Keane – UMR / Island
OVERVIEW OF CAMPAIGN
Hopes and Fears was a landmark debut album for Keane, becoming one of the best selling albums in UK chart history with over 2.5 million sold in the first year. This year we released a product suite of anniversary formats, accompanying a global arena tour to mark 2024 as the year of celebrating Hopes and Fears.
The first format to be available for pre-order alongside the tour announcement was a 2CD offering – the remastered album coupled with a live recording of the upcoming Mexico live date. We followed on the 20th anniversary of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ with the remaining formats, which included a CD + 7” box set, 3CD, coloured vinyl, Blu Ray, Spotify Fans First LP, and a Blood Records drop.
Our objective in such a huge year for Keane was to maximise awareness of the catalogue, super serve existing and growing audiences by consistently delivering engaging content tailor to them. We built our strategy around two main audience groups – the core fans who purchase physical products, and the growing youth audience, the latter of which has been accelerating due to the enduring presence of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ on TikTok.
The result was a varied physical product suite, regular merch drops and a comprehensive AV and IG roll out. We were spoiled for content from videographer Jon Stone who accompanied the band throughout the year, delivering long form videos to their official YouTube channel, which included acoustic studio performances, live tour footage from Mexico and the US, plus a Glastonbury roundup. The UMR studio delivered lyric videos and visualisers for the IG releases and Vevo Footnotes created ‘The Making of SOWK’. For short form AV we delivered an unboxing video, BTS tour clips, stories behind the songs, as well as unreleased archive clips. These all served as useful tools in connecting younger fans of ‘SOWK’ to Keane and tell the story of the wider catalogue.
Data capture was an important element for the campaign, so we took advantage of the tour by running mailing list sign up competitions to win tickets and merch. Throughout the tour we projected QR codes behind the stage which directed fans to a mailing list sign up & artist store discount.
The band made time for brilliant promo amongst a packed year, including a performance and chat on The One Show, The Guardian ‘Flashback’ interview, The Sun ‘SFTW’, and interviews on Absolute Radio.
RESULTS & KEY LEARNINGS
- Hopes and Fears 20 finished at #7 in the UK Albums chart with 6926 units
- Somewhere Only We Know certified 3 x platinum
- Blood Records LP format sold out in 6 minutes
- Tour and anniversary activity led to a 40% uplift in catalogue streaming during chart week
- The original album had a streaming uplift of 52% during chart week
- Since the campaign began, Keane’s social following has increased by:
- TikTok – 45k
- Instagram – 130k
- YouTube – 273k subscribers
- Keane’s mailing list grew by 15.5k subscribers
KEY TEAM MEMBERS INVOLVED
- Carolyn Cooper – Senior A&R Manager, UMR
- Lily Newby-Ricci- Senior Audience Development Executive, UMR
- Roz Shepperd – Senior Marketing Executive, UMR
- Jordan Gregory- Ecommerce Product Manager, UMR
- Sam Lunn – Director Marketing, Island
- Cat Thrower – International Marketing
- George Rennie – Director of Streaming & Digital Partnerships, UMR
- Charlene Marke-Browne – Senior digital partnerships executive, UMR
CAMPAIGN TARGET AUDIENCE
Age: 18-24 years, 25-34 years, 35-44 years
Location: UK, Mexico, United States, Brazil
CAMPAIGN BUDGET
More than £50,000
