The Wanted Campaign
Launching The Wanted, a brand new boy band not born out of an existing television format, we accepted from the outset that we would face some challenging cynicism in this area. More than any other genre Pop comes and goes with alarming volume and of all propositions The Boy Band is the hardest to sell to media, particularly Tv.
Accepting the above as the backdrop to our launch we began our Tv campaign months ahead of release of debut single, “All Time Low”, with a media presentation that gave a detailed and considered project-long pitch to the gatekeepers of Tv. We dedicated an afternoon in a private screening room to premier the video to all key contacts and present in detail the many factors and recorded music that made the band a far from average offering in what we acknowledged is a highly competitive area. We deliberately focused not only on the extensive fan acquisition drives implicit within the various school tours, website build and planned media partnerships but also personally introduced the team behind the signing. To further shore up the proposition we made much of the track record and involvement of Colin Barlow, arguably the most successful UK A&R of the last 10 years. Inviting these key media to hear from Colin as well as ourselves, to understand his pedigree in Pop and to appreciate his vision and considerations in signing and developing the act gave further evidence of the call to action of Tv in embracing this act from the start. In short we presented a “guarantee” to tv media that, given the crucial exposure that they can offer in this genre and a consequential platform for success, the project would deliver back to them. As it did.
The consequence of our media presentation and the flavour and ambition of the one to one meets that followed it was that we delivered a huge week one impact for the video and a host of early bookings across interview and performance opportunities. With the VIP playlist add across BAUER channels The Box, 4Music and Smash Hits the video immediately registered within the Top 40 of the TV Airplay Chart 9 weeks ahead of release as the opening position on a journey that would eventually see it go Top 10 and still remain in the Top 40 Tv Airplay 18 weeks later. The “All Time Low” video ended up A Listed as demographically far and wide as VIVA to VH1 channels.
Very deliberate from the start was the drive to place the band quickly on Tv shows that would mirror the demographic being targeted by all other activity around the project. At the same time as securing the very significant playlist add’s at Tv channels early on we also confirmed such Pop-skewed bookings as Hollyoaks Music Show, BBC Swap Show, Big Brother’s Little Brother, T4 (with Miquita Oliver giving the boy’s her “Guide to being in a Boy Band”), MTV Digs and BBC’s 5.19 Show (with the whole show coming from the boy’s house, an unprecedented non-studio move for the brand).
Another Tv project philosophy was to appeal to older sisters, Mum’s, Niece’s and the housewife demographic. With this in mind we also secured upfront performances with Daybreak, Loose Women, This Morning and Live At Studio Five. Negotiating the politics of who will follow on the daytime Tv circuit makes it extremely rare that an act can appear on more than 2 of the above in the same singles campaign, let alone all the available shows on a debut release.
Meanwhile we also kept the focus on the exciting pure Pop music that was the band’s blueprint by placing them on music-focused shows such as iTunes Live, Album Chart Show and a recording a 3 song MTV Sessions set that was aired for months during the life of the album.
Over a 10 week period from first appearing on Tv to doing interviews that saw the band celebrate a debut No.1 single, the breadth and volume of tv covered no doubt provided the platform for this immediate success and that of the album that followed. Following this breakthrough period of widespread tv exposure, supplemented by a video that spent over 3 months playlisted, the band were consequently booked months in advance for the T4 Stars of 2011 and went on to appear on the likes of X Factor and Graham Norton shows in support of their Top 5 album in the run up to Christmas.