic pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre is about to launch Oxygen 3, serving as the final instalment of his Oxygene album triptych, which has now spanned nearly 40 years given that the first album was released in 1976, with the second arriving in 1997.

After working with numerous singers and artists on the previous albums, he’s also now going it alone. 40 years is a long time to drag out a complete release, so hats off for sticking (pun intended, as you will see) with it.

Jarre defined his sound a long time ago – and fell out of fashion for a bit as a result. But by the turn of the millennium he was being hailed again as an electronic pioneer, both by the French acts then breaking through in his wake (Air, Daft Punk, Étienne de Crécy, Cassius) as well as others around the world. He has always been obsessed with sonics and this is apparent in the expansive sound of his new album.

So how do you bring something that was released 40 years ago into the

future? With iMessage stickers, of course – the ultimate millennial gesture.

With streaming, this album’s got a good chance of getting onto a lot of playlists where younger electronic listeners won’t be musically ageist; but are they likely to use skull stickers reflecting the album artwork?

Stickers are for the young super fans, and Jarre’s already-cultivated fanbase are far from young. Any young listeners will most likely be passive. Let’s face it, who in their phonebook is going to care about Oxygene skulls anyway? It is a nice gesture, but perhaps a little forced when his whole career has been about following his own path and letting fashions fall in and out with him rather than vice versa.

AMY WINEHOUSE FOUNDATION COMPETITION JEAN-MICHEL JARRE’S OXYGENE OF PUBLICITY

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The latest projects from the digital marketing arena CAMPAIGNS

So as we near the end of the year, Deezer is helping to amplify the ultimate musical buzzword of 2016: grime.

The French streaming service is launching a dedicated grime channel featuring a mixture of playlists, podcasts and videos from 36 grime artists, while also highlighting

emerging acts. The channel will be available globally, acting as an alternative to the YouTube channels where grime had established its natural home – being a place to quickly post recordings and remixes, building audiences as a result.

This is a clever move by the service, setting itself apart from other giants such as Spotify and Apple Music by celebrating what was previously a very niche genre (but is now directly affecting the sound of the top 40) and making space for it within the platform.

Deezer UK & Ireland’s head of editorial and content, Roman Tagoe, referred to grime as “typically anti-establishment by its very nature”, saying that it was time for the British music industry to “step up and recognise that it needs to identify new ways to support this unique genre”.

Deezer is also investing in bursaries, mentorship and guidance for young grime artists and their teams, stating that nearly 80% of grime musicians aren’t signed to a

traditional label.This should open up the genre and bring it

into the light with dedicated playlists – Grime & Garage, Instant Grime and Godfathers Of Grime among them. It’s truly great to open up the mainstream to these niche genres, but we just hope this doesn’t get cancelled out when something else swings into fashion.

It wouldn’t be sandbox in 2016 without virtual reality (VR) somewhere. Enter Capitol-signed rock band Avenged Sevenfold, who last weekend live streamed a 3D/360-degree performance in partnership with broadcast network and technology company VRLIVE.

The performance will be accessible on Universal Music Group’s newly launched VRTGO VR platform, which is available on Android and iOS for free.

This follows in the footsteps of many VR performances by the likes of Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters and, of course, Björk. VR has become the new way for fans to get close to experiencing the front row of their favorite band’s gig on the other side of the world and there are some who adamantly believe it won’t be long before VR concerts are ticketed to headset owners en masse.

For those lucky enough to be at the actual performance in person, why would they only use their eyes (and ears)? There were 50 Samsung Gear VR headsets at the event for attendees to transport themselves right up onto the stage while they listened to an immersive, spatial audio experience captured by the purpose-built Nokia OZO camera.

The very next day the band’s latest album, The Stage, was released, two months ahead of schedule – or so the fans thought.

Lead singer Chris Jericho managed to fake their release date to throw fans off the scent, putting a December release in his Instagram bio with the hashtag #VoltaicOceans, before deleting it a few hours later, feigning a miscommunication.

It’s the simple things that work, with fans sent into a frenzy over the premature album drop, already hyped from the previous night’s VR performance. Well played, guys.

