How The Libertines used shortform video to get a #1 album
It's the band's first #1 album in 20 years
Welcome to Digital Waste, the newsletter that documents what happens when underground music hits the internet 💥
I’ve spent the last six months leading the digital strategy for The Libertine’s fourth studio album, ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’, which is out via EMI and has just hit #1 in the UK albums chart.
It’s the band’s first #1 album since their self-titled classic in 2004 and a main focus of our digital strategy was shortform video – we wanted to make sure that The Libertines were everywhere on social ahead of release week.
We aimed to get their core audience excited and engaged with brilliant video content that would then travel into the wider indie and pop culture internet, keeping awareness at a high across the 6-month campaign. We nailed some genuinely viral moments and grew the band’s online fanbase along the way, so I thought it’d be cool to document the process in this issue of Digital Waste.
There was of course much more behind the #1 – national press and TV, tantilising physical formats, underplays and outstores, a new anthem in ‘Run Run Run’ – but here’s how shortform video helped get The Libertine’s their biggest record success in two decades.
In this issue:
📹 Turning shortform into chart success
🔌 The power of organic views
💖 Analysing fan emotion as well as data
As well as:
💥 Creating moments that work IRL and on social
🎨 Why a style guide for your content is essential
🥶 Pete Doherty in an ice bath
Enjoy <3
Case Study 🔎
The Libertines ‘All Quiet Along The Eastern Esplanade’
At the start of the campaign, The Libertines had a strong following on Instagram and a small presence on TikTok. Our digital strategy focused heavily on shortform video in order to activate the band’s core fanbase, grow their audience further and make sure all of our planned fan-centric moments and press appearances were amplified as widely as possible. We wanted to use shortform to boost awareness of the album and turn organic views and fan engagement into physical sales and streams. We ended up growing the band’s Instagram by 10 per cent, doubling their TikTok audience and nailing their first piece of content to hit more than 1m views – all of which contributed to a #1 for ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’.
1. Understand the fans and turn their excitement into engagement
The Libertines have a large and lively fanbase of millenial and gen X indie fans, so we didn’t have to reinvent shortform to get them to engage with the band’s social output. We broke content into four classic pillars – live, archive, behind-the-scenes, personality – and made videos as easy to digest as possible with optimisations like captions, on-screen text prompts and short durations. We doubled down on content that fans were enjoying and published video every other day, getting fans used to watching shortform and capitalising on excitement around the new album. With a new record coming, fans were hungry for content and hyped to hit like and leave comments. This core fan engagement lit the fuse for some big viral moments.
2. Pinpoint the emotion behind the numbers
We could see that fans were reacting positively to our content pillars, and that there were real, emotional responses behind the biggest view counts. There was support for Pete’s sensitive, down-to-earth moments; admiration for Pete and Carl’s longstanding and resilient friendship; charged nostalgia (as well as the indie sleaze revival); laughter and applause for a band that leans into humour and personality and heaps of goodwill for their first album in the best part of a decade. Libertine’s fans are diehard and we honed in on content that gave them real, authentic access to the band as well as lots of teasers, acoustic versions and live footage of the new songs too.
3. Create moments that work IRL and on social
There was a six month run-up to the release of ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ so it was really important that the band created moments to sustain excitement and reward fans IRL and online. They threw a weekender in Margate complete with acoustic performances, 500-cap live gigs and DJ sets, went on a tour of intimate venues across the UK and also did a run of outstore shows and signings at record shops. They gave fans plenty of chances to get involved and enjoy exclusive experiences, which our content team captured every step of the way. These up close and personal moments lead to some of our best performing videos, like Pete playing guitar with fans in the street (250k organic views) or getting on stage to sing Beatles covers while on a night out in Liverpool (2m organic views). The band did a great job of activating their fanbase in ways that also made total sense for social.
4. Promote personality
We knew we could create shortform gold with the band and they obliged by giving us a lot of access when they were together during live and press activity. Our relationship with the band evolved from asking for standard liners to catching some beautiful, candid moments – a tribute to Shane MacGowan or backstage antics with Louis Theroux, for instance – which fans couldn’t get enough of. As the views started to snowball, the band leaned in to the point where they were even scripting their own videos unprompted by us.
5. The art of being consistent
The key to good shortform is familiarity and formatting. Our output had to look and feel like The Libertines so that fans got used to receiving video content and recognised the band’s Reels/TikToks/Shorts instantly. There is an art to being consistent and our formatting included a singular font, text colour scheme and custom on-screen captions and lyrics. We also used the band’s favourite shooter for the duration of the campaign and Barnaby Fairley’s candid, adrenalin-fuelled shooting and editing quickly became our shortform signature. As soon as fans saw a Libertines video, they knew they were about to watch something up close and exclusive.
Learnings: Use content pillars to get organised quickly / Layer fan engagement to build the foundation for proper viral moments / Bring management, live and marketing together to create a timeline that benefits the whole campaign / Don’t be afraid to try new formats or platforms / Make your fans feel valued IRL and on social
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