Is it just me or does it feel like U2 has been everywhere lately?
It’s not just me, it can’t be. The band has been crushing a giant marketing/comms strategy that’s woven into the release of several major creative projects. It’s been years in the making and it’s reaching its peak right now.
Like an iceberg that’s slowly come up from the bottom of the ocean (do icebergs even do that?), new work from the band started surfacing last year and it’s all now reaching a crescendo. In advertising and marketing, we often get asked to develop “360 campaigns.” It’s overused jargon for a campaign that spans content, live events, social, earned media…everything. Well, it turns out one of the most dominant rock bands ever are masters of the 360 campaign.
Let’s take a look at how the iconic band releases content, how long it takes, and why it’s so effective.
Before we begin, a brief overview of U2’s recent big promotional moves:
U2’s strategy is about flooding the zone and owning all major areas of culture for maximum awareness. It’s a strategy of saturation (BILLIONS OF IMPRESSIONS). Few brands or bands have the power to really do this, but also, few brands or bands even think so strategically and actually execute so well.
Here’s a timeline of the most recent major U2 events:
2/2022: Bono and Edge record new versions of their old songs. Bono mentions recording during the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine, so we know this project has been in the works since at least early 2022, but probably even earlier.
9/2022: Bono publishes an essay in the New Yorker. This essay brings Bono back into the cultural conversation and teases his upcoming memoir.
11/2022: Bono publishes his memoir. Bono tells his story, reflects on growing up in Dubin and positions himself as someone in a reflective mindset. Bono goes on a book tour stopping at legendary music venues to pack the house and show up in person for his fans.
3/3/2023: U2 drips out four songs (Beautiful Day, One, With or Without You, Pride) from the Songs of Surrender album on Spotify. With Bono and U2 in the cultural ether, we now have new reimagined versions of a few of their classics. We know an album is coming and these four classic tracks tease it well, whetting the appetites of die-hard fans as well as those on the periphery.
3/16/2023: U2: The Zane Lowe Interview on Apple Music: A score for Apple here to get to post before the big documentary on Disney with David Letterman, Zane interviews Edge and Bono in the desert. The location seems a bit forced, but it’s classic deep-dive content from Apple, a brand that U2 has a long relationship with.
3/17/2023: New album Songs of Surrender drops. Boom. The new album is live and with 40 songs, it’s epic.
3/17/2023: Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming. Documentary with David Letterman launches on Disney. Directed by Morgan Neville, this to me is probably the most amazing piece of all this content. We see Letterman explore Dublin, interview Bono and Edge and the documentary reaches its climax with a small intimate show in Dublin followed by a good sing-along in a pub. It’s an intimate and fresh look at a band, which is impressive, given the media saturation U2 has experienced for decades.
3/17/23: Bono and Edge Tiny Desk Concert on NPR.
9/2023: U2’s Las Vegas Residency begins. This is probably the crown jewel in the whole Surrender run here and what everything leads to. No doubt this will be a massive cultural moment covered by major media outlets. It will bring numerous profiles of the band, social posts, and tons of media traction. It’s a big get for the Las Vegas casinos too. People will be flying in from around the world to experience it. And U2 will make tons of money.
This whole rollout centers around the release of the new Songs of Surrender album, which reimagines a bunch of old tracks. Even though this is the showhorse of the whole thing, it might not even be the most profitable (I could be wrong!). Sure a band like U2 commands big payouts from Apple Music and Spotify, but as we know, record sales are no longer the main sources of revenue for rock bands. It’s the concerts, and in this case, media (books, almbus) sales, and deals from video appearances.
Also, instead of thinking of the Disney and Apple videos as pieces of content to promote the album, it’s worthwhile to think of all the content (memoir, album, live events, videos) as part of one large campaign, many many years in the making. This is where you start to see a genius creative strategy emerge that is cohesive and very effective.
The result of U2’s promotional content and marketing strategy here is giant sustained awareness for their creative projects, and at least for me, a sudden desire to listen to a band I hadn’t engaged with in a long time. I had Achtung Baby on CD, but I never considered myself a U2 fan. Suddenly, I am.
If you’re posting content to launch a project, think about how you can tease your showhorse across platforms with complimentary content features. Think about how everything in the campaign should ladder into a single idea. For U2 themes from Bono’s autobiography also surface in the Letterman video and the rethinking of the album too. It’s all cohesive and forces us to rethink the band in a deeper more meaningful way and also search out the album to listen to it.
Do you want help developing a creative strategy for your brand, producing content that stands out and gets shared, or just want to talk shop? Hit me up.