Campaign: Blogger Outreach for Chris Lake feat. Nastala ‘If You Knew’

Timescale: October 2008 – February 2009
Reference from Client: “Rising Digital have helped develop our artists and labels online in ways that we didn’t realise were possible, they are always at the forefront of new social networking ideas and their “word of mouth” campaigns have significantly changed the way we promote our records." – Harvey Tadman, Three Six Zero Group

In October 2008, we teamed up with the above mentioned agencies to work a global campaign for what was to be Chris’ first major single after Changes. TV, Radio and PR all played a major part, but it was to be one of the first digital word-of-mouth projects in this field. Servicing tracks to key influencers in the music industry was not a new strategy, but we wanted to see what the reaction would be, if we as a company went out and spoke to musical bloggers and online journalists.

Objectives
- To build an online reputation for Chris Lake and his label Rising Music
- To spark debate about the Chris Lake brand
- To attract more hits to Chris’ online communities
- To generate extensive online global coverage

Strategy and plan
The idea was to speak to enter a community that had never before been spoken to directly. Musical bloggers were used to pulling [il]legal downloads, sharing dodgy youtube clips and radio rips, but rarely had they been approached in quite the same fashion. Rather than condemning individuals for posting material, we embraced them. Through research and many cups of coffee, throughout the course of October/November, we actively went out and spoke to bloggers. The formula is quite simple and still stands today:

Research relevant influencers —> Speak to them directly, and find out what they like —> ask if it’s cool to send through fresh info for their blog —> if they say no, no problem, but if they say yes, you’ve just got yourself a) an online peer, and b) some coverage for your client.

By mid-November we had a list of 300 mavens. The aim was drip feed quality information in the form of artwork, music video, remixes and finally the track itself.

Measurement and evaluation
As expected PR, Radio and TV had huge success, with more than 25 pieces of coverage, the track featuring regularly on BBC Radio 1’s specialist shows for three months, daytime plays and went on to do great things in North America later in the year after his pre-released Only One started to lose momentum. It was also featured on regional stations across the UK, North America, France, Belgium and Holland. The music video made by Metzo Films went onto all major Music Channels, and happily landed MTV’s Top 10 videos in December – no easy task!

From the online side; we counted around 250 pieces of blogger coverage.

Results
As well as the video taking MTV chart position, Chris Lake feat Nastala ‘If You Knew’ went on to become Music Week #1, Cool Cuts #1 and Buzz Chart #1.

On a side note. Two years later, many of our initial blogging friends have moved onto new pastures, but many remain and for us, these people are now more like online-buddies, who continue to cover our features.