Fred & Augustus

Challenges

Their most recent album Open The Road (a completely independent and self-funded release) was delivered to coincide with this momentous marker in the band’s history, and while the main objective of the campaign was promote the release, just as importantly we wanted to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the band while celebrating the true WE in We Banjo 3 throughout: their fans. This fan-driven band has a lot of love and support over ten years to celebrate and we wanted to establish that narrative throughout with a commemorative site and official messaging.

Solution

In order to feature the 10 year storyline we built a commemorative 10 year mico-site (accessed via the band’s main website navigation). We wanted to really connect the fans with the band’s milestones and unique story, and salute their dedicated and vocal support. A micro-site where we could take a trip down memory lane and celebrate the collective community around the band felt like the perfect setting for this. This ensured that each ‘post’ would have its own URL that could then be shared on the band’s social platforms and in email marketing, driving traffic to their website (during what was also the peak promotional period time frame for their new album ‘Open The Road’) we were able to subtly weave the 10-year anniversary messaging into the overall campaign over a matter of months.

We knew too that video would be key in telling their backstory and were lucky to be able to capture key songs from the new album, as well as a slew of popular past songs in a live capacity. These videos (and video from their catalog) was then woven into the micro-site and 10-year campaign across platforms Instagram and TikTok, creating a cohesive and live format visual using excerpts, teasers and reels designed to drive traffic to their bands YouTube channel.

With fans engaged with the 10-year narrative, we invited them to lean in a little further still, by contributing to the fan-led Official Music Video for the single Gift Of Life. We asked fans to upload video footage of ‘what (or whom’) is your Gift Of Life’ with final selections featured in the Official Music Video. Within days the video - a gift from the band to their fans - became their most-viewed on YouTube to date.

Recording their new album Open The Road definitely felt like one of the big moments during the band’s journey together and a very poignant culmination of all of the moments that came before. We wanted to celebrate this, and did so with a party… “The Making of Open The Road” Video Premiere Party on YouTube. Fans were invited to join the band for a live chat and premier viewing of “The Making of Open The Road” video (which was also edited by one of the band members).

Alongside this we asked fans to be further still part of the celebration, by creating a reel of songs from the album. "Garden Song", which appears on 'Open The Road' is a song that evolved from an Instagram live. So we took it back to its roots (no pun intended) and asked fans to create a reel showing their garden or favorite flora.

The crescendo to our 10-year commemorative, and new album campaign was the band’s wildly popular summer festival dates; a true celebration of the songs, the friendships and and the fans who have been enjoying this band from studio to stage since they landed on American shores ten years ago. 

Any 10 Year anniversary is made from many, many, many… moments together. Some fleeting and insignificant, some incredibly meaningful and defining, and lots of good, great, and yes, difficult times in between. This commemorative 10-year campaign and album release was certainly a culmination of all of the moments that came before for this very special band, and their exceptional fan base.