Extending Artists' Reach

Reach is important to artists. We know it, and you know it. Whether they're hoping for a prime time set at a festival, running Facebook ads or throwing their hat into the ring for DSP playlisting, reach is on musicians' minds. Since there's nothing quite as powerful as getting music in front of more eyes and ears, we're diving in to some of the most creative and controversial ways we’ve seen artists extend their reach.
 

Concrete Surfers

In 2021, Brisbane’s Concrete Surfers made a huge statement with the ‘If You Can't Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em’ tour. The tour saw the band hitch their wagon to football games across Queensland, one of the only places full-sized audiences could gather at the time, due to COVID-19 restrictions.

With live performances few and far between, Concrete Surfers’ management and booking agency, GRAIN, explained that “Concrete Surfers are making as big of a splash as possible to speak on behalf of the music industry and to take the message of the double standards of the music venue restrictions all over the state.”

Of course, we don’t have to recap how challenging it was for musicians to boost and even maintain their existing reach back in 2020. As the industry battled with a lack of live opportunities for artists, Concrete Surfers said 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. 

Ice Cream for LCD Soundsystem

A month ahead of the release of the ‘American Dream’ album in 2017, Lollapalooza punters came across an LCD Soundsystem-branded ice cream truck, parked outside the event. Offering up actual ice cream and previews of unreleased tracks from the album, the van captured the attention of LCD Soundsystem fans, festival goers, and the average ice cream fan - a healthy spread of individuals.

As much as we love a well-planned digital marketing campaign, those don’t always promise the best reach by foot traffic. By combining a classic treat mobile, previews and artist branding - LCD Soundsystem were able to reach a unique and targeted audience with their unreleased tunes.

U2 and Apple’s 'Gift'

When U2 partnered with Apple back in 2014 for the release of the ‘Songs Of Innocence’ album, they managed to reach every single iTunes subscriber in the world. At the time, that was half a billion people. Instead of allowing users to opt-in to save the album, Apple and U2 went ahead and ‘gifted’ the release to directly to iTunes users’ accounts. The DSP labeled it as "the biggest album release ever".

The tactic was met with plenty of criticism, Wired described it as ‘worse than spam’, while The Washington Post called the album as "rock-and-roll as dystopian junk mail". While 26 million iTunes users did download the free album, users worldwide were eager to clear the album from their libraries, and the negative press overwhelmed the campaign.

So there you have it folks, we hope we've helped inspire your next reach-focussed campaign.

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