Oasis/City of New York
Dig Out Your Soul – In The Streets
BBH New York
To gain buzz around the launch of their 2008 album Dig Out Your Soul in the U.S., British rock band Oasis employed a decidedly unusual strategy. Eschewing the usual marketing methods, they didn’t even play the music themselves, instead giving it to 30 street music acts in New York and inviting them to play it on the band’s behalf. The event was the brainchild of ad agency BBH in New York, and came about after then chief creative officer Kevin Roddy put out a request to the entire agency to expand their thinking when it came to ad ideas.
01-02 The U.S. launch campaign for the Oasis album Dig Out Your Soul saw street music acts in New York be the first to play the songs live in the city. The band visited rehearsals on the morning of the event to watch the musicians practising their tunes.
‘What we were saying was, we need to reinvent what advertising looks like,’ Roddy explains. ‘We were encouraging everybody to begin thinking a little less traditionally and a lot more broadly. With or without technology. This wasn’t about “let’s do things on the web”; this was about reinventing how to engage with consumers.’ Two creatives at the agency, Calle and Pelle Sjönell, responded with an idea for a music launch. At this stage, Oasis was not involved, although the team knew that they needed a certain kind of act for the project to work.
‘We had criteria that we needed for this idea,’ says Pelle. ‘It couldn’t be house music, without lyrics; it couldn’t be rap. It needed to be singer-songwriting, and it needed to be powerful.’ Oasis seemed the perfect choice. ‘Oasis’ situation was fantastic because they’d been wanting to prove themselves in the U.S.,’ Pelle continues. ‘They’d had a really big success in the beginning, then for a couple of years they hadn’t had the same success, and this was a big comeback moment for them. For them it was also important to be real, and do things that are true to their music and not be posers in any way. This was something I connected with them.’
The campaign was devised at an interesting time for the music industry; it needed to come up with fresh ways to present itself to an audience who were increasingly turning away from buying CDs in favour of downloading music online (both legally and illegally). ‘This was at a time when the music industry felt very old all of a sudden,’ says Pelle. ‘We looked, for instance, at Radiohead, and what they did when they launched their album In Rainbows, where you could pay anything for it. It was an interesting way of launching an album in a very unique way, but it was more a comment on the industry than about the music itself. We wanted to do something that was about the music.’
‘The campaign needed to come up with fresh ways to present itself to an audience who were increasingly turning away from buying CDs in favour of downloading music online.
‘If you’re extremely successful, you might end up with a song that someone plays for a living on the streets. We thought that was very interesting; what if we started there? What if we had street musicians play songs that weren’t out yet, and we do a backwards launch of music?’
‘We thought that the most successful songs have to travel through all filters of musical success,’ Pelle continues. ‘You have to have a hit single, you make a video and it might be on TV, then you play in concert. Then you might, if you’re really lucky, end up in karaoke, because people want to sing that song over and over again. And then, if you’re extremely successful, you might end up with a song that someone plays for a living on the streets. We thought that was very interesting; what if we started there? What if we had street musicians play songs that weren’t out yet, and we do a backwards launch of music?’
Another crucial component in making the campaign work was the participation of another of BBH’s clients – the City of New York. The agency had a standing brief with the city for ideas that would emphasize its street life and culture. The Oasis launch idea fit this perfectly, as it highlighted the diverse and thriving music scene found on the city’s streets every day. ‘New York is one of the most fantastic places on earth to be a street musician because you have a huge audience – a place like Grand Central Station or Times Square has so many people passing through it,’ says Pelle. ‘It is very, very rare as a street musician to be able to play there. The city has a system that helped us to find those musicians and filter them through a union to get a time slot to play. To get a time slot to play in this city, you probably have to be one of the best street musicians in the world. There is a fantastic roster of talent to go to.’
