Deep Dive: 3 Very Unique Music Marketing Campaigns from 2020
Most of humanity got blindsided by the pandemic in 2020. And although it’s been over a year, some industries are still picking up the pieces and trying to adapt. In music marketing, quite a few musicians, singers and their marketing agencies were quick about making decisions in difficult times, decisions that would lead them to big success. In this article, we analyze three of the most unique, imaginative, and engaging music marketing campaigns that were executed in 2020.
Best Use of TikTok – Ashnikko
Everyone loves TikTok. With over a billion active monthly users, this platform has become one of the most successful mediums for music marketing with its endless challenges and emerging talents. And no one made better use of it than the American singer -> Ashnikko.
Ashnikko’s first huge moment happened in 2019, when her song “Stupid” went viral on TikTok. As a result, she gained over 3 million followers globally.
In 2020, for her new single called “Daisy” the team partnered with Beats by Dre headphones for a campaign on TikTok. The gist of it was to create a hashtag #BeatsDaisyChallenge and have fans create content that was related to each of the Powerbeats Pro headphones colors (blue, yellow, red, and pink). The fans were informed that the content they create would have a chance to be featured in Ashnikko’s final music video. The #BeatsDaisyChallenge hashtag amassed over 10.4 billion views on TikTok and there were over 3 million fan video entries — a real explosion of interest.
But Ashnikko’s team had more planned: they asked fans to create versions of “Daisy”, changing the audio and making it personal. Several user-generated sounds of “Daisy” were very popular and overall the team reported over 3.7 million video creations – including videos from TikTok superstars, Adison Rae, Bella Poarch, James Charles and One Direction’s Liam Payne, and others.
Campaign budget – £25,001+
Audience age – 14-18, 19-24, 25-34
Audience gender (M/F) – 30% / 70%
Location – Global
Ashnikko was included in the UK top 40 chart at #24 for the first time ever and had over 1.7 million daily streams on Spotify allowing the singer to easily surpass 10 million monthly listeners on the platform.
Strategy
Very simple in its essence, Ashnikko’s campaign made good use of the platform. Truth is, any musician can use their TikTok to encourage fans to create content. This already guarantees huge engagement but you can always throw in a reward — a chance to be featured in a music video. This is a great strategy because people want to be part of a community rather than just watch a musician perform. In 2020 especially, this strategy worked wonders because people were short of entertainment and engaging them like Ashnikko did was guaranteed success. Moving forward, you can take this plan of action a step further and add your own twist to it.
Best Live Stream – Disclosure
The brotherly duo band Disclosure from the UK won the best live stream award through their album “Energy“. The team had an immersive met-verse built over 100 million blocks in Minecraft. The band’s third album, “Energy” brought beautiful landscapes of Croatia into the theme since the music was live streamed from Plitvice Lakes, a stunning location reflecting the album’s cover.
Knowing that many gamers prefer electronic music, the team decided to commission the Energy Minecraft Experience, allowing players to immerse themselves in the deep caves of the realm while also listening to Disclosure’s magnificent music. Produced by Cercle and Amazon Music, this album brought the band over 1 million views in the first 6 hours and their Facebook post reached over 7 million people.
Campaign budget – £25,001+
Audience age – 14-18, 19-24, 25-34
Audience gender (M/F) – 50% / 50%
Location – Global
The team reported that over 25% of the growth that month happened in 12 hours of the stream. The band’s Twitch channel also experienced a huge influx of followers as the album was featured in UK’s top 5 albums and reached over 130 million global streams.
Strategy
Using Minecraft as a way of gaining more fans interested in Disclosure’s unique art was a spectacular success. Of course, we are not encouraging anyone to copy another’s style or methods, but rather take an idea and perfect it in your own way. Utilising the huge numbers of the gaming industry while giving them something new and fun to explore is a great place to start. You could pick a game you really enjoy playing and see if the owners/creators would like to partner with you. Otherwise, you could also come up with a different industry altogether, and partner with, say, cooking or sports companies.
Best Environmental Campaign – Wojtek
Recorded in Baltic Studios in East London, “Atmosphere” was produced using renewable energy. “Any remaining emissions were then compensated through the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates,” says Music Ally. To prevent waste, the album was distributed digitally, while the music video was created through reusing donated footage from peers and artists.
For his debut album, this artist chose to be carbon-neutral. Poland-born, Berlin-based singer Wojtek Szczepanik used his work to raise awareness about the climate crisis and emissions that directly connect to the music industry. Frankly, it’s unbelievable that no one else has considered this aspect of music.
Wojtek also launched a CO2 tracker website that showed the exact amount of emissions at this or that phase of production and provided some tips on alternatives. This initiative is truly impressive, making masses of musicians and listeners rethink their carbon footprint.
Campaign budget – £2,001- £5,000
Audience age – 14-18, 19-24, 25-34
Audience gender (M/F) – 50% / 50%
Location – Global
Together with his manager, Wojtek organized a seminar on music production in a carbon-neutral way at Reeperbahn. As a debutant, Wojtek reached over 140K people through his album, and his TikTok account grew in engagement from 0 to 4K+ in the form of likes and comments. See more stats on the left.
Strategy
Well, it’s never an easy task to come up with something new and authentic. Wojtek and his team focused on something the artist is passionate about and something that is a truly pressing issue for the planet, making his album global in the core sense of the word. As an artist, think about what you are passionate about, what issues do you really care about and how you can channel it into your work to provide global value.
Every campaign has a tailored, unique strategy. The key here is customizing and making sure to speak to your target audience, all this – without overselling. The typical cookie cutter campaigns usually do very little for the artist’s promotion, make sure to plan and invest time to properly plan your ‘pre’ and ‘post’ release campaigns . Unlock the potential of your next release and music marketing campaign through actionable, trusted methods and audience targeting with MPT Agency (MusicPromoToday) – creating highly tailored music marketing campaigns since the day it was established, bringing artists global recognition.
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