Behind the Scenes: LoveLive Plan B Album Launch

by NMA Staff 20 August 2012 00:00 0 comments Print

Behind the scenes is new media age’s series which aims to dissect creative and technically innovative work. The third in the series looks at LoveLive’s new live music channel launch, also promoting the new album for Plan B.

Client: Plan B/Atlantic

Agency: LoveLive

The brief:

The Plan B Album launch for the album Ill Manors coincided with the launch of digital and music content agency LoveLive’s YouTube channel, which now regularly hosts similarly streamed live music events directly to YouTube. The album is the soundtrack to Plan B’s (Ben Drew) film of the same title, Ill Manors, and both the live and streamed event had to reflect the gritty, urban nature of the albums context.

The idea:

The live event took place in a car park in Southwark, South London, using its arched ceilings to project key parts of the film. All of the event was streamed online and the content then repackaged into edited versions to remain on the YouTube page. Ahead of the event teaser videos were created and competitions set up for Plan B fans to win tickets to the event.

How it worked:

The live event was set up with Plan B’s record label Atlantic, taking control of venue sourcing and on the ground event logistics, with LoveLive setting up the digital content and live stream. The team set up and filmed the event live but also had to gain content before the gig, during in the backstage area and after, so that the YouTube audience had the most realistic and involved experience of the gig as possible.

According to LoveLive’s creative director Toby Langley, the event had been compiled in a shorter timespan than gigs will be in the future for the LiveLive YouTube channel, but members of the agencies prior relationship with Plan B meant that they could secure some time with the artist before hand, in order to film some teaser videos.

“We managed to get some time with Ben beforehand when he was doing some filming in West London so we decided to get him to help introduce the stream a week before it went live. This was key because it meant it was introduced using a personal engagement from the artists, rather than a promotion from LoveLive,” he said.

To ensure the content was best exploited to provide fans and viewers with as much content from as short a time with the artist as possible, LoveLive also introduced enhanced audio and remixed versions of songs to online content afterwards. The LoveLive channel is split into ‘track by track’, ‘directors cut’ and ‘backstage’, helping users to navigate the archive content easily.

The results:

The Plan B stream has now received over 250,000 views and LoveLive then followed up the gig with a stream of a Madonna gig which reached over 1.75m people. Overall the LoveLive channel has attracted 40,000 subscribers in less than 2-3 weeks, an audience the agency is keen to drive more value for in the long-term.

Langley said his vision for the channel is to create more engagement for viewers at home, such as incorporating a voting mechanism to allow people to select the tracks that an artists plays.

Langley also said that they plan to implement a month-long promotional stage to future gigs, helping to spread the work faster and allow for more interactive means of getting people interested in the stream.