As I type this post I’ve got my headphones on and listening to Random Access Memories which is the new album released by a couple of Paris musicians who call themselves “Daft Punk”
Now this album is going to be a number one seller in the UK and I thought I’d try to reverse engineer what made me pick up my phone today and pay the £4.99 to download it on release day, and how it relates to any niche.
The Lead Magnet
Now like all good launches the best part is released ahead of the bulk so that people know what to expect. In this case it was the song “Get Lucky” and it worked like gangbusters. This song itself has been in the #1 position of the single charts for the past 4 weeks and means that almost every radio station in the UK has been blasting this out non stop.
It shows that if you want people to become raving fans that you should use it up front and get people talking about what’s going to happen next. I know that the radio station I listen to every morning in the car have been talking about this for the whole month of May, so it was a matter of where do I purchase it from?
A Strong Back Catalogue
It’s also worth pointing out that band are not new, they have a lot of older stuff, but the last album was many years ago.
The one thing I have noticed is that in the end aisles of the supermarket were selling off these album’s cheap. This is a brilliant way to convert people into buyers and give them an insight of the type of digital delights that your ears will be left wanting more of.
I also noticed in the digital marketplace that the retailers (affiliates) were doing the same, so this really was using leverage, and means that a good tune will stand the test of time. I really don’t think that the current drivel will be popular in 2020.
Doing Things Differently
As I was already a raving fan I was very much pre-sold, but an advert I saw made me stop and take notice.
I’m pretty sure that Discover was the first physical CD that told me to visit a website and enter a code to download the mp3 version to my computer. This also happened to install a daft punk player that took control of all the audio files on that computer which is some pretty cool branding.
This time around the digital era is totally established, but they again pushed technology forward by allowing people to stream the entire album via itunes. I’m pretty sure this stopped all the piracy as why would you download from a torrent site when you can listen to the real thing?
To do this means you have to have a lot of self confidence that the launch is going to be a success, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of any band doing this. If this is now common place then leave a comment to give credit to the first band who did this.
Multiple Formats
So I bought via the android market place for £4.99 and now it’s available to listen on my computer, download onto my phone, and streamed via the trusty nexus 7.
For the apple fan boys I’m sure that it would be the same on all their devices, just that apple will probably be charging you more for the chance to look cool…
I also checked out amazon, and the physical CD was available for £9.99, and a limited edition vinyl copy for the real music enthusiast who has turntables could spend £17.99
This wide variety of formats means that anyone would be able to buy this and listen to it. When you are selling it’s important to not limit your market, can you image how annoyed I would have been if was only on CD or itunes?
Summary
Don’t just think about product launches in terms of internet marketing.
Next time you find yourself pre-sold on buying something take a minute to think about how the company behind the product was able to get inside your mind and try to apply some of the same tactics in your own marketing efforts.
Andrew Stark