The array of talent available in the city made it easier for the band, and their label Warner Brothers Records, to accept the idea. After all, their audience’s first hearing of Oasis’ new music wouldn’t come from listening to the carefully prepared CD, but would be via interpretations from other musicians. ‘There was concern on their part, before getting to the initial rehearsal,’ agrees Roddy. ‘It was two-fold: one was the obvious concern about releasing their music before they could control it. Even though you sort of do control its release here, once it gets played on the streets, people can record it. So there was some concern about that, but it went away. The other concern was “are these street musicians really talented? Are they going to make our music sound great?” But when they got there, they were blown away at the quality of the talent, the breadth of the talent. So that initial concern went away almost with the first person they heard.’
The street musicians were given four songs from Dig Out Your Soul, including the first single, The Shock of Lightning, which they could use in their gigs out on the streets of New York. They were given a limited amount of time to learn the material, and then spent a few hours with members of Oasis on the morning of the day the event occurred, to help fine-tune the performances. ‘We said, perform them how you want, do at least one of the songs and four if you want, but it’s more up to you to see what works for your sound and what works with your instrumentation,’ says Pelle. ‘So they took it on themselves. And when the band was there, they all talked about how to play the songs; it was all about rehearsing together and playing for the band and making sure this was something they were okay with. It was a great meeting of musicians.’
03-05 Members of Oasis shown at rehearsals with the musicians who would be performing their new album, Dig Out Your Soul, live on the streets of New York. The rehearsals were filmed by directing team The Malloys, who made a short documentary for the album launch.
‘The interesting thing about musicians, especially performers like this, is that there’s a pride in doing your thing,’ Pelle continues. ‘A song has so many versions if it’s a powerful song. What we tried to do with all these great acts was find a multi-faceted group. We had an electronic violinist, who doesn’t sing at all – he had a very different version from the a cappella group. We felt that the more diverse we can make this, the more powerful the songs are too, because then you hear how the song can be in so many different versions and still be the same.’
Thirty acts were picked to play on the day, and 20 of these were playing at any one time at different locations across the city during the afternoon and evening of the launch day. Each musician was accompanied by a board announcing that they were part of the project, and all were filmed for a documentary of the launch that was shot by The Malloys (Emmett and Brendan Malloy). The event was advertised on Oasis’ fan site, and also on the street musicians’ websites, but was quickly picked up by blogs and other media in the city once it began. ‘It was a very multi-faceted launch,’ says Pelle. ‘People were filming it on the streets and posting it to other fans to hear the songs before the album came out.’
In a further twist, the city happened to be filled with Oasis fans on the day of the launch; they were in town to see a gig by the band that was unfortunately cancelled, due to injuries sustained by Noel Gallagher, who’d been pushed off the stage at a gig in Toronto the night before. ‘So there were lots of Oasis fans from all over the US in New York but without an Oasis show,’ says Pelle. Word got around that they could at least hear the new album out on the streets. ‘That was great,’ continues Pelle, ‘because Warner had great contact with their fan sites and could get this information out very quickly… and it was so cool to see their reaction to the music as fans.’
The launch was a huge success on the day, garnering much coverage online and on local news channels. It then had an extended life when the documentary was released online after the album had come out. All those involved believe it was an ad campaign where the ‘stars aligned’. ‘When they told me the idea, it was one of those moments,’ says Roddy. ‘It was one of those moments of “that is a genius idea”. It was one of those moments for me, it was one of those moments for New York City, it was one of those moments for Warner. Everybody just said “wow, that’s fantastic, we have to do that, we have to make that happen”.’
06-09 Various musicians shown in rehearsal for the Dig Out Your Soul campaign and also performing the songs live in New York. Each musician was given a sign to use that explained the project to passers-by.
10-11 Flyers were handed out to people watching the buskers performing the new songs from Dig Out Your Soul. Each one explained the project, and also told viewers where they could see other performances in the campaign.
‘It was one of those moments of “that is a genius idea”. It was one of those moments for me, it was one of those moments for New York City, it was one of those moments for Warner. Everybody just said “wow, that’s fantastic… we have to make that happen”.’
12 Liam Gallagher gives an interview on a roof top in New York.