The Presets – Talk Like That

This campaign, developed for Universal Music Australia, was originally destined to be a rich media display campaign to support the ongoing hype around The Presets album “Apocalypso” and third single “Talk Like That”, in the lead up to the ARIAS (Australian Recording Industry Awards). As a result of an innovative concept and a lot of client coaxing, an integrated social media campaign was developed to tie in with the display activity.

The creative execution was based around a reworked version of the Talk Like That video and allowed users to type in a message that was dynamically updated across all display units, widgets and the campaign microsite talklikethat.com. Ultimately, the campaign was focused around a competition where users needed to figure out cryptic clues and type them into the chat window to unlock prizes. The campaign featured display units across major music sites, a Facebook group that was used to communicate competition clues to members, and widget seeding to influential blogs.

Within an industry that typically regards the internet as an adversary to album sales and facilitator of music theft, such a campaign has paved the way for digital advertising and promotion of artists and their music. It also shows that engagement and interaction with a target audience, especially those that exhibit the fickle online behaviours of digital natives, is now a vital part of an online campaign.

The Presets campaign has also received high recognition within the Australian Music industry for its innovative nature and user engagements. TMN, a well respected industry publication in Australia, has named the campaign “The pinnacle of Australian digital music innovation”. See the full write up here. Additionally, the campaign was picked up in a number of blogs such as here and here. Such recognition for a campaign that pushes the boundaries of online music promotion can only help to encourage music labels and the recording industry to take a leap of faith in engaging directly with their audience and realising the potential of social media.