A-VR-ENGED SEVENFOLDDEEZER’S GRIME TIME

BIFFY CLYROBEHIND THE CAMPAIGN

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BEHIND THE CAMPAIGNBIFFY CLYRO

Ellipsis is the seventh album by Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro (and their fourth with Warner), arriving three and a half years after Opposites, their first UK number 1 album. JENNIFER IVORY, VP of marketing for Warner Bros UK, and SEBASTIAN SIMONE, marketing manager at Warner Bros UK, discuss how, during a period when there were no TV opportunities, they built their own, where multi-formatting can really impact, why the band finally adopted Snapchat and how Facebook was used as the backbone of the campaign.

Announcing their return after three yearsJI: I have worked with Biffy for eight years across their [previous] three albums on Warner. It was over three years since their last album and they took some time off as they’d not really had any time off – and they’ve been together for six albums. They needed some time off to regroup. They recorded the album in LA but there was no rush from us to get it out; they needed to be comfortable with where they were at.

Because of that we wanted to frontload as much as possible to tease the fact they were back. We did that with two singles into the album. We started with the rockiest and most bombastic track on there – ‘Wolves

Of Winter’. We did an animated video for it, which we had never done before with them. SS: It came quite quickly because of the timeline leading into album release. The warm up was a process of whiting out all their socials and their website. It was nothing except a white background and an ellipsis. JI: That echoed the album title and the album artwork, which is all white and they represent the three dots. It was the prefect thing to change the creative as everything was going to have this white colour through it. For the last few albums, they had Storm Thorgerson doing the artwork – so it’s been all lush. We needed to, creatively, turn the page completely and not have anything that was an homage to Storm or looked anything like Storm.

It was Simon’s idea to have them represent the dots on the ellipsis . That gave us fantastic word play and imagery to play around with. SS: A week and a half before the announcement of the album or the single, the sites where whited out with the ellipsis. A few days later we put in an audio teaser of nothing but the first 10 seconds [of the first single]. JI: The album wasn’t revealed yet. SS: Then there were two short 10-second video teasers of footage of them in LA recording the album. Then the premiere of the record was on Zane Lowe [on Beats 1] and the hottest record [on Annie Mac on Radio 1]. That was partly because of Zane’s

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allegiance and relationship with the band going back years. So we had both Beats 1 and Radio 1, which was pretty amazing. Using Facebook to reveal the album sleeveSS: One of the progressive moves we were able to make was the ability to use Live for the first time on Facebook for the band. So every single fan on their Facebook would get the same notification saying the band was live on there. We carefully chose our moment with it and did it around the album artwork reveal which was the dot dot dot of the ellipsis morphing into the finished artwork [where the three members are curled up in circles]. That was a really exciting moment where fans were trying to guess what it was and what was going on.

We had not done an artwork reveal through Facebook Live before. There was a lot of collaboration with Facebook throughout this campaign and ‘Wolves Of Winter’ was one of those examples. When the official video was released, it went on Facebook exclusively [for several days]. It was all done on a content-by-content basis. But it just lent itself perfectly to Facebook, as that is where their fans are; that is where

the reach is. JI: Now doing Facebook Live is the norm. But at the time it was a big deal.

SS: It was new, exciting and scary. We had a Q&A with Fearne Cotton from the Firepit [Warner’s in-house studio and creative space in their London offices] with a live session as part of it. That was hosted by Facebook to get super-massive reach. That was a really good

moment and we had never done that before. JI: At that point in June there were no big TV shows around so what do you do if you don’t have a big terrestrial platform to launch it on? You make your own. And that’s what we did. SS: The reach we got from that was arguably bigger that traditional terrestrial TV reach. You’re talking millions. And it’s international [in reach]. JI: We obviously spread content across all platforms [not just Facebook]. SS: Why put a full video of Facebook ? I think you have to find a balance of what you expect you would get out of YouTube versus what you’d get out of Facebook. JI: For the launch, we wanted to get as much reach as possible. SS: It was on Facebook for a week before it was taken down and had several million views. By the time it goes on YouTube, the single is bedding in at radio and there is a broader media awareness of it so it’s natural fans will consume video content on YouTube. It does naturally merge into that over time. Moving onto Snapchat for the first timeSS: We did a fun scavenger hunt that was coordinated internationally leading into the release of the album. But it was really quite clean parity across all social media. JI: We had good engagement on Twitter and Instagram – and we have just convinced them to go on Snapchat as of early October.

BEHIND THE CAMPAIGNBIFFY CLYRO

We turned a corner. They went on Snapchat just before the tour started in Europe. JI: There were a number of reasons [for joining Snapchat now]. The next single is ‘Re-arrange’, a ballad – the first ballad from the album and probably their most commercial track to date. We just wanted to widen out the musical landscape in terms of maybe getting it onto Radio 2 [and so on], so we wanted to broaden the social media landscape. Especially if they are going to America, Snapchat is quite an important platform there and skews into a younger audience. SS: By nature of what Snapchat is, it’s just a more personable window into their mindset and what they get up to on the road. JI: It’s just a different context and a different look. We’ll figure out things like musical.ly next. Everything ultimately had to come from the band and it has to be authentic. We wouldn’t push them to do something they weren’t into doing. There is no point. They will find their way to musical.ly at some stage. As they have found their way to Snapchat. We will see what happens with

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BEHIND THE CAMPAIGNBIFFY CLYRO

‘Rearrange’ and their touring around Europe and America in terms of how that performs. Leading into the album and pushing physical pre-orders

JI: The second single was ‘Animal Style’. SS: The gap was quite small – three weeks between the first single and it. It was teased in a similar way across all social platforms into the premiere on Radio 1.

For the album itself, we really fleshed out all the formats . There was standard, deluxe, vinyl, coloured vinyl for indies, signed vinyl for Amazon, a box set for D2C and a HMV exclusive with a 7” single. There were so many different formats. They also played some in-stores. JI: Their audience is heavily physical on launch. We have done box sets for all their albums on Warner and the fans love it. They are good quality pieces and is priced in a way that is not ripping anyone off. It’s not a high-price item – it retails for around £40. We haven’t gone about that price. The fanbase loves that.

Simon [Neil, singer and guitarist] handwrote the lyrics to all the songs and then we cut them up and put them in nice envelope so every time you bought a box set you got a bespoke piece of the lyrics from Simon. We filmed so much content going into the album, which we continue to use today. SS: The formats all went up simultaneously on launch and then we took the opportunities we had with the different retailers. JI: With any band with a loyal fanbase, they are going to want more personal stuff. We have pop acts here doing signed colour vinyl.

People just want something special – and Biffy have always done that. Using physical out of the gates and then using streaming, playlisting and live to maintain the momentumSS: It’s not completely physical-centric. We did Spotify-centric pieces of promotion too.

JI: With streaming we can elongate the campaign as much as possible. Streaming gives the campaign a longer tail – rather than the traditional four or five singles from an album. SS: For the first two singles it was easy as they can only live in so many playlists due to the nature of them being rock-based – and there are a limited number of genre playlists [for that sort of music].

Those playlists are powerful if you

coordinate them internationally as we did more so on this campaign than we have done before.

The lead singles are often eligible for big playlists like New Music Friday as they are genre agnostic. Certain tracks [from albums] will over-index and it’s skewed by playlisting anyway.

With Apple Music, we did a Biffy Clyro Curates collaboration. SS: To keep the plates spinning in the summer, they headlined Reading and Leeds Festivals for the second time, which was a big moment. They had done some European dates, but from a UK point of view [it was huge]. JI: From a promotional perspective, we did Later... With Jools Holland. They headlined Radio 1 Big Weekend [on the In New Music We Trust stage in May]. They’ll be on the road through 2017 – playing the summer festivals, America and so on. SS: They also did their biggest-ever Scottish show at Bellahouston Park to 36,000 fans. It was their headline show. Prior to that they were doing 12,000-capacity shows in Scotland. This was an enormous leap forward. :)

