Music video only plays online when song receives airplay

Belgian band Absynthe Minded have promoted new single Space through their minisite mostexclusivevideoever.com, which broadcasted the video for the track only at the times it was being played on select radio stations.

While maximum exposure is the main objective for many marketing campaigns, we’ve found that recently musicians are keen to try a more elusive route to engage fans – most recently with Adam Tensta’s Pass It On mp3 single, which is currently being streamed to one person at a time through a specially-designed Facebook app. Now Belgian band Absynthe Minded have promoted new single ‘Space’ through their minisite mostexclusivevideoever.com, which broadcasted the video for the track only at the times it was being played on select radio stations. Although the film is now available to watch any time on the site, throughout April fans of the band were made to wait until it was played by one of several radio stations across Europe – including German FLUX FM, BBC Radio 1 in the UK and Spain’s yes.fm – whilst being automatically monitored by software. The track was created with a detectable audio watermark which allowed the program, which operates similarly to song recognition technology, to identify the Absynthe Minded song among the constant stream of radio play. At times when the song was not being played by radio DJs, visitors to mostexclusivevideoever.com could instead access a short film detailing the making of the video. The aim of the minisite was to get those wishing to see the video to contact radio stations and request that the single be played. Over 13,000 people logged onto to the site to try and catch the video (approximately 3,000 of those were successful), indicating that devoted customers may be willing to go the extra mile to access the content they really want. Although perhaps not something that would make for a long-term business model, the figures suggest the slow but sure approach can provide a successful marketing plan, with Absynthe Minded tapping their fans’ enthusiasm to gain radio play. How could you do something similar to make the most of your customers loyalty?