The latest in a series of clever digital campaigns for Bob Dylan, this targeted fans going to gigs with an ‘out now’ message on their mobiles.
Note, the text below was supplied by the team behind the campaign.
Company
Sony Commercial – Legacy
Team members involved
Jo Kalli – senior marketing manager, Sony Commercial UK
Frazer Lawton – senior publicist, Columbia UK
Julie Sandrin – head of digital marketing, Sony Commercial UK
Jeroen Vandermeer – senior director, marketing, Legacy US
Campaign breakdown
Budget: £5k – £10k
Audience demographic: 30% female / 70% male, age 30+, London region skew
Overview of campaign
This year, Sony Commercial released the 12th volume of Dylan’s Bootleg Series. The Cutting Edge gives a unique insight into Bob Dylan’s creative process when recording Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde between 1965 and 1966.
On top of amazing press reviews across The Guardian and Uncut, we secured a bonus 52-page Bootleg Series book with the December issue of Mojo to reach out to his core traditional fanbase.
Two weeks before release, Dylan toured the UK: we used this opportunity to target fans going to the gigs with display advertising across mobile, pinpointing their exact location around the venues. We retargeted them around the release too with an “out now” message.
1965-66 was a turning point in Dylan’s career: his UK tour included an acoustic set, followed by an electric set. This transition has become one of the most famous tours in rock ‘n’ roll history, culminating with fans calling him “Judas” in Manchester. We uncovered rare and hilarious footage of fans back then, storming out of his gigs, demanding their “money back” and saying Dylan was “prostituting himself” for going electric.
Noisey and Vice premiered the fan video, telling the infamous story to a new and younger audience, which became an important focus in this campaign.
Columbia US collaborated with Genius to showcase the development of classic Dylan songs. Evolution Of A Song encompassed changes in Dylan’s lyrics. The Studio A Revisited microsite allowed fans to play with the studio stems that make up ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
A listening session timeline gave inside stories behind these sessions and a Spotify playlist retraced the evolution of Dylan’s sound in 1965 and 1966. Pseudo videos and rare footage were unveiled with media partners throughout the pre-order phase, including the ‘Visions Of Johanna’ video which premiered on The Guardian for the world.
We also supported all activity via our local Legacy UK channels, which were launched earlier this year.
Results and key learnings
This campaign was a brilliant result, with sales in the first week outperforming sales of the previous bootleg (which was released last year) by 17%. This was also due to a great retail campaign.
We gave HMV an exclusive limited-edition 7” single; fans who bought it were given a £2 discount on The Cutting Edge. Amazon was also a great support and we also secured a Kindle wake screen campaign, targeting previous buyers of Dylan products on Amazon.
Links and extra info
Evolution Of A Song – http://www.facebook.com/bobdylan
Studio A Revisited microsite – http://thecuttingedge.bobdylan.com/
Legacy UK – http://www.wearesonylegacy.com
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