Menu
Mail & Door Drops
 

Plastic Flowerz

Issue 18 | March 2011

Agency

M&C Saatchi/Mark Sydney

Creative Team

Executive Creative Director: Gavin McLeod; Creative Director: Hamish Stewart; Art Director: Tommy Chehak; Copywriter: Gavin Chimes; Account Director: Sam McLeod

Production Team

Artist Jane Gillings, who created Plastic Flowerz

Date

July 2010

Background

‘Plastic Beach’ was the third album from Gorillaz, the band created by Damon Albarn. What inspired it was the story of a huge floating island out in the middle of the South Pacific composed entirely of discarded plastic.

The challenge was to make an ageing band still appear cool on a budget of a paltry $3,000.

The campaign objectives were:

  1. Achieve 35,000 Album Sales in the month of March
  2. Debut at #1 on the Australian Charts
  3. Achieve Gold album status by the end of March.

Idea

Music lovers are avid followers of music blogs. They have an enormous influence over what‘s considered cool and, ultimately, what people actually buy.

The agency wanted to get these key influencers excited about the new album and, more importantly, to share their passion with their audiences.

Artist Jane Gillings was commissioned to create a unique set of plastic flowers, each made from bits and pieces of jettisoned household plastic.

One week before the album launch, the flowers were delivered to 20 key music bloggers along with a wealth of unique content on a USB stick to excite them, and the album.

They also received a hand written note from band member Murdoc, demanding that these influencers ‘go and tell [their] bloggy minions.’

Results

There was a 70% response rate from bloggers resulting in 8,000 social media impressions in the first week. Plastic Beach got to #1 in the Australian charts within a week of launch. (The first country in which it did so).

There were 35,675 sales of the album on disc and 7,188 digital sales.

Achieved Gold Status as per objectives.

Our Thoughts

This campaign has been around a bit longer than we’d like at Directory. We prefer our work fresh from the factory. But we were going to feature it in Issue 15 until EMI refused to give us clearance to publish. Many thanks to the client for finally giving us the thumbs-up because, as one blogger noted, “Hey, record labels, this is how you get us to write about your band!’

It amplifies the experience of the album rather than just describing it. The plastic flower would have made the whole metaphor startlingly real, suggesting the bigger, more subtle themes that occupy Gorillaz compared to most other bands.

Better late than never, then!