Brand: Radiohead
Initiative: Nude Re-Mix
Markets: Global
Dates: April 2008
Background
Radiohead are an English alternative rock band from Oxfordshire whose international fame didn’t arrive until the launch of their third album in 1997, ‘OK Computer’, which has been acclaimed as a landmark record of the 1990s. After a major fall-out with one of the biggest record labels worldwide, EMI, in 2007 Radiohead independently released their seventh album, In Rainbows, originally as a digital download for which each customer could set their own price, later in stores, to critical and chart success. Radiohead have sold approximately 30 million albums as of 2008.
Challenge
After a groundbreaking marketing initiative with the ‘pay-as-much-as-you-want’ album launch, what could Radiohead do to once again connect with their fans but at the same time promote their music in a new creative way
Approach
To promote the new single NUDE far from any promotion involving their already acclaimed album, Radiohead decided to give their fans a platform to re-mix the new song and create a new ‘entertainment-movement’ around sharing and creation of original music content
The Idea
- Users could download from iTunes all the stems from the single NUDE, including bass, voice, guitar, strings/fx and drums for $5.99
- Once downloaded, you could mix them in any way you liked, either by adding your own beats and instrumentation, or just remixing the original parts.
- Although the Apple Garageband software was not required to remix the songs, if you purchased all five ’stems’ from iTunes during the first week they were available, you’d be sent an access code to a GarageBand file ready to open in GarageBand or Logic. (Smart partnership here to demo the programs)
- Once mixes were completed, they could be uploaded within the new RadioheadRemix website dedicated to the initiative – where the public could listen and vote for their favourite remix
- Also, users could create a widget allowing votes from their own website, Facebook or MySpace page to be counted as ‘mix votes’ back on radioheadremix.com.
The Results
- Overall the website received 6,193,776 unique visitors
- 2,252 was the number of mixes submitted
- 461,090 votes were casted
- 1,745,304 was the final number of track listened by the end of the campaign
- The single was sold incredibly well that “Nude” was Radiohead’s first entry in the Billboard Hot 100 in twelve years.
- The initiative was so well received that the English band is ‘doing it again’. With only $0.99 cents to buy all 6 of the stems, they have started a second remix contest, this time for their song “Reckoner”
The Learnings
- Cut down the barriers / Initiatives like this where content creation is solely up to the consumer, barriers to entry must be particularly low. Make it as simple, appealing and rewarding as possible and your consumers will give it a go.
- Don’t leave me out! / Establishing a solid relationship with your core audience is always a must and your initiatives may sometimes only include this group. However, when barriers to entry are pretty low and the campaign is talking to a broader audience you may potentially reach new acquisitions from users who may have never been interested in your service or product (in this case your music)
- Stay truthful to your objectives / If we analyze the results, ‘only’ 0.04% entered remixes and 28% listened to the song. Although this may sound low 0.04% isn’t so insignificant when it’s 2,252 mixes. Because the ultimate objective was to solely bring attention to their single outside of the context of their already previously promoted album ‘In Rainbows’, the success is in the 6 million people who engaged with the song in any way, and that enough people interacted with the site in some way to influence their networks and generate a viral growth for the site.
- Create timelines and ‘Virability’ / You should always structure your campaign/competition so that you give a set time for usership to build and grow – set deadlines, sharable tools and different phases to a concept are going to give enough time for people to bond with the idea and for words to spread ‘virally’
Twitter: Probationary review
If Twitter were an employee, it would be approaching the end of its first three months with me – that probationary period is a vital proving period in any relationship, and it’s a good idea to take stock of what you’ve learned, what’s been fun, and what needs to change. In an attempt to make this useful for the Hive, I’m going to use the tried-and-trusted list of 11 points.
Twitter veterans will have nothing to learn here, but hopefully the newness of these perspectives will be of use to some of you.
1. Pedal! Pedal!
2. Starstruck?
I admire Stephen Fry. I think he is a staggeringly clever, funny bloke. But his Twitter feed, allegedly the non-plus-ultra of ‘Twelebrities’, was an anticlimax, and the same goes for the other famous people. Even Ashton Kutcher. I think I expected too much, and discovered instead that Twitter lays bare how embarrassingly ordinary the contents of celebrities’ heads are. But there’s a flipside to this: the same effect uncorked the personalities and minds of lots of ‘little’ ordinary people who deserve just as much adulation. In the same way as Stephen Fry has underwhelmed me, the ‘ordinary’ people I follow have been a revelation – colleagues here at Profero as well as employees at other agencies. Rather than bleat on about their work, Lean Mean Fighting Machine has popularised the ‘pant jump’ and I always look forward to the ‘squid news’ coming out of Dare. Profero has its own Yellow Bin – possibly the only recycling bin in the world to have gone on a drug-fuelled bender in Camden. This is a wonderful marketing point that I think is coming closer than ever to the magic 15 minutes that Warhol is on about.
3. Bland identity
As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, I am dismayed at the output of brands out there. Thinking that it is ‘enough’ to have someone sat at their desk, engaging with the audience, they are tweeting me to sleep with their harmlessness. I promise to buy the products of any brand that steps up to the mark and starts making the walls shake.
4. In our bubble
I’m going to take a punt and speculate that advertising and new media types might over-index on Twitter a little. Yep. Thought so. In between thrilling the crowd with urbane, witty thoughtfulness, and rehashed news, we should take time to step outside into a real world in which Twitter is about as front-of-mind as Chilean domestic politics. People in our industry are currently talking about Twitter as if it is social marketing. In fact, Twitter is the Manchester City of social media – all the news, all the column inches, much expectation, but nothing like the proven reputation, reach and size of other outfits. It’s nothing insightful to suggest that Twitter still has a way to go in terms of mainstream penetration, but I’ve got my doubts as to whether the surge will continue for long. A forgivable perception of Twitter is that you’ve got to have something to say; just look that vacant white box at the top of the page. It’s as terrifying as a switched-on mic. The problem is, the majority of our audiences don’t feel they do have stuff they want to publish, but they’re happy to listen. Twitter perhaps has to be repackaged into more of a one-way product to reach out to the real masses.
5. Two vaginas
Did you know this: residents of the Colombian town of Villa Vieja got a bit of a surprise when a mutant calf was born. ‘The calf has six legs, two vaginas and six nipples,’ explained the animal’s owner, Salvador Vanegas. Mr Vanegas, who has been raising cattle for many years, said it was the first time he has seen a calf born with that many legs and vaginas.
6. Tales of the unexpected
See previous point. The most absorbing people I’ve seen using the service understand how to stop you in your tracks, and it isn’t through being permanently relevant or predictable. They do it through building a pattern, and then throwing something in there that completely wrongfoots you.
Cricketers call it a googly.
(This the only thing I know about cricket).
Thing is, you can’t beat something that momentarily makes you think that the writer has lost his marbles. As anyone in email marketing will tell you, if you can’t mix it up, you’ll lose people.
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