R.E.M. Creates Web-Savvy Marketing Campaign For “Accelerate”; March 2008
For Immediate Release
R.E.M. CREATES CUTTING-EDGE ONLINE MARKETING CAMPAIGN FOR ACCELERATE
Rock Band Takes Web-Savvy Approach to Marketing of New Album By Launching Multiple Promotions Online
March 12, 2008 — Burbank, CA — In sustaining a nearly three-decade career in the music industry, R.E.M. has evolved in many different ways. Now the best-selling rock band has proven its ability to adapt to a surging digital-music industry by taking a web-savvy approach to the marketing and promotion of their upcoming 14th studio album, Accelerate.
In the months leading up to the album’s April 1st release by Warner Bros. Records, the band and its team have invented multiple online promotions geared toward generating awareness of the album and creating an interactive experience for fans. These include launching several brand-new websites. The first, www.ninetynights.com, counts down the time to the album’s release date by featuring a new high-resolution video snippet each day than can be downloaded, edited, and manipulated however the user wishes. The second, www.supernaturalsuperserious.com, offers visitors an opportunity to download high-definition footage all 10 takes of the video for the album’s lead-off single, “Supernatural Superserious,” and edit their own version of the video. Users can post their creations on the dedicated YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/REMsuperserious.
R.E.M. has also just launched www.remaccelerate.com, which features artwork, track-listing, information on album pre-order, “Supernatural Superserious” audio and video, tour dates, and more. The site will contain up-to-the-minute information on the forthcoming release.
Additionally, R.E.M. has announced that Accelerate will make its online debut exclusively via social music discovery service iLike, which will stream the album in its entirety beginning March 24th for six days at www.iLIke.com/R.E.M. The album will also be available for pre-order via iLike’s retail links to iTunes and Amazon.com, with a digital version to feature bonus live tracks.
“Using the Internet to promote an album is no longer the future, it’s the present,” R.E.M.’s frontman Michael Stipe says. “We’ve been a band for 28 years and have had to adapt as technology has evolved. We want people of all ages to be aware of the album, and the best way to reach the biggest audience is through the web.”
Indeed fans have been able to keep track of news about R.E.M. over the last several years through the band’s well-trafficked official website www.remhq.com, which features not only album tracklistings, photos, and streaming video, but also the most up-to-date information about R.E.M.’s tour plans. The band has just announced its 2008 North American and European tour dates with fans in Europe able to buy tickets via the site. The tour includes a March 12th stop at Stubb’s Bar-B-Que during the annual South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX, which will be webcast at 8 p.m. CT at www.npr.org.
Accelerate, which clocks in at a crisp 34 minutes, is R.E.M.’s first studio album since 2004’s Around the Sun. Stay tuned to www.remhq.com and the websites mentioned above for all the latest news about R.E.M.
###