This Week On The Desk
Behind The Campaign: De La Soul 📰
Signings ✍🏾 - Busta Rhymes, Da Baby, AP Dhillon
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨 - Elsa Hanneke
Links 🔗 - Vocal Production
Behind The Campaign: De La Soul
Artist: De La Soul | Labels: AOI Records, Chrysalis Records
Albums: 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead, Buhloone Mindstate, Stakes Is High, Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump, AOI: Bionic
Team members
Ali Schlueter - Head of marketing. North America - Chrysalis Records
James Meadows - SVP marketing - Chrysalis Records
Donna Vergier - VP international marketing - Chrysalis Records
Aaron Skates - Director, catalogue marketing - Chrysalis Records
Daniel lammatteo - Director, streaming - Chrysalis Records
Kyle Mammarella - Senior manager, marketing - Chrysalis Records
Anthony Pinto - Production - Reservoir Media
Brandon Hixon - Management - We Make Music
F-That - Lyric videos and creative assets
Tony Ferguson - Society House - PR (US)
Cool Badge Radio and Yes Please - PR (UK)
EuroStar Radio
Spain: Mark Kitcatt - Everlasting Records
Latin America: Adel Hattem - DM Music Marketing
Italy: Camilla Astarte - Astarte Agency Germany, Alexandra Kraus - Mesh Music
France: Greg Thonon - AGMP Agency and Emra Soriano
Australia: Mardi Caught, The Annex and Thinking Loud
Overview of Campaign
De La Soul are a New York-based hip-hop trio whose members Posdnuos, Dave, and Maseo generated some of the genre's most iconic soundscapes and helped define the evolution of hip-hop for decades; creating the masterpiece 3 Feet High & Rising - initially released on March 3, 1989. Due to numerous label changes and the laborious task of sample clearances, the group's first six albums were unavailable on DSPs. On March 3, 2023, 34 years after the original release of 3 Feet High & Rising, and during the celebratory year of hip-hop's 50th anniversary, De La Soul's classic catalog finally launched worldwide across all services.
Tied to the "3" element - three members in the band, 3 Feet High & Rising, and *3" from their song The Magic Number - the catalog release date was announced on 3 January with a new website, merchandise drop, physical pre-orders and featured TikTok content.
Massive press coverage and Twitter trending followed. 'The Magic Number', which had gained new fans from a sync in Spiderman: No Way Home, dropped on January 13th with a new animated lyric video.
Spotify's The De Is Finally Here campaign had a pre-release album experience, including clips, countdown clock, social support and more. On 3 February, 'Eye Know, the second single, launched with digital album pre-orders, including an Apple Atmos exclusive, coinciding with a Grammy Hip-Hop 50 performance.
Sadly, with less than three weeks to release, Dave passed away. The campaign was put on hold, but Pos and Maseo decided to move forward to honor Dave. An Amazon Music-hosted global livestream release party became a moving tribute to Dave with performances and appearances by many hip-hop legends.
De La Soul received massive support from DSP partners, with an unprecedented six simultaneous billboards in NY's Times Square from Apple, YouTube, Amazon,
Spotify, Pandora, and NASDAQ, with other billboards in Los Angeles, Toronto, London and Atlanta.
The strategic rollout continued past March with additional merchandise drops, the physical release of the remaining five albums, and a digital initiative for a weekly launch of videos and standalone singles.
Results & key learnings
All six albums took the top spots in Catalog Digital Albums in the US. 3 Feet High & Rising debuted as the #1 Top Catalog Vinyl album chart, #1 on the Tastemakers Chart, #2 on the Catalog Albums Chart, #3 Independent Albums Chart, #15 on the Billboard Top 200 chart and Top 20 in the UK.
26m streams in week one for the six albums.
43%+ uplift in LTD overall streaming consumption.
YOY streaming growth is up 280%+, with the total TD - 122m global streams.
Social media following increased from 44.83% from January to September.
Campaign Breakdown
Campaign budget: $65,000+
Audience Demographic: All Ages
Location: US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Latin America, Australia
Signings ✍
AP Dhillon signed with Republic Records.
AP Dhillon is managed by Kevin Buttar & Herman Atwal.
DaBaby & Busta Rhymes signed with Cory Litwin of Range Music for management.
DaBaby is released by Interscope Records/South Coast Music Group, booked by WME & published by Universal Music Publishing Group.
Busta Rhymes is co-managed by Anthony Botter, released by Epic Records & booked by UTA.
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨
Elsa Hanneke - Creative Director | Instagram
Links 🔗
#WhoeverNeedsToHearThis
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