Kylie Minogue’s Disco campaign wins digital marketing prize

The digital campaign by BMG UK for Kylie Minogue’s Disco album has won the Digital Marketing Masters prize, presented overnight by Facebook and UK trade magazine Music Week.

Disco, the singer’s 15th album, was released last year during the pandemic and recorded at her home studio, with Minogue getting engineering credits for vocals and synths.

The campaign had to be imaginatively digital as she couldn’t tour or travel extensively for TV and radio appearances to promote the album.

“The Kylie entry was as slick and considered as the whole campaign. Talk about following best practice,” Facebook’s Jane Kinnaird said, who was also a judge.

“Every facet of the launch was visually striking, engaging and it offered fans interactions they had never experienced before.”

Highlights of the campaign included the Disco Spirit where Minogue and her team worked with Facebook’s Creative Shop to use Spark AR and Instagram technology where fans danced for an hour with a Kylie avatar on ‘Real Groove’ via her Instagram page.

“We designed this experience together, to give fans a different type of interaction with Kylie’s visuals and music, bringing fans closer,” Ricardo Caetano said, head of UK’s Creative Shop.

“This project allowed us to explore how established concepts of performance, identity and presence are all converging and being stretched by music and technology.”

A 50-minute livestream concert, Infinite Disco, in November sold almost 30,000 tickets according to UK-based livestream business Driift.

To set up the release, the titles of Disco songs were revealed on social and forums.

Minogue then went online to host a track-by-track listening party.

In Australia, she appeared twice virtually on ABC TV’s co-production with Mushroom Group, The Sound, while Rage ran a special and Sunrise hosted an interview.

She also appeared on TV shows around the world including The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, Good Morning America and The Graham Norton Show.

Disco went on to chart in 24 countries, including #1 spot in Australia, UK, US, Scotland and Ireland, and Top 10 in Germany, France, Belgium and New Zealand.

“At BMG we pride ourselves on our digital capability and creativity,” Gemma Reilly-Hammond, VP marketing, BMG UK told Music Week.

“Launching a global campaign for such an iconic artist in a pandemic brought with it some challenges but a number of opportunities too.

“We all went in with our eyes open and really focused in from the outset, with Kylie and her management team, on how to bring Disco to life in the digital arena.

“The campaign was exceptional and with full artist engagement and some great partnerships, the team were able to deliver a number of groundbreaking digital activations.

“It’s great to see them get this recognition.”

Minogue herself said, “It was great to really lean into the digital space for the Disco campaign.

“We’ve had some memorable online moments.”