Nice job: Haim's augmented actuality album cowl
Point your Instagram camera at the cover of Haims Women in Music Pt III and a sound AR experience will unfold before your eyes. It's a dedicated way to promote the band's 2020 release, and it's also an experiment in making physical albums coveted items again.
Haim had been looking for ways to incorporate an AR experience into their upcoming tour, but when it was canceled due to Covid-19, the focus shifted to the album itself.
The physical form of a release is viewed by the record industry as a "commodity" rather than the core product – but the cover remains a strong visual expression of a band's philosophy and the themes and emotions in their music.
In the age of streaming, that once crucial connection between fans and their favorite artists has faded. In cooperation with Facebook Creative Shop and Spark AR, Haim's label Polydor UK set about putting the tangible product back at the center of the conversation.
“The album cover has always been an integral part of that first experience with a piece of music,” reflects Ricardo Caetano, UK Head of Facebook Creative Shop. "I've always loved the large format LP – open it, unfold it, connect the artwork with the lyrics."
Fans who long for a deeper and more intimate confrontation with their favorite artists can often find them online: Haim has cult following on Facebook and Instagram, for example. Sharing album covers on Instagram is already hugely popular and even dominates the feeds of some music fans.
With AR, Polydor found an appealing solution to close the gap between the digital and the physical world on the Instagram channel @haimtheband. Digital overlays revealed using the Spark AR filter highlighted playlists with playful scribbles. “We wanted to let people play and adjust the graphics, with every interaction affecting the soundscape,” says Caetano.
The result was an immersive multi-sensory journey: user-defined works of art could be uncovered with a tap on the screen – and the music changed at the same time.
"This project was a trailblazer for embedding the artist's own music," explains Ed Juniper, director of digital marketing at Polydor Records UK. "In addition to working with the effect, users can interact and play with a soundscape made up of album stems."
The in-house sound design team at Facebook Creative Shop produces an extensive range of original audio content for its platforms. Working with Haim, however, was a unique opportunity to reinterpret existing music in exciting new ways.
"We had a lot of fun exploring the wonderful music on this album and figuring out the most effective ways to extract and interpret it as an interactive Spark AR experience," said Matt Nichols, creative programmer at Facebook Sound Design.
"We used a collection of sounds from the album to create an ethereal, dreamy soundscape that creatively captures the sonic essence of the album," he adds.
More than 300,000 fans caught up with Haim's AR album covers on Instagram and soon began to share their experiences – and spread the word organically.
"The level of interactivity will only increase in the years to come," adds Juniper. "The boundaries between the presentation of the artist's music and the equipping of the fans with the tools to gain rich experience and to create something of their own in AR visuals and sounds are blurring."
For Haim, we managed to have a really rich interactive experience that I hadn't thought possible before
Direct marketing to fans is playing an increasingly important role in the record industry. When Haim's success is to be judged, this type of bold innovation pays off.
Fan recall of Facebook ads promoting Haim's AR innovation was nearly 30% higher when tested with a more traditional approach, and the resulting album awareness was over 20% higher. Both were more than twice the industry average.
In addition to raising awareness of the album and promoting direct sales, Polydor's ultimate goal was to explore the greater potential of converting musical experiences into merchandise for the rest of the artists who are under contract with Universal Music labels.
“The Facebook Creative Shop team is always trying to expand the possibilities of AR – and that has expanded my knowledge of what is possible,” says Juniper. "Over the past year we have incorporated more and more AR activations into the structure of our campaigns."
"It helped me see AR as a creative medium rather than just looking at filters as another marketing tool," he concludes. "For Haim we managed to have a really rich interactive experience that I hadn't thought possible before."
Great Work is part of Inspire, a partnership between Creative Review, Facebook and Instagram to showcase outstanding creative work on both platforms.
The Creative Hub of Facebook and Instagram was launched to help the creative communities understand mobile marketing. The online tool allows creatives to experiment with content formats and create models that they can share with customers and stakeholders. It also shows successful campaigns for mobile devices. Try the mock-up tool at facebook.com/ads/creativehub and check out the inspiration gallery at facebook.com/ads/creativehub/gallery