The music industry is no stranger to guerrilla marketing campaigns, using every alternative tactic possible to gain as much attention to artists or records.
And the latest craze that is designed to stir up as much hype for upcoming albums is to phase out traditional releases. Instead, surprise drops that cause a frenzy on social media could become the norm, according to Medium.
Kanye West is one such artist who likes stirring up public interest and even said in a radio interview before the launch of his latest record The Life Of Pablo: “Release dates is played out. So the surprise is gonna be a surprise.”
Indeed, he introduced his album during his own fashion show for his Yeezy Season 4 collection in February 2016, causing fans to get extremely excited.
When the record was finally released in April, it flew to the top of the Billboard 200 charts and acquired more than 250 million streams in just ten days on Tidal.
Beyonce is another star who is not a fan of traditional release dates. When she debuted her newest record Lemonade earlier this year, she certainly did so in style.
Firstly, she posted a video for track Formation on her YouTube channel in February, just before performing it at the Super Bowl 50’s halftime. An estimated 111.9 million people watched the game, and subsequently caught her live show.
The record was not released until April 23rd, following the playing of all 12 album songs on HBO. It was then released on Tidal – a streaming service owned by her husband Jay Z – before becoming available to other services.
Lemonade ended up being streamed 115 million times, selling more than 653,000 album units during its first week alone.
This is just one form of experiential marketing when it comes to the record industry, and it is not just chart artists that are taking advantage of this promotional strategy.
Indeed, OperaDelaware recently drummed up interest in its first grand opera festival by spraying chalk drawings of Italian composer and conductor Franco Faccio on pavements throughout Wilmington, Delaware Online reported.