6 More Awesome Music Marketing Campaign Example

Marketing is all about creativity, and while some marketing campaigns leave your fans and followers clamoring for more, others just fall flat. Marketing isn’t easy, especially in this fully digital world where radio ads and posters no longer work the same magic they once did. A good music marketing campaign requires creative insight and proper knowledge of one’s fan base.

While you are waiting for inspiration to strike, we’ve compiled a list of six more of the most popular, successful, and ingenious music campaigns out there. These campaigns left fans wanting more and marketing professionals wondering how they managed to pull off something that awesome in the first place.

Arkells, Rally Cry

Canadian rock band Arkells first appeared on the music scene was back in 2006, and since then, the Ontario quintet has become well known for their creative and fun music campaigns. When Arkells decided to drop their new album, Rally Cry, they promoted it by taking their campaign to a whole new level.

The band started by dropping their first track live at a karaoke bar. The next step in their ingenious campaign was to ‘leak’ a second track by way of a phone hotline that they advertised with a hilarious billboard. The eye-catching billboard read, “Can’t Sleep Off Those American Screams?” followed by a toll-free number listed underneath. When fans and curious spectators called the number, they got a preview of the song, “American Screams,” a song on their new album Rally Cry.

Why was it so successful? Arkells capitalized on our fear of missing out and that intense urge to know what happens next. They created an amusing, literal call to action that drove thousands of fans and adventure seekers to track down the billboard and call the number. A few years later and we still think the idea is genius.

Beyoncé, Self-titled

The only thing more successful than good marketing is apparently, no marketing at all. While this strategy only works for truly established artists, Beyoncé’s clever stunt proved to sell her album better than any other marketing strategy out there. On December 13th, 2013, Beyonce released her album for download and streaming apps all at once with zero announcements.

According to Mashable, within 12 hours, the album had been tweeted about 1.2 million times and sold almost a million copies worldwide in the first three days of its release. What lands this anti music marketing stunt on our list was its ‘surprise’ factor. The music icon used her fans and music journalists to roll out the number one marketing strategy, word of mouth. Releasing an album without warning also makes listeners feel special and part of an elite crowd if they’re one of the first ones to stumble upon it.

The Flaming Lips, Gummy Song Skull

The Flaming Lips are well-known for their song, “Do You Realize??” but they’re perhaps best known for their weird set designs and marketing strategies. As a part of their Flaming Lips 2011 series of monthly music releases, the experimental rock band decided that if fans wanted to enjoy their music, they had to eat their way to it — literally.

The band released new music, each through different distribution methods, including a gummy fetus and a stroboscope light toy box, but none was as popular as the gummy skull. Fans could listen to a four-song EP by retrieving a USB drive encased in the 7-pound skull and its bright red brain. The catch? You had to eat your way to the center. They only released 500 of the skulls and sold them at $150 a pop.

Marketing strategies like this aren’t new, well, minus the giant candy skull. The Flaming Lips used the exclusivity of the candy to create a limited-edition frenzy for fans. We all want we can’t have, and with only 500 skulls made worldwide, it made for a pretty exclusive campaign.

Stone Roses Lemon Posters

The Stone Roses were a classic rock band formed in the early 1980s and found fame primarily in the UK. In 2015, after years of fans wondering when the band was going to release new music, posters of lemons, the band’s calling card, started popping up all over Manchester, England.

This sudden presence of lemons led fans worldwide to ask questions, hoping that their favorite band was making a comeback. Sure enough, the band announced two shows shortly after the posters popped up, as well as a new album shortly after.

Although the band has split up, their lemon posters campaign lives on in fan and music marketing campaign history. They expertly played on fan nostalgia and human curiosity, and they built hype for new music in a simple yet successful way. The posters encouraged fans to speculate amongst themselves, allowing the band to build on the buzz of excitement and later capitalize on it.

Rihanna, Anti

Rihanna excited and annoyed fans with her marketing campaign for her album, Anti, which was finally released in January of 2016. Rihanna hadn’t released an album in some time when she started dropping hints that the Anti album would be released ‘soon.’

She dropped snippets of new music, videos, and even an online campaign that partnered with Samsung throughout the year. The online app allowed fans to search around her old bedroom for clues. The year continued with her giving no official information, and ultimately it drove fans insane with eagerness.

The campaign was brilliant because the lack of information led to everyone talking about her upcoming album, and once it was released, the frenzy of downloading it was everywhere.

Ed Sheeran’s Disappearance from Social Media

Much like Beyoncé’s anti-music marketing campaign, Ed Sheeran took a similar strategy. In 2015, he announced via Twitter that he was taking a break to travel the world. Fans were heartbroken, but he left one teaser. There was another album already in the works.

A year later, he made one post, a plain light blue square, to announce promotions for his upcoming album, Divide. Another year went by before Ed posted again. At this point, the world was sitting on the edge, wondering when the next album would be released. In 2017, he released two brand new singles instead of one, with one of the songs being the well-known track, “Shape of You.” Within 24 hours, both songs held steady in the #1 and #2 spots in both America and the U.K.

The moral of this story is that a bit of hype and secrecy can go a long way.

Mirada Media

While not everyone has the marketing budget of the significant artists topping the Billboard charts, many of these innovative campaigns used nothing more than social media and the power of creative thinking to get off the ground.

Creating the perfect music marketing campaign can be a lot of work; the final result is worth it! If you are unsure of your marketing techniques or are looking for other valuable tools to help you with your music career, Mirada Media can help.

To learn more about our services and how we can help you on your path as an independent musician, contact us today!