Sandbox
MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA
Teenage rampage: speaking to early teens
Is understanding “digital natives”
really as simple as suggesting
they have fled from traditional
media and just live online? Are
those aged 11-14 so entrenched
online that they have now shut
the lid on Facebook and prefer
to communicate solely through
messaging apps and online
games? And can they even be
understood as a homogenous
social group especially when
musical taste twists and turns
an incredible amount in that
brief four-year window? We
speak to those tasked with
communicating with this age
group and ask them how they
do it, what language they use
and how the major music
consumers of tomorrow need to
be understood.
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014
INSIDE…
Campaigns
PAGES 5 & 6:
The latest projects from the
digital marketing arena >>
Tools
PAGE 7:
Grabyo >>
Behind the Campaign
PAGEs 8 - 10:
Haim >>
Charts
PAGE 11:
Digital charts >>
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 2
continued…
Teenagers we know about: stroppy
adolescents usually to be found in the
bedroom or on a local park bench; they like
heavy metal, dubstep, R&B and anything that
older people don’t. They have little money
but have always been of vital importance for
the music industry.
Children, too, are fairly straightforward. They
love Bieber and Disney, aren’t allowed on
most social networks and their parents will
occasionally buy them music as a gift.
But how about those who lie in between?
The pre-teens and early teens, of roughly
11-14, who are neither children nor fully blown
teenagers? They are the so-called “digital
natives” who have been “born digital” (i.e.
after the general introduction of digital
technologies). They have never known life
without the internet and apparently shun
traditional media.
That may make them sound like a dream
audience to the ever-more-digital music
industry. But the reality is that there is
considerable confusion between these digital
natives and the “digital immigrants” who are
of working age.
How can they be targeted?
How can people who have learned digital
technology understand those who have
never been without it? And how can you
speak to an age group for whom many of the
long-established pillars of the music industry
– notably owning music and record shops –
are insignificant at best?
desire to communicate that already exists.
The answer, according to Universal Music UK
head of research Jack Fryer, lies in facilitating
the communication between them and the
artists they are starting to admire.
“There are certain things you can’t do
much about,” Fryer says. “The question of
tastes and identity is an anthropological
phenomenon that you can’t drive. But you
can try and facilitate what they are after. It
is about disintermediating the conversation
with artists.”
This, it is important to point out, has nothing
to do with marketing. The Committee of
Advertising Practice Code, which governs
advertising on media other than television
in the UK, has several pages of restrictions,
including a specific ban on including “a direct
exhortation to children to buy an advertised
product”. Nor is it about reaching out to
this age group. Rather, it is about enabling a
This sense of connection, he adds, ties into
the “socialised world of digital” that this age
group has grown up with. “There are lots
of millennials who have come to be digital
natives, but for 14-year-olds, the digital world
that they know is a ‘networked digital’ that
is arranged around communities,” he says.
“Most things that come to market now in
digital are socialised in some way.”
Of course, this desire to connect with artists
has always existed among pre- and earlyteens – something the police who had to
guard The Beatles from an audience of
screaming, jellybean-chucking teens at the
apex of Beatlemania will attest to.
But digital – and in particularly social media
– has made this connection a reality. What’s
more, this digital link has become its own
social currency, according to Fryer, where
a retweet from Justin Bieber is the 2014
equivalent to being the first person in your
playground to own Michael Jackson’s Bad
some 25 years ago.
“The ultimate currency now is having that
direct connection,” Fryer explains. “The idea
of having your fandom realised by having
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 3
continued…
‘that interaction’ is the most important
thing. Content is universally accessible but
conversation and connection is dialled up in
importance.”
Where do they live online and where
does mobile fit in here?
“They are not allowed on Facebook, but a
lot of parents will give pre-teens access to
these things,” Roberts says. “I know a parent
who set up an account for their child so they
get a duplicate email of notifications [from
Facebook] of what their child is doing.”
Twitter is clearly very important for this age
group (even though its privacy policy may
indicate it is “not directed to persons under
13”). But where else can they be found?
Fryer adds, “Clearly, regardless of official
guidelines on its usage, they are still on
Facebook. For what it’s worth I think people
have a tendency to exaggerate a sense that
young audiences are abandoning Facebook.”
