The pinnacle of Australian digital music innovation in 2008 was The Preset’s talklikethat.com.
No other Australian band came close to doing something so bold or inventive to promote their music online.
Built especially for The Presets single ‘Talk Like That’, talklikethat.com:
- allowed fans to ‘contribute’ messages which were then integrated like sub-titles into the clip;
- the clip could then be ’shared’ by fans with a simple widget;
- fans could ‘win’ prizes by following a series of clues found on MySpace and facebook;
- fans could also purchase the a Collector’s Edition of the Preset’s album through a link to JB Hi-Fi online; and
- fans could also join the mailing list, click through to Twitter, Bebo, facebook and MySpace, find out Presets tour info and watch the ‘Talk Like That’ clip.
The site was well executed, highly usable and intuitive.
Me using the site.
It was also expensive. For an equivalent outlay, the band could have secured a couple of 30 second prime time TV spots.
As music marketers battle to allocate dollars where they provide the best return, it’s worth asking the question: was talklikethat.com worth it?
In music marketing nothing ever happens in isolation. The site launched just a few weeks before the ARIAs so any bounce in sales directly relating to the site is impossible to measure.
But this is a brave new digital world. The spoils will ultimately go to those who risk failure and commit to trying untested marketing models.
For a range of reasons talklikethat.com was worth the investment.
Great Click-Through Rates
The site attracted over 6,290 unique visits. 3.2% of unique visitors clicked out to purchase the ‘Apocalypso Collectors Edition’ for $32.99. 3% might sound low - but as far as a click-through to purchase percentage goes, it would have most online marketers salivating.
Commenting feature.
A Widget That Works
Everyone is talking about widgets these days. But punters rarely engage with them. The Talklikethat.com widget was the exception to that rule.
The Presets widget allowed users to embed the Presets clip in their site of choice. More than 2,000 people embedded the widget generating almost 140,000 impressions.
Simple UI. Minimal clicks.
etc etc (Lots of other marketing gabble)
talklikethat.com provided lots of other fun facts and seven digit numbers. Since this is the business of selling records, those fun facts are largely irrelevant.
What is certain however is that talklikethat.com was good, viral content that engaged users for a significant time (5 minutes and more). Thousands of people came to the site and shared what they found so that so that it spread to a hundred thousand people.
Graph is not strictly relevant here.
A Career Band
There is a longer-term strategy at work here. The Presets are building to be a career artist, growing with their fans over a number of records. This wasn’t just a short-term grab for attention, it was a reassertion that The Presets aren’t like other bands. It engaged existing Presets fans in new ways.
It hadn’t been done before, so it also reinforced The Presets as an industry leader. Indeed, various blogs referred to the site as “the first of its kind” and a first to market for an alternate reality game in the music space.
Just like Radiohead and Trent Reznor get endless kudos for innovating in the way they deliver content to fans, The Presets are using their position at the top of the pile to reinforce their status as a band that connects with fans in unique, memorable ways.
99 Problems But A Click Through To Purchase Ain’t One
The Value of R&D
No-one knows the next best model for music consumption. And the answer won’t just appear miraculously. It will evolve over time, as lessons are learned, fans are better understood and technology advances.
Talklikethat.com arguably gives Universal a lead on the rest of the field. They have first look at the data, they see first-hand how and when this kind of online marketing works.
The value of that R&D won’t be realised for some time. But labels willing to experiment get a head start on others. Buying another TV ad doesn’t get us any closer to finding the next sustainable commercial model for the music industry.
I wrote this article for the last edition of The Music Network - the Australian music industry’s weekly tipsheet. When I wrote it, I imagined it would generate some strong opinions, especially from other labels or artists. So far it hasn’t generated a single response. I’d love to think that was because everyone agreed with me. But I know that’s not the case. So please, tell me I’m wrong.
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Ned Dwyer 12.18.08 at 12:30 pm
Interesting post.
In the last 6 months Modular/Universal have definitely been getting better in terms of their digital strategy. I think it was 6 months ago that they started to build their fan databases through giving away tracks on their site - though they were still issuing take downs to blogs for the same tracks.
I’ll be keen to see the first smaller label or artist to boot strap a similar campaign with similar results. An artist who makes a viral widget.
Ned Dwyer 12.18.08 at 12:34 pm
Just remembered I was talking to someone last night about Modulars use of Twitter which I think is pretty sharp. They’re following pretty much everyone and actually engaging in the conversation.
I posted about a show for Whitest Boy Alive on twitter and instead of making a similar tweet when they got around to it they gave me props and retweeted it. They’ve done that for a couple of other tweets too.
Top marks for engaging the community and not just spamming to whoever is running that side of things.
Simon C 12.18.08 at 4:19 pm
Hey Nick,
Great post. It’s funny, having worked in numerous major labels, they do very little R&D, or post analysis on the data they do obtain, as most campaigns are thought of as just that - a campaign, not a career.
I think this shows that the strategy here is long term, and that is the difference of having a smaller label as your creative hub - exactly what Universal needs. Major labels need to start seeing themselves as distributors - physically, digitally, and promotionally.
They are a series of services, that combined, allow talent to reach the mass market when it is ready, not prematurly as is often the case. The beauty here is that the whole digital campaign would have cost a pretty penny, and a label like modualr needs the backing and the resources of a major to achieve what they have on this campaign.
They 2 need each other more and more….
There’s my 5 cents….
Simon
Nick 12.18.08 at 7:07 pm
Simon - Thanks for the comment. I actually hoped you saw this. I figured you would have some insight into the matter.
My understanding on this one though is that it was driven internally by Universal in partnership with their agency. I’m happy to be corrected on this but I’m not sure Modular’s had a heap of input into this campaign.
Maybe someone from Modular can set us straight?
Mike Zeederberg 01.05.09 at 10:02 am
Hi Nick,
I’m the MD of Profero, the agency that worked with Universal and Modular to create the campaign - great article, really appreciate your insight and we’re hoping to keep building on the platform with Universal and The Presets, as well as continue innovating in digital music marketing in general.
Just one minor correction - you mentioned that you thought the campaign was expensive - it wasn’t, in fact it was one of the smaller album campaigns we ran last year. The budget was a long way away from being TV money, it just went much further through smart use of social media. Admittedly, as an agency, we were really behind the idea and so over-invested in the whole campaign in terms of time, but overall, this was not big money.
Cheers
Mike
Nick 01.07.09 at 4:26 pm
Hi Mike - Thanks for dropping by and well done to you and the team on your work.
All the creative work I saw from Profero in your banner ads last year was outstanding.
I stand by the expensive claim. The reason being, to spend that much on a single site for a 3rd single is a big investment. If it was an album site, sure, it was about right. But for a single?
That’s not to say it wasn’t worth it - I still love what you did - but it’s unlikely that kind of budget would be available to many other bands in Australia.
Regards,
Nick