WANT TO FEATURE IN BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN? Marketing people: do you have a campaign you are working on that you would like to see featured in Behind The Campaign in a future edition of sandbox? If so, send a brief synopsis of it to Eamonn Forde for consideration and your work (and your words) could appear here.Email: eamonn.forde@me.com

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music :) ally Webinar Course

Digital Marketing for Music Publishers22nd & 29th November 2016

Proving to be very popular, there’s still time to book a place on our brand new training course! Kicking off on the 22nd November, our two module webinar training course is tailored specifically to the publishing sector of the music industry. Digital is not an isolated domain for labels and artists. Modern music publishers are having to adopt an increasingly proactive role in digital and in marketing their writers, composers and catalogue. Having the best up-to-date knowledge and relevant insights will be invaluable to those efforts.

music:)ally has designed this course in close consultation with a wide range of music publishers to ensure it meets their needs in the digital space and can help to grow their businesses. These two modules can be accessed globally, and will teach you to promote your composers, writers and brand across social media, playlisting and digital service providers, while better understanding how to align

your streaming and sync strategies and keep track of your competitors’ performances. Even if you cannot attend the modules live, you will be sent the recording of the session so no worries there!

Please contact anthony@musically.com for pricing, more info and to book your place. Group discounts are also available. We look forward to hearing from you!

This two module webinar course will teach you how to do the following:l Align your streaming and sync strategies to get the best results from both.l Effectively work with A&Rs and developing writers/composers to build a social media base.l Understand how to get your songs featured in playlists.l Keep track of your and your competitors’ performance within streaming platforms.l Understand how digital advertising works to be able to promote your writers, composers and brand.

Course details

The two modules take place on 22nd and 29th November 2016, at 3pm UK time.

NEW WEBINAR ENTRIES OPEN

Entries now open for sandbox’s Campaign of the Year 2016

Yes, it’s that time of the year again where we ask you to send us your very best artist marketing campaigns of 2016. If you’ve entered before, you’ll know the routine. If you haven’t, it’s a very simple process where you complete an online form and send us some nice images and we’ll take care of the rest.

As an aide-memoire, here is a link to last year’s sandbox special to give you an idea of the kind of thing we are looking for.

Deadline for submissions is: 6pm (GMT) Friday 18th November.

It’s completely free to enter so get your submissions in!

As long as part of the campaign occurred after January 2016, you’re okay to go!

Head to this link to fill out the submission form!

14 | sandbox | ISSUE 167 | 02.11.16

Published by music:)ally.

music:)ally is a music business information and strategy company.

We focus on the change taking place in the industry and provide information and insight into every aspect of the business: consumer research analysing the changing behaviour and trends in the industry, consultancy services to companies ranging from blue chip retailers and telecoms companies to start-ups; and training around methods to digitally market your artists and maximise the effectiveness of digital campaigns as well as events.

We are now also offering digital marketing services to labels, artist managers, artists and other music related companies from campaign advice and strategy through to implementation and execution.

Clients include:

Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music, Spotify, Deezer, Ignition, Beggars, Modest, Red Bull, Shazam, Domino and more

If you have a digital campaign related story for sandbox, please contact Lil Patuck on lil@musically.com

If you’d like to talk to us about our digital marketing/mentoringtraining services, consultancy or specific research services, please contact Karim Fanous on karim@musically.com If you’d like to subscribe, add new subscribers, or talk about a corporate deal please contact Anthony Churchman on anthony@musically.com

Digital marketing services

Campaign support services: • Strategy• CRM and Email tools• Digital housekeeping• Social networking updates• Search and online advertising• Mobile applications• Blogs and online PR outreach• Measuring campaign effectiveness

Contact Karim Fanous on karim@musically.com or +44 (0)20 7250 3637 to discuss your digital marketing needs.

Training services: • In house company mentoring• Workshops• Digital briefings• Digital MOT sessions

music:)ally has delivered digital marketing training sessions for a wide range of clients including Universal Music, EMI, AIM/London Connected and many individuals

Check out music:)ally’s training opportunities here Contact Anthony Churchman on anthony@musically.com or +44 (0)20 7250 3637 to discuss your training needs

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