It is a movable feast, according to
Ceri Roberts, co-founder of label and
management company Neon Tiger
Productions. But Facebook is very important
to them, even if under-13s are officially
banned from using it.
Messaging services such as WhatsApp,
BBM, Snapchat and Kik are also important,
according to Roberts, and it is no coincidence
that Sony Music teamed up with Kik for a One
Direction promotional campaign around the
release of their Midnight Memories album.
Fryer also mentions app and browser-based
games as being very important to this age
group, as well as Instagram.
One of the key reasons for the popularity
of messaging – and especially free (or
close to free) services like WhatsApp and
BBM – is that children often have their first
smartphone by the age of 14. A 2012 Ofcom
survey found that around two thirds of
British children aged between 12 and 15 had
a smartphone, a figure that is actually higher
than the UK average for adults.
“There are a lot of hand-me-down devices,”
Fryer explains. “And the fact is that some
of the devices that are handed down are –
arguably for the first time – smart.” These
may typically be cheap Android devices
rather than top of the range iPhones, but that
is more than enough for basic messaging.
Ritch Sibthorpe, MD of music at The Walt
Disney Company EMEA, explains that
“accessibility” is a major factor for this age
group. “iTunes, Spotify, Vevo and YouTube
play a big role in discovery and we make
our music available as widely as possible,”
he says. “A high proportion of those aged
11-14 now have mobiles and we’re focused on
creating mobile friendly sites and content.”
Is old media really redundant?
And how about TV and radio? Traditional
thinking has it that this new age group
has no truck with such old media. But
Sibthorpe begs to disagree. “From a music
perspective, it’s less about us finding them
and more about them finding us,” he says.
“Our own digital and TV channels are a huge
destination for this audience and music
content is key across all our platforms.”
He adds, “They are a key audience for our
Hollywood Records artists like Selena Gomez,
Bridgit Mendler and Ross Lynch as well
as TV-driven soundtracks like Shake It Up.
This audience has grown up watching the
stars on Disney Channel and continue their
relationship with them as their music careers
develop.”
This (perhaps surprising) devotion to old
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 4
continued…
media is largely to do with the age group’s
still rather regimented lives, according
to Fryer. “It is a generation that is still
spending a lot of time with their parents,”
he explains. “Their lives are quite scheduled
and rhythmical and, for that reason, become
quite analogue. For example, the school run,
the breakfast show, the TV dinner in front of
Coronation Street.”
As a result, this young generation – who you
might expect to be spending all their lives on
YouTube and catch-up TV – actually lead lives
that are in many ways comparable to those
of their parents. “Young teenagers are often
reflecting the behaviour of the ‘gatekeeper’,
typically their mother,” Fryer says. “On a
Saturday night, they are unlikely to be hitting
an illegal rave. Rather, they are probably
sitting in watching the X Factor with mum.”
This doesn’t mean that engaging with this
age group is ever going to be easy and the
simple fact is that many smaller record labels
simply don’t bother, figuring that their limited
resources may well be better used elsewhere.
Accelerated changes in taste make them
tricky to pin down
Even defining this age group is difficult, with
Sibthorpe claiming that musical tastes and
consumption habits evolve so quickly at this
age that it is hard to characterise those aged
11-14 as one homogenous group.
Nevertheless, it is clearly an
intriguing stage in a person’s
development and all the more
so as it may be when individual
musical tastes start to emerge.
That makes it important.
“What is fascinating about this
age group is they are not quite
teenagers,” says Fryer. “You find
a certain emerging confidence
among this age group. And it
is interesting how that plays
out with musical interests.
In a sense, this is an age group that is still
learning what ‘good’ looks like to them.”
But will they spend?
The age-old idea that early teens don’t spend
money on music is looking increasingly
threadbare.
Admittedly, you probably won’t sell them
many CDs – Nielsen’s 2012 Music 360 Report
found that 36% of US teens had bought a
CD in the last year, a number that is likely to
have fallen in the intervening years given the
decline of America’s physical music market
– but early teens do still buy music, as the
fortunes of One Direction and Katy Perry will attest.
Their purchases are largely digital. In the
Nielsen survey 63% of teen purchasers
Universal Music UK head of
research Jack Fryer on musical
genres and early teens
identified digital albums are “very” or “fairly
good” value, while 61% of respondents came
to the same conclusion about digital tracks
and only 55% thought so of CDs. The survey
also reveals the importance of smartphones
in the download market: 54% of the US teens
surveyed had music player apps on their
phones, while 26% had music store apps.
One of the key questions for the future may
well be if this market will ever pay for music
streaming.
While there is no doubt that early teens have
embraced the basic idea of streaming – 2012
research from EMI Music Insight revealed
that 41% of 13-15 year olds in the US stream
music online, the third highest percentage
of any age group – their preponderance for
listening to music via YouTube suggests that
arguments in favour of audio quality and
The notion of genre distinctions is quite
alien to the 11-14 age bracket. They rarely
even try to define or ‘tag’ music in terms of a
particular taxonomy. If they identify groups
of content it is more likely to be around
attitude or sensibility. Few are familiar with
traditional music journalism in the way that
perhaps previous generations had been, so
critical perceptions of music are much more
lifestyle- or mood-oriented.
Notions of genre don’t even come into the
content that they like. But – to generalise
somewhat – they can be characterised by
a certain optimism and/or positivity. As
a result, with wide-ranging and obvious
exceptions, they are happy to see this
reflected in the music that they choose to
identify with.
artists getting paid are unlikely to move them
onto the paid tier.
This may sound depressing. But if you take
into account the amount of money teenagers
spend on clothes – 21% of their total outlay,
according to Piper Jaffray – and socialising,
then it should be obvious that early teens are
far from a music industry lost cause.
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 5
CAMPAIGNS:
The latest projects from the digital marketing arena
K-Pop band Teen Top get
fans to help plot tour
The popularity of K-Pop
continues to increase amongst
teens in Europe and North
America. Now, for the first time,
North American fans have the
chance to bring boyband Teen
Top to their city via K-Pop concert
platform Krowdpop. Fans were
able to help choose in advance
five cities the band should visit on
their upcoming High Kick world
tour next month.
Once the cities were chosen – in this case
New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, Toronto
and Dallas – fans were then able to prepurchase tickets
and fund the
campaign in order
to get Teen Top
to their chosen
city. The tickets
available for fans to
buy on Krowdpop
run from VIP
options to normal
balcony seats, with
prices ranging from
$50-250.
Krowdpop works much like Kickstarter
whereby, if the campaign doesn’t meet the
minimum funding requirement, the ticket
purchases will be refunded.
There are other platforms similar to this, such
as Songkick Detour which acts such as Hot
Chip have been taking advantage of since
2012.
New York has had the highest number of
ticket purchases from backers – 349 in total.
If the money collected ($103,540) is divided
by the number of backers, it means that each
fan has actually spent more money than the
highest ticket price ($296.67 to be exact). The
campaign ends on 28th February for New
York and on the 29th for the other four cities,
so it still remains to be seen if Teen Pop fans
will achieve their goal.
Romeo Santos’s Digital Day
takeover
Sony Music Latin artist Romeo
Santos is hosting a Digital Day
today (26th February) which
includes Facebook, Instagram
and other website takeovers
where the singer will answer fangenerated questions.
Fans will be able to follow the events for the
day as a schedule will be hosted on a hub on
Romeo’s website. From 12 pm to 7pm, Santos
will be switching between various different
platforms including Google+ Hangouts,
Reddit, Exa.com and Soundrop. It’s quite
an elaborative plan by label Sony Music
Latin and includes partnerships for each
platform with Spotify, Vevo, Terra, Exafm and
People en Español all on board. Through the
schedule, fans will be able to follow Santos in
real time as he moves through the different
platforms. The official hashtag for the day will
be #romeotakeover.
The most recent high-profile example of
this kind of campaign was One Direction
with their 1D Day last November, which
included live streaming with the band along
with competitions and activities happening
throughout a single day.
It’s certainly an ambitious campaign that
aims to reach a large amount of people over
various platforms. It also provides a chance
for most fans to get involved during at least
one part of the day.
Santos’s latest single, ‘Odio’, is currently #1 on
the Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs. He is set to
perform at Yankee Stadium with a 50,000+
capacity this summer.
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 6
CAMPAIGNS:
The latest projects from the digital marketing arena
Frank Sinatra Valentine’s
Day e-card
Finding creative ways of
exploiting classic artists’
back catalogue online might
sometimes be difficult but the
latest UMG campaign for Frank
Sinatra cleverly used Valentine’s
Day as an opportunity.
Surprisingly, this seemed to
be one of the few campaigns
occurring on the day (not to
forget De La Soul’s free catalogue
giveaway).
The campaign included an online e-card
maker website where people could send
cards by choosing
an image, then add a
personal message and
choice of song from
the latest compilation
album (Sinatra, With
Love) shared via Spotify.
Unlike most other
campaigns, the website
does not include social
media share buttons for
users to be able to show
how their cards look,
but instead points users
to the Amazon and iTunes store to buy the
latest album.
Soundrop also launched a Valentine’s Day
Sinatra room where people could log in
to hear his hits via the Spotify app. This
perhaps could encourage streaming plays
for Sinatra among a younger generation.
The website itself seems to be aimed at
Sinatra’s original target market from back
in the 1940s and 1950s – women. However,
Sinatra’s core market has, for a number of
years, predominately been males, due in no
small part to the emphasis on the Rat Pack’s
history and iconography in the posthumous
marketing around him. This is surely
UMG’s attempt to open up the Sinatra back
catalogue to an audience that hasn’t been
courted in more recent years.
NightBus follow Dylan with
an interactive video
In December, Sandbox reported
on Bob Dylan’s successful
interactive video for ‘Like A
Rolling Stone’. Now the digital
agency behind it, Interlude,
has been involved in another
interactive video – this time for
pop-dance band NightBus.
It is not quite as elaborate as the Dylan
16-channel video, but is still interesting
nonetheless. The video for ‘When The Night
Comes’ is formed out of two different videos.
By using the slider at the bottom, the viewer
can choose which video to watch or blend
them together by keeping it in the middle. It’s
not only the visuals that are interactive as the
video includes three different audio versions
of the song: one somewhat more dancey,
featuring Hannah Melbourn – one of the
band’s singers; a more rocky one featuring
Jack Kennedy – the band’s other singer; or a
mix of both voices. The video is available via
MTV’s new platform, MTV artists. The new
social platform allows artists to create their
own pages for free and works as a discovery
channel for new music.
Albeit not quite as engaging, Rudimental’s
latest video works in a similar vein through
a deconstruction of their single ‘Powerless’
with Beats By Dre putting the focus on
the ability for the viewer to choose what
listening experience they would like to have.
In the same way as
the NightBus video, it
makes the viewer an
active participant in
the video and track.
There is certainly space
for developing creative
ideas to explore video
even further in the
future as the individual
experience for each
user becomes more
important.
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 7
Tools
Grabyo
This fortnight we look at live
social video distribution
platform Grabyo, an interesting
B2B startup which has recently
started making inroads into the
music industry by powering
the video snippets tweeted
during the BRIT Awards.
Based in the UK, Grabyo’s premise is rather
simple: it allows rightsholders to capture live
video and to publish it across multiple social
networks – predominantly in short form,
though it can also do extended formats. Using
the cloud-based platform, clients can capture,
edit and share near real-time video, pushing it
out as Twitter cards as well as via Facebook’s
news feed and other websites/mobile apps.
Having initially focused on the TV sector,
Grabyo is provisioned with satellite ingestion
for over-the-air broadcast TV, but it can also
take live online streams or uploads of prerecorded material. In addition to facilitating
social video distribution, the company
stresses the sponsorship possibilities that its
service can help to unlock.
Speaking to Sandbox, Grabyo’s CEO Gareth
Capon explained, “If you’re a broadcaster or
a significant rightsholder, you will generate
huge amounts of conversation. That will
happen all around you. You don’t have
control of it, you don’t get to choose whether
it happens or not and the volume of that
conversation is growing. As a content owner
or an artist, you want to engage in that
conversation; you want to be a part of it and
ultimately bring your content into the mix
of that conversation – because that’s what’s
driving the conversation anyway.”
He added, “But then you can also add in brand
sponsorships. If you’re a sponsor, you can
associate yourself with this great piece of
content. And because you’re bringing it to the
audience, they will be willing to sit through
and listen to your message because you’re
bringing something valuable.”
Some of the company’s clients include
Channel 5 (UK), CBS and TRESemmé. In
the case of the BRITs, hair care brand VO5
published 12 exclusive videos of live footage
using Twitter Amplify with Grabyo.
“By distributing exclusive live content from
the BRITs in near real time, VO5 was able to
get involved in the buzz around the BRITs
in a positive way, and we were rewarded by
the BRITs community passing the content on
across Twitter,” explained Nick Adams, head
of digital development at marketing agency
Mindshare.
The videos shared on Twitter included
seven live performances as well as four
videos of host James Corden interviewing
different artists. His conversation with One
Direction generated 1,759 retweets, while
the #VO5music tag
received 5,332 Twitter
mentions. Looking
at other sponsorship
opportunities in the music
industry, Capon added,
“The music video format
is a perfect social video
format. It is premium
content, three minutes
long, with a significant
amount of fans who are
very active and engaged –
and it’s the right audience
demographic.” Evidently
Vevo is already taking
care of some of this, but
Grabyo’s spin around the live element could
certainly help rightsowners to bring brands
on board.
With regards to best practices, Capon added,
“You need to make sure that you’re getting
access to the right content. Your staff will
need to become acquainted with our userfriendly editing tools. You need to make
sure that you set the campaign assets and
the branding assets appropriately. From a
technical and operations perspective, we can
provision very quickly.”
For those interested in an end-to-end service,
it is worth mentioning that Grabyo has a close
relationship with video production company
Showcaster, which can provide hardware and
manpower to record and stream events.
For the time being, Grabyo remains a B2B tool
and does not provide a self-serve platform. In
the case of the music industry, the company
will most likely be beyond the reach of most
but the biggest players. “We are open to
working with different business models,
charging for the service but perhaps also
sharing in the advertising income too,” said
Capon. “It all depends on the event and the
scale of the opportunity.”
Broadly speaking, we understand that the
company’s prices start in the thousands of
pounds. This shouldn’t, however, deter those
with the right mix of content, event and
sponsorships relations.
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 8
BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN
Haim
Haim began last year by
topping the BBC Sound Of 2013
poll – a fast track to immediate
success but which can also
put huge long-term pressures
on a new act. Their debut
album, Days Are Gone, was
not released until the end of
September meaning there was
a nine-month gap that has to be
filled to ensure public interest
didn’t wane and the band didn’t
miss their chance – something
made all the more precarious
because they were part of a
global campaign strategy that
had to be shared between
different labels in different
markets. Lisa Ward, senior
product manager at Fiction
Records, explains how they
were handled in the UK and
how both NME and Spotify
used the band to test out new
digital initiatives.
The build up to the BBC Sound Of
2013 poll was a slow, but steady and
structured, one
It didn’t come out of nowhere. In the late
Spring of 2012 they put their first music up
[online]. The ‘Forever’ EP is the first thing
they released as Haim and that went onto
their website as a free download. It travelled
really fast.
They played SXSW that year and were one
of the breaking artists coming out of there
and then they got picked up by some of the
media over here. Then through the summer
it was hotting up with the A&R interest and
the record labels fighting over them. We put
out ‘Don’t Save Me’ just before Christmas
2012, which was around when the Sound Poll
announcement went up.
At that stage, just before Christmas, they
had a Guardian Guide cover – which was
just unheard of for an act that was not
established and who had just signed a record
deal.
We had a four-month period – January
until April – where they were in the studio
[finishing and mixing the debut album].
It was all co-produced by them and they
wanted to be there through the whole
thing. That was really challenging – having a
campaign that was already up and running
with all the Sound Poll and hype but without
a record finished as yet.
Suspicions of hype can kill a band in the
early stages
I would agree with that in general, but in
this case we knew they had the songs and
we knew there were multiple singles on
the record. As much as you could be in
that position and have the fear due to the
hype and speculation, there was enough
confidence and it was about giving them
enough breathing space to finish the record.
It was a bit of a waiting game but it was also
good knowing that everyone had confidence
in them to deliver.
As soon as we had the finished record and
could plan in the promo time, it was just a
matter of juggling the time in their global
diary. That was the main challenge rather
than worrying about the pressure of the
Sound Of… poll.
Timing the album off the back of Sound
Of… was fraught with risk: you can’t rush
it and equally you can’t leave it too long
Generally for a campaign that would be my
main concern, but it was a matter of knowing
they could make the record. It was an
ongoing conversation with marketing talking
to A&R, to management and to the band and
then everyone judging it as we went along.
It definitely came down to the wire in terms
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 9
continued…
of making sure we had everything ready in
time; but, from a marketing point of view,
that happens on almost every campaign.
You can plan the best timeline in the world,
but everything moves when the band need
an extra few days here, when they want to
finish a track or just before you go to radio
you want to change a mix. They were based
in LA during that period so there was the
time difference [with the UK], meaning it was
a bit of a challenge. But everybody had a lot
of belief in it.
Regular bursts of activity were needed to
fill the nine-month gap until the album
was released
The single we went with after Christmas was
‘Falling’ and we didn’t have too much time
with them. The promo trips in general have
been in and out jobs. They rescheduled some
live dates to make sure they had enough
time in the studio to get everything 100%
wrapped up. What we didn’t want to do was
pull them out of the studio, do the live dates
and put them back in. When an act is in and
out of the studio, it is difficult to focus.
They flew in and out for a Later… With Jools
Holland TV performance and a few other
bits and pieces, but the other live shows
were rescheduled. The show at Heaven [in
London] was rescheduled [28th May] so we
ended up having the Heaven and Koko [30th
May] shows being back-to-back as opposed
to two months apart. When it happened, it
was even more exciting as it was the hottest
ticket [in town]. The early tastemaker fans
really felt they had ownership of the band,
which gave them a really good platform to
build from.
Glastonbury was a huge moment for
us. They played four times in two days –
including with Primal Scream. They were
running around the festival site with their
famous fans and friends. It felt like a real
moment in the campaign and we planned a
lot around that.
Coordinating a global strategy can be
thorny with so many stakeholders
They are signed to Sony in America,
Universal Germany domestic repertoire and
Fiction/Polydor in the UK. We are all joint
repertoire owners and it is very much a joint
effort. It’s more about supporting them and
everyone trying to come up with ideas that
they can feel comfortable with. In the album
countdown period, they were in the UK for
three and a half weeks doing promotion and
going in and out of Europe.
We were able to help them do a photo
countdown on Facebook [of pictures a
photographer friend of the band had built
up]. We didn’t want it to feel like a sales
message and we wanted it to feel it was from
the girls. After I suggested the idea, they
went off, found all the pictures and posted
one every day until the album release. Even
though I still had that marketing message
going across that the album was coming, it
was delivered very much in their style that
they were happy with, and which their fans
were used to and so would engage with.
Otherwise they really do run everything
themselves.
We launched a global campaign for them
– which doesn’t happen as much as it used
to. Normally you’d break out of one market
and then go to the next and then the next.
We launched a fully global campaign where
everything has to happen in every territory
at the same time. It was definitely a challenge
as it meant everybody had limited time with
the girls. For NME, the currency of having
a cover interview [and offering paid access
to extra online content around the feature]
meant that for the fans it was probably the
most insight they had for band from an
editorial point of view for a while. That was
the thinking behind it.
From a marketing point of view, that wasn’t
something that I drove. NME had been
really championing them for over a year so
they were using that [the premium feature
content] as a test point for their paywall
business.
Spotify came on as a promotions and
marketing partner to debut its Spotlight
feature
The biggest campaign partnership that we
had was the Global Spotlight campaign with
Spotify. They were the first breaking act
that they worked with and it was also their
first fully global campaign. That was tricky
to negotiate because of the different labels
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 10
continued…
around the world. Spotify’s marketing and
digital team in the UK drove this, but it was
massively supported in the US too.
For every idea, because it was global, you
have to make sure it works for all territories.
It involves a lot of backwards and forwards
and niggly things, but it meant that when it
worked, the impact was huge and you really
felt it. Sometimes you come up with a great
idea that works in one territory but doesn’t
spread outside of that. So it was really fun to
feel [that global success].
We had various tracks from the band going
up exclusively and because we didn’t have
too much access to the girls it was quite a
big deal to give all of that to Spotify. They
supported us with advertising and above the
line spend in the UK for the first time – i.e.
Spotify was spending its own money pushing
a ‘follow’ campaign as well as Haim being a
Spotlight artist.
It was just as they were introducing the idea
of following artist profiles and that meant
obviously populating that profile information,
content and playlists for the fans to make it
work. We also shot a bespoke TV ad for them.
They were very accommodating and artistsensitive to make sure that the creative really
fitted in with the rest of our campaign.
Their social media has to be
driven entirely by the band
members
From a digital point of view,
their social media is all about
their personalities. It is all done
by them. They are the ones
writing the copy and picking
the photos. The mood and the
personalities we managed to
get across in everything really
reflected where we were at
in the campaign. It felt really
exciting and people still wanted
to support them. We didn’t get backlash
from the Sound Of... poll. Because we had all
those early fans from before then, there was
a sense of ownership and it felt real and not
something contrived by a record label.
There was a lot of debate on how to handle
that because the girls felt very strongly about
it all. [Bassist] Este won an NME award for the
best Twitter account and that is genuinely
how she communicates and how she keeps
in touch with her friends when she is on tour.
It’s text, Twitter and Facebook. They really
felt the integrity of that was really important
and that fans would react to that.
It was a conscious decision that sales
messages would be really sporadic as
was [the decision] not to have an official
HQ channel; even the official Haim Twitter
account is run by the band collectively
even though they have their own personal
accounts. Their personalities travel a lot
further than a sales message and that is
worth more in terms of creating engagement
with fans. At Halloween they put up a picture
of them their mother had taken when they
were kids and that travelled so much further
than saying, “Hey, we have a single on the
radio.” It’s things like that where they can
show their personalities and that they have
a sense of fun – that they are young and can
laugh at themselves.
From a marketing strategy point of view, it
was very much a decision to let the girls lead
that and they will engage with it and it will
always travel further than me pushing a sales message.
Issue 103 | 26th February 2014 | Page 11
MUSIC CHARTS
Post-Brits 2014 impact for performing artists
All data is taken from Musicmetric: www.musicmetric.com
Arctic Monkeys
Disclosure
Arctic Monkeys fell from position 272 to 318 in the Fan Chart, being overtaken
by Roberto Carlos.
Disclosure fell from position 499 to 545 in the Fan Chart, being overtaken by
Crystal Castles.
Katy Perry
Ellie Goulding
Katy Perry fell from position 3 to 9 in the Fan Chart, being overtaken by Miley
Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Lorde.
Over the last week ‘Burn’ became the most played of all Ellie Goulding’s tracks
on SoundCloud, overtaking ‘Life Round Here’ (feat. Angel Haze) (having on
average 46.2k plays a day).
Bruno Mars
Over the last week, Facebook became Bruno Mars’s most active social network
for fans, overtaking YouTube and Twitter (adding on average 58.8k fans a day).
Beyoncé
Beyoncé fell from position 25 to 31 in the Fan Chart.
Rudimental
Rudimental moved up from position 770 to 717 in the Fan Chart, overtaking
2PM, Djr3hab and Bassjackers.
Bastille
Over the last week, SoundCloud became Bastille’s most active social network
for fans, overtaking Facebook (adding on average 5.6k fans a day).
Lorde
Lorde moved up from position 21 to 6 in the Fan Chart, overtaking Taylor Swift,
Marc Anthony and Katy Perry.
Last week Facebook became Lorde’s largest fanbase on social networks,
overtaking SoundCloud (2.4m total fans).
Pharrell Williams
Pharrell Williams moved up from position 86 to 84 in the Fan Chart